For the first time in Switzerland, people can discover the beautiful work of Deana Lawson, who's portraying black peoples and communities around the world in her so particular style. The exhibition entitled Centropy, present some of her last artworks, including photograph, movie, installations and holograms.

But what is Centropy ? There's no clear definition about the term, and it sounds more as a neologism built on the word and concept of entropy. If entropy design the degree of disorder in a system, centropy could be understood as his antonym, used to talk about the way elements in a system can be led to work together.

This idea makes sense when you discover the work of Deana Lawson. By exploring borders, the photograph reveals the potential of unity that exists beyond them. From Brazil to Brooklyn, she goes beyond established and visible frontiers, to making new links between people from black African diaspora. Beyond the burst of this people and their nation through History, Deana Lawson gives attention to the persistence of unity, as an invisible and delicate web that grows beside the organized systems that run the world.

Thus, numbers of elements create a feeling of unity, beyond all the differences that can exist between people and families. This unity, or we might say continuity, is surely the particular style of the artist : here again, it's a subtitle dance between document the daily life of her subjects, and the artificiality of the setting, the work of lights, frame, and pose, which transform the background into a grid of symbols, as the Renaissance European painting. All of these points give to the work of Lawson a very recognizable style.

Printed in very big formats, sometimes on mirror, and added by hologram and projection, photographs give us the feeling that people in the room stand in front of us, stare at us, that they are more closer than we think. But, at the same time, all the work around this figures (chiseled glass frames, worked lights, holograms...) made them a bit out of our reality, like we are in front of a stranger god and goddess, mythical figures, kings and queens from a far away world.

Deana Lawson, Chief 2019 | courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, US

Moreover, places share some strong common points : closed curtains, walls often empty except for a little picture, as the tapestry of « The Last Supper », which contrast and give a touch of luxury, a will to personalize the places, to make it more than just a functional place. In contrast, we can notice a lot of details as piles of clothes on the couch, children toys, taped elements as windows... all trivial details that bring a new level of significance, both political and sociological. And even if it's not the point for the artist, that reveal a lot about the social condition of his subject.

Deana Lawson ,Vera 2020 | courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, US

But beyond these common points, and the sociological aspect that can carry, Deana Lawson is looking for the “creative, godlike beings” that exist beyond the social condition, and making their subjects real individuals. And that's a bigger deal than we can think. As white European, we can learn a lot about ourselves from art history and representation. From the only religious and mythical representations, to the modernity and the documentation of « real » people, we came closer to the reality of the body. The exclusion of non-white people from this art history can be explained by historical, political, and geographical context. That's a point. But how understand the fact that nowadays, these people continue to be excluded from representation ?

Moreover, it is not just a deal about representation, and the place that can be allowed to non-white people. It's not about making more Black people embodied super-heroes in Hollywood. Mainstream representations of black bodies exist, by the way, but they obey too much often to some very restrained frames. We can talk about the exotic fetishization / eroticization of the woman's body. The misery-porn of the photographs that keep up showing little hungry kids, or the ways of showing black male bodies, keeping alive the myth of the violent man, powerful, muscled, strong as depicted by a lot of intellectuals, from Frantz Fanon to Paul Gilroy.

Hollywood and big companies can bring to light more “diversity” in their ads or their movies. But, as queer people, female people, trans-people, people of colors, it need more than just another manufactured and standardized representation of heroes. That is what the work of Deana Lawson is as important. As Nan Goldin did in her time for marginalized communities she lives with, Deana Lawson gives to her subject a strong individuality, far away from the common cliche. Even when they play and pose, we can find in their gaze a feeling of uniqueness, and feeling both an empathy for another human body, and the kind of respect for a stranger, unknown person, that we can't easily set in a box just in a look.

Deana Lawson, Axis 2018, | courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York, US

Thus, in her way, Deana Lawson reverses the eurocentric gaze we can have. Who's looking at each other in this context ? The strong look all their subjects address to us canceled, paradoxically, the representation mechanism that make all of us labeled a person in a look, enclosed them in a frame, as a picture and projections of stereotypes (and that's what we all do for everybody we can meet in our life, that's the power of imaginary and representation). They are « just » people. People that carry a story, as global as personal. People that can be king, and queens, gods and goddess, but also dad, and mom. Man. Or woman. Young people that haven't decided yet what they want to be in the future.

In an interview with Angela Davis, the activist tells a story about the first Black Live Matter movement. To a politician, or a journalist, who wanted to meet their leader, a member of the movement answers by this beautiful and simple sentence : they didn't have any leader. They were all the leaders. And this part of human history, often relegated to the backseat, shows us that being « just » part of the people can be far more powerful than we can imagine.


Centropy
DEANA LAWSON
9.6. – 11.10.2020
Kunsthalle Basel

After the pandemic lockdown, OKNA - Espaço Cultural slowly opened its doors to the public. This cultural space is starting with chamber events when one video piece is projected. The OKNA gallery, located in Porto, focuses on modern and contemporary art from Central-Eastern Europe.

Last weekend, OKNA displayed a piece by Yugoslavian artist Vladan Radovanović - Voice from the Loudspeaker (1973). According to the curators, this event was called a listening session. Voice from the Loudspeaker was created in cooperation with Australian-born saxophonist Paul Pignon, who translated and read the text of Radovanović.

In the small room, with only four chairs on which visitors can sit to enjoy the work, the words that are said in the recording are displayed on the wall. This special arrangement of the gallery space gives an intimate feeling that helps to immerse into the words. The "listening" lasts about 4 minutes. As the name of this piece suggests, visitors can hear the voice coming from the loudspeaker. It is a male voice, speaking in English. 

Through imaginary worlds, Motoko’s artwork is the definition of the beauty of the minimalistic lifestyle, every line she draws creates an exquisite silhouette of the women’s body, in neutral colors and fine line style shares the story of a mystical woman in every illustration, as well as a fantasy world. 

Exhibition space Visitors will have the opportunity to see the unique works of rising artists, as well as well-known authors: Milija Čpajak, Marko Gavrilović, Luka Jendrišek, Lena Milovanović, Sanja Momčilović, Petra Sibinović, Rade Tepavčević and Joškin Šiljan. From modern to abstract art, in the industrially designed space BW Experience, the exhibition will show dynamic works of different expressions and compositions and will be open until July the 5th.  The new space on the Sava Promenade, designed for the organization of various artistic events will be opened in the coming months, during the largest art competition in the region - "Become a part of kvART". The competition is a unique opportunity for all artists throughout Serbia to realize their ideas and their artwork will be exhibited within the Belgrade Waterfront, and the best works will be awarded cash prizes of 30,000, 20,000 and 10,000 euros, as well as 10,000 euros for the most creative solution in the category of modern furniture. Applications for "Become a part of kvART" are open until July 8th.  Location: Belgrade Waterfront, Belgrade (Serbia)  When: 20.6.-5.7.2020  Find out more on:  https://www.belgradewaterfront.com/sr/desavanja/kvart  Participating Artists:

                                           

Coming from Leipzig, Theresa Möller brings the abundance of colors of the jungle in the AEDAEN gallery this summer. And for urban citizens whose their sole contact with nature is often the savage weeds making their ways in the concrete cracks, these paintings bring more than just beauty of forms and colors.

Theresa Möller, Garten, oil and acrylic on canvas, 190x280cm, 2019 © Courtesy of the artist

Hung on the concrete walls of the room, the tall paintings look like an opening in another dimension. For the artistic director, the artwork of Theresa Möller offers a sensation close to the meditative state we can feel after a long walk in nature : As he says, “I have the feeling that your paintings propose this kind of perspective to the viewer: pulling him toward the feeling of staring at a landscape after a long walk, enabling the consideration of slow and smooth shifts in the scenery within the frame of the canvas”.

Theresa Möller, Loses Geflecht, oil and acrylic on canvas, 190x160cm, 2019 © Julie Aubry-Tirel

Mixing abstract forms with more detailed elements of nature, as leaves and high weeds, Theresa Möller paint a lush universe where colors, perfectly mastered, set a new light on the landscape, as all the light spectrum of the sun has been captured in canvas. Her own practice seems to be driven by intuition and “laissez-faire” : if she works on structure and some layouts, the artist lets the matter “live their own life” on the canvas. Mixed with water,then acrylic can drip and that is a form of nature which takes it’s part of the artistic process. Here it is the beautiful paradox of her art : spontaneous and natural processes bring rupture with the artificial and realistic illusion of nature which thrills and enchante us at the first sight.

As a gardener of a new genre, the artist is no more just a maker of devices, occurring and mastering the natural process. Here, she rather uses the device in harmony with natural processes, giving to happenstance and chance a prime position in the creative process. That brings up this particular point : nature isn’t just the representations we have of forest, plants, and flowers, as a reality disconnected from our daily life, as lost paradise, a garden of Eden existing in another dimension, far away from us. We work since the dawn of time side-by-side with natural processes, but we have forgotten our full implication in the ecosystem, in the way they work. For better or for worse, we are a part of nature, and nature is a process which agitates us, animates us in every moment of our life, in a way we can so easily forget.

Theresa Möller, Gefüge, oil and acrylic on canvas, 220x300cm, 2019 © Courtesy of the artist

But, beyond this thought, there’s a real difficulty for a writer to talk about the work of Theresa. Indeed, her painting invites us to silence, this same silence which seizes us when we plunge ourselves in savage nature, and makes us more accurate, more attentive to the littles details around us. Then, the noise of the street outside, punctuated by the pervasive bip and electronic noises of automats which live in the wall of the building, the disembodied voices who resonate in the street, the stressed cars and their aggressive horn, all this urban cloud of exhausting noises vanishing for a moment.

By offering to our so-stimulated eyes another kind of foisonnement proliferation, Theresa Möller touches more than just our retina. She takes care of all our body, without any one word, neither other gesture than just her brush on the canvas, and it’s like the warm caress of sunshine on our skin.


Theresa Möller, Where the footpath leads,

June 21th - August 30th

AEDAEN Gallery
1A rue des Aveugles,
67000 STRASBOURG

For more work by Theresa Möller, you can visit her website here. For more information about the gallery, please follow this link.

Artist Arlene Shechet, first individual exhibition in Pace’s online viewing room, “Skirts”, overview and criticizes the way women are seeing and cataloged as objects through the reduction of women to passive things, with the effortless pieces made of wood, metalwork, ceramic and a mixture of a pop of colors, in man-made sculptures and organic, rich in meaning and abstract messages with a juxtaposition of from the natural and already-made objects.

Arlene Shechet, Day In, Day Out, 2020, Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

The art tour is full of abstract pieces looking for balance with its asymmetrical proportions which assimilate human and nature. 

Arlene Shechet, Grammar, 2020 Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

“Grammar” is a sculpture that resembles the human respiratory system, as it seems to be a lung with holes from where the object is “breathing”, as an analogy to what is inside the human body as an approach inside the mystery of its structure. Made from glazed ceramic, steel, and painted hardwood, the use of clay to create the object stays with its natural color as it is spontaneously part of the artwork

About the Artist:

Arlene Shechet is an American multidisciplinary artist based New York, working from her studio where she creates contemporary pieces in which explores the magical world of man-made and organic materials in which she experiments with different materials, colors and textures to explore the limits of gravity, changing the traditional way of manipulating these materials to push it to its limits and create a unique masterpiece with its complex techniques manipulating wood, concrete, steel, ceramic and clay.

The process Shechet uses to create the artworks is technically difficult as she manipulates objects and materials that need hard work to be created, this is why her sculptures are, as described by her, “imperfect”, playing with the architectural aesthetic and its lights. The artist has a long collection of artworks made for the private and public exhibitions including the Metropolitan Museum Of Art in New York, RISD, Los Angeles County Museum Of Art, The Frick Collection.

The word skirt has a specific meaning in this exhibition, as it is a misogynist comparison of the word women, it’s used in the exhibition as a synonym to it, as all sculptures are completely different and each and one of them has a uniqueness attached to it, as well as how a woman is, comes in every shape & color, all different, there’s no meaning to what a woman should be, just the stereotypical stories and words that poisoned the diversity that we are contemplating in our world.

Arlene Shechet: Installation view, Skirts, February 28 – April 25, 2020  Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, In My View, 2020  Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Via the Moon, 2020  Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

Arlene Shechet, Altered State, 2020  Pace Gallery, New York © Arlene Shechet

An overview of the Shechet sculptures, lead us to this magnificent pieces which are created by chaos and the experimentation of balance through the objects, the sensation, and mixture of colors and textures that creates a symphony between them, the architectonic and figurative designs evolves into a unique synchronization of splendid and original techniques to fusion traditional into contemporary art, as she uses artisanal ways to transform the materials to complex creations challenging gravity and density. Abstract figures and several pieces resembling the respiratory system of the human body, an analogy of perfection in imperfection, this is what you can find in her exhibition.

The online exhibition is being displayed on Pace Gallery—contemporary gallery representing international artist – site: https://www.pacegallery.com/exhibitions/arlene-shechet-1/ where you can explore the online viewing room to know more about her artwork and the complete pieces from it.

To know more about the artist visit: www.arleneshechet.net 

In Inner Universe, currently setting in Galerie Templeton in Paris, Chiharu Shiota exposes the mental universes that are throbbing in her brain, through very sensual weaving sculpture and installation, inviting visitors to experience the exhibition as a large body.

Inner Universe, exhibition's view - Out of my body, Chiharu Shiota, 2020 -  7 pieces installation of cowhide leather and goat leather, variable dimensions © courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris

In the large place of the galerie, the artwork of Chiharu Shiota seems to be playing with the scales. At first sight, you can see artwork in their unity, distinct from the space they share. Weaves standing out their environment as drawn on a 3D canvas, yarns appearing like pencil strokes floating in the air. For the largest pieces, as the white dress caged in a cube of black yarns weave, or the large red threads suspend on the roof, you can first see the all pieces as a blurred drawing, or a swarm, evoking buried memories that emerging from the opacity of the psyche, or the capture of a moving organism.

Thus, the artist uses this technique to surround upcycling objects, as personal memories or, here, anatomy books. Again, there’s a subtle contrast between the book and the scientific pictures of the body, which describe precisely and with clinical gaze, the human machine, and the work of the artist, more abstract, but also much more organic. In their drawings, both the choice of matter - as oil and aquarelle - and the recurrent painted patterns, recalling the materiality of the human body, like cells, organs, blood, lymph or saliva.

Inner Universe, exhibition's view © courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris  Left : State of Being (Dress), Chiharu Shiota,2018 - metal frame, white thread and dress, 260 x 180 x 85 cm ; 102 3/8 x 70 7/8 x 33 1/2 in. Right : Skin, Chiharu Shiota, 2020 - black thread on canvas, tryptic, 140 x 240 cm ; 55 1/8 x 94 1/2 in. (overall)

By using abstract structures around easily recognizable and daily objects, Chiharu Shiota calls for a revived gaze, an experience between representation and recognition. So our gaze is invited to “get on work”, looking for a path to see through the thread. Eyes and brain are then stimulated in a way that mental representations are changed. The objects as dress, books, chairs, offer a new vision of themselves in their delicate cages. They appear much more as pictures, impressions, blurred memories, than concrete and tangible objects we can touch.

As Shiota says herself, “the thread separates us from this physical presence within the object, but at the same time, this structure allows me to create a new space.”

Inner Universe, exhibition's view © courtesy of Galerie Templon, Paris, 2020

That’s the second aspect developed in this exhibition : the memory and it’s way to appear only in the form of fragments and pieces. Thus, on the floor, you can see little sculptures in bronze, casted from the body part of the artist’s family members. For the artist, these isolated parts bear much more affects and memories than the entire body representation. 

When it comes to artists, their trajectory is a whole experience to get to know their evolution, while contemplating their work, we can see how art has changed over the years to adapt to the new waves. The importance of the viewer interacting with the work is essential to make the experience relatively entertaining and eye-catching for anyone who is an art lover or simply someone who wants to have a culturally enriching experience. 

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, has a long trajectory in the artistic world where he has had exhibitions around the world in countries like Japan, United States, Mexico, Canada, where he has presented his work in public and private events, in individual and collective exhibitions. 

Latidos, takes place at Arte Abierto in Mexico City. (One of the art works, 'Remote Pulse' consists of two identical pulse-sensing stations that are interconnected over the internet, one of the stations is at Arte Abierto and the other station is at the Museo Amparo in Puebla.) It is the third biometric exhibition (a mixture between human and technology) by the artist, in which a sample of sensors is carried out, which use the heart frequency of the spectator to activate themselves an involves the kinetic function of the human energy and audiovisual pieces (of the senses of sight and hearing) behaviors. 

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Pulse Room", 2006. Shown here: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Latidos, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020. Photo by: Mariana Yañez.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Pulse Room", 2006. Shown here: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Latidos, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020. Photo by: Mariana Yañez.

As for the facilities, the vital signs of each participant are taken so this helps each one to be active at all times reaction as a snapshot of people's energy, so it always shows up differently when responding to each individual's sensation. 

This is one of the most interesting art works in the exhibition, “Remote Pulse”, with, by a series of censors, a person who is touching the installation can feel the other individual who’s in the opposite side, in the same machine, by the feeling of a pulse from it, as it vibrates like a heartbeat. This was first made for a public large-scale, participatory art installation called “Border Tuner”, which was installed on each side of the US-Mexico border. 

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Remote Pulse", 2019. Shown here: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Latidos, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020. Photo by: Mariana Yañez.

This installation has a very peculiar and unique function, when you place your finger on the sensor, it reads your electrocardiogram and presents it on the screen, after that it takes a picture of your fingerprint to show up into the screen along and multiply it to the 3669 hunches, of your heartbeat. The most impressive thing about it is the way it creates a whole new piece of art with the help of the viewers, anyone who have the opportunity to visit it and enjoy the piece are amazed. 

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Pulse Index", 2010. Shown here: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Latidos, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020. Photo by: Mariana Yañez.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, "Pulse Tank", 2008. Shown here: Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Latidos, Arte Abierto, Mexico City, Mexico, 2020. Photo by: Mariana Yañez.

Latidos, by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, invites us to reflect on the wonders of the human being and how every connection is important, every heartbeat, every feeling and reaction of our body is wonderful and what it can achieve is inexplicable. The works in the exhibition detect the pulses of each viewer so that the experience is unique and unparalleled to be able to create your own work of art from yourself because every feeling and behavior is different, therefore, enriches the experience and everyone gets something unique out of it. 

Watch the whole experience here, with tour given by the artist: 

LATIDOS - Recorrido con Rafael Lozano-Hemmer from Arte Abierto on Vimeo.

For more information about the artist & his artworks visit: www.lozano-hemmer.com

The exhibition Yoko Ono: The Learning Garden of Freedom, curated by Jon Hendricks and Philippe Vergne can be visited at the Serralves Foundation in Porto until the 15th of November. There the visitors will find different types of work such as installations, videos, archival materials, poems and more. Situated in the museum and park, it includes many art pieces created by Yoko Ono: new ones and some created during her rich artistic career.

The curators, together with the artist, take the viewer into a journey through the space of the museum, usually exclusive, reserved towards visitors. This time, however, at the beginning guests can read a message from Yoko Ono, who encourages visitors to interact with her art, play with it and become a part of it.

The latest was treated very explicitly: the exhibition starts with stairs, slides and holes through which visitors can pass. This unique kind of playground was created in a white wall. The idea of the white cube here becomes deconstructed: white walls that should serve as a neutral frame for a piece of art are becoming a frame for the visitors, who are creating the piece in the moment.

In "We are All Water", Yoko Ono sets a row of glass bottles with names tagged on them. Visitors can find names such as Andy Warhol, Cindy Sherman, Adolf Hitler, David Bowie, Gunter Gross or Amália Rodrigues, a famous fado singer. More or less in the middle of the piece are situated two bottles tagged with Yoko Ono and John Lennon stickers.

On the wall right next to the shelf with bottles, visitors can find Yoko Ono's description 'Water Talk': you are water/ I'm water/ we're all water in different containers/ that's why it's so easy to meet/ someday we'll evaporate together (...).

Through this piece, the artist saying that we are all water shows that in the core we share the same substantiality and because of that, as the water does, we can shape ourselves. Even if closed in a bottle, we are fluid, with the possibility to change.

This piece recalls the memento mori motif in a very original way - death may end our differences, but as water is forever circulating in the universe, humans do the same.

"Helmets/Piece of Sky" is an installation in which multiple helmets are hanging from the ceiling. While passing by visitors can hear cawing crows. This piece can be read as a tribute to soldiers' victims of war. Vulturous sounds remind of battlefields full of decay. However, inside each of them we can find jigsaw puzzle pieces in the colour blue. Scattered pieces can suggest that it is necessary to again find the meaning after an experience of war.

Anonymous helmets that cannot be affiliated to a particular person shows that soldiers are treated as a collective, never as individuals. What has to be fixed is the collective memory, scattered in the lost heads, lives and meanings.

Creating a full image out of jigsaws demands however time and also imagination. As Yoko suggests, we have to imagine things first and then everything can be possible.

In "Ex It", the artist sets multiple, wooden coffins in the room. The coffins have three sizes: for men, women, and kids. Their amount and the fact that they are in all sizes may recall the issue of genocide and innocent victims of all wars.

The title can be treated as the exit - getting out of somewhere, for example, getting out of life into another world. But can be also read separately as an ex it - something previous that became something else - corpses turned into trees. It is hard to not think about reincarnation while looking at this piece. Olives trees are growing from the coffins where we would normally expect for the head to be situated.

The olive tree is also a symbol of immortality and peace. It stands on the contrary to anonymous, simple coffins. Trees are turning the cemetery into the saintly grove in which we can hear birds singing. The new life is growing back from the box of death.

In the very last room, the curators set very moving pieces. While entering the room, visitors can hear a desperate woman’s voice, most probably experiencing sexual violence. In front of the entrance, on the wall, there are pictures of women’s eyes with text under them. "Arising" was made by the artist in collaboration with women who decided to share their "testament of harm done to them for being women". This collective action is in constant creation. Exhibited in many places is a statement for the "universality" of women experiencing violence all over the world.

Together with sounds which are coming from the video projected on the perpendicular wall, reading these explicit statements becomes a heartbreaking task. Women show just their eyes and describe experiences. Because of that, they can remain anonymous but also because of that their experience becomes a collective one. Participation in this experience is not only hard but also in a way purifying and inclusive.

In the dark corner of the room, there is a table. On it, a pile of blank paper is waiting for another testament and is a reminder of how many women remain in silence regarding their experience. Even though the chair is encouraging one to sit next to the table and write, there is no pen. As sometimes there are not yet words to describe something that is devoid of meaning.

Yoko Ono doesn't leave visitors by themselves: she gives them a hint on how to interact with a particular piece, how to use it, become a part of it. At the beginning of the exhibition, visitors are encouraged to interact with pieces. However, people are staying reserved. Unfortunately, the museum does not say clearly which pieces visitors can interact with (as some should remain untouched) and because of that experiencing this exhibition fully is impossible. There should be clearer instructions regarding that.

Learning Garden of Freedom can be also treated as an artistic intervention in the institutionalized idea of the museum. A space with rules, exclusive, becomes a playground, a garden in which we can learn about ourselves and others. Yoko Ono, connected with peaceful movements, is reminding us in each piece that the meaning of art and freedom can be in everyone's hands.

As the title mentions, we are in the Learning Garden of Freedom. Freedom is not something we have, but rather something we have to constantly learn.