Tim Eitel @ Pace Gallery, NYC - "Tim Eitel: something there somewhere outside" Exhibition

Tim Eitel: something there somewhere outside

Pace Gallery, New York

November 17, 2023 – January 13, 2024 

Pace presents a focused exhibition of new paintings by Tim Eitel at its 540 West 25th Street gallery in New York. The exhibition, titled Tim Eitel: something there somewhere outside, features a selection of works that meditate on painting’s relationship to time and space. This presentation, which takes its title from a line in a Samuel Beckett poem, marks Tim Eitel’s first solo show in New York since 2009.

Tim Eitel’s practice has been influenced by both European figurative painting and American abstract painting. He rose to prominence as a member of the New Leipzig School, a group of figurative painters that coalesced at the Leipzig Academy of Fine Arts in post-reunification Germany. After studying painting under Arno Rink, Tim Eitel moved to Berlin and co-founded the cooperative gallery Liga in 2002. For the past two decades, the artist has culled and simplified elements from a rich repository of photographs and memories to create his atmospheric paintings. Methodically layered and meticulously composed, his work centers on precise representation.

The eight new works in Tim Eitel’s exhibition with Pace in New York vary in scale, with several works— including the two largest—painted entirely in egg tempera and two small-scale ones in oil. The show is staged on the seventh floor of Pace’s New York gallery, and all the works on view can be understood as reimaginings, or hauntings, of exhibition settings—including their own. The most direct, clear-cut reference to Pace’s seventh floor appears in Out Where, which depicts a spectral figure reflected in the gallery’s floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the Chelsea skyline. This work suggests that the figures in all the paintings in the show move through the same gallery space as the viewer—both the real and imagined visitors to the seventh floor occupy the space at different times.

As with some of the artist’s most celebrated works from his early career, these contemplative, subdued paintings consider the ways that this two-dimensional medium can shape our understanding and experience of three- dimensional spaces—specifically, in the case of this body of work, the ways that gallery and museum spaces are supporting characters in the story of art. Featuring almost ghostlike depictions of tripods and electrical cords, Tim Eitel’s new paintings also examine the presence of elements of reproduction, like photography and videography, in art and exhibition making.

A distinct sense of quietude cuts across all the works in the show, which is anchored by a large-scale diptych. In this painting, titled Loop, a figure traverses the gallery space as an apparition would, floating between Tim Eitel’s two canvases. As its title suggests, this work focuses on the circuity of both time and movement.

In his latest paintings, the artist uses vacant space or nearly vacant space to explore the relationships between abstract and figurative elements. Departing from his past work in figuration, Tim Eitel’s new works insist on greater distance between the painted figure and the viewer—the result is an emphasis on the spatial conditions negotiated within the painting rather than the figure in and of itself.

Tim Eitel’s work is on view in the group exhibition Österreich – Deutschland at the Albertina Modern in Vienna through January 21, 2024. He was also included in Figures Seules, a 2023 group show at Lee Ufan's Espace MA in Arles, France. In the past several years, the artist has presented solo exhibitions at the Museen Böttcherstraße Stiftung in Germany, the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig in Germany, and the Daegu Art Museum in Korea.

TIM EITEL (1971, Leonberg, Germany) conveys a deep command of color, technique, and form in his figurative paintings inspired by his observations of contemporary life and art history. He studied at the Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst in Leipzig from 1997 to 2001 and was a Meisterschüler (Master Student) of Professor Arno Rink from 2001 through 2003. He has received a number of prestigious awards throughout his career, including the Landesgraduiertenstipendium, Saxonia, Germany (2002) and the Marion Ermer Preis (2003). Cofounder of the collective Galerie LIGA in Berlin, he was one of the leading protagonists of the New Leipzig School before gaining a reputation as one of the most important painters of his generation. Tim Eitel has participated in over fifty group exhibitions and twenty monographic exhibitions worldwide since 2000, including at the Museum zu Allerheiligen, Schaffhausen, Switzerland (2004); Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri (2005); Kunsthalle Tübingen (2008); Rochester Art Center, Minnesota (2013); Essl Museum, Klosterneuburg, Austria (2013); Kasteel Wijlre, Netherlands (2018); Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig, Germany (2019); and Daegu Art Museum, South Korea (2020). Eitel‘s work is held in numerous important collections, including the Albertina, Vienna; ARKEN Museum of Modern Art, Ishøj, Denmark; Daegu Art Museum, South Korea; Deutsche Bank Collection, Germany; Hamburger Bahnhof, Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin; Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden; and the Rubell Family Collection, Miami.

PACE GALLERY NEW YORK

540 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Exposition The Gold Emperor from Aventicum du J. Paul Getty Museum - Buste en or de Marc Aurèle découvert à Avenches en 1939

Exposition The Gold Emperor from Aventicum du J. Paul Getty Museum

Buste en or de Marc Aurèle découvert à Avenches en 1939

Jusqu'au 29 janvier 2024

Buste en or de Marc Aurèle découvert à Avenches en 1939 

et conservé par les Site et Musée romains d’Avenches  

Crédit: NVP3D

Le buste en or de Marc Aurèle exposé au sein du 

Getty Villa Museum  dans le cadre de l’exposition 

« The Gold Emperor from Aventicum », mai 2023. 

Crédit : Site et Musée romains d’Avenches

L’histoire du canton de Vaud est riche et les vestiges de cette dernière, conservés au sein des collections cantonales, le sont tout autant. La renommée du patrimoine cantonal dépasse ainsi parfois les frontières nationales et l’exposition temporaire actuelle de la Getty Villa, conçue en collaboration avec les Site et Musée romains d’Avenches, en est un brillant exemple.

La Getty Villa, deuxième site du renommé J. Paul Getty Museum de Los Angeles et dont l’activité se centre sur les arts et cultures de l’Antiquité, a ouvert mercredi 31 mai une nouvelle présentation intitulée The Gold Emperor from Aventicum. L’événement, comme son nom l’indique, est totalement dédié et construit autour du buste en or de l’empereur Marc Aurèle qui régna entre 161 et 180 après J.-C.

La sculpture en or, unique et d’une valeur inestimable, est une des pièces maîtresses des collections patrimoniales cantonales et un bien culturel d’importance nationale. Réalisée à l’aide d’une seule feuille d’or travaillée selon la technique du repoussé, elle pèse un peu plus de 1,5 kilo et fut trouvée à Avenches en 1939 lors des fouilles du sanctuaire du Cigognier. Afin de contextualiser ce chef-d’œuvre, la Getty Villa expose à ses côtés d’autres pièces significatives également trouvées sur sol avenchois, dont quatre inscriptions latines relatives aux élites indigènes romanisées de la ville et aux cultes des divinités locales, ou encore un médaillon de la « mosaïque de vents » trouvée en 1786.

Outre la belle mise en lumière du patrimoine gallo-romain vaudois, de la ville romaine d’Aventicum et plus particulièrement des collections des SMRA, l’occasion est d’importance et doit être soulignée de par sa rareté. En effet, le précieux buste n’a été prêté et exposé depuis sa découverte que cinq fois à l’étranger et cinq fois en Suisse. Le dernier prêt à l’étranger remonte à 2008 et la dernière présentation en Suisse à 2018, lors de l’exposition Cosmos au Palais de Rumine.

Pour Nuria Gorrite, conseillère d’Etat et cheffe du Département de la culture, des infrastructures et des ressources humaines, « cet événement témoigne de la grande valeur des trésors conservés avec soin par les institutions patrimoniales cantonales.  La concrétisation ces prochaines années d’un nouveau Musée romain d’Avenches, permettra enfin aux SMRA de déployer de manière adéquate l’exceptionnel patrimoine dont ils ont la responsabilité et offrira à l’ensemble de la population vaudoise un cadre approprié lui permettant de profiter de son précieux héritage. »

Le buste en or de Marc Aurèle sera exposé jusqu’au 29 janvier 2024 au sein de la Getty Villa à Malibu.

Source : Bureau d'information et de communication de l'État de Vaud, Communiqué de presse, 1er juin 2023

ETAT DE VAUD

www.vd.ch

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen @ MCBA, Lausanne - Exposition "Steinlen. Coups de griffe et patte de velours"

Steinlen 

Coups de griffe et patte de velours

MCBA, Lausanne

Jusqu'au 18 février 2024

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

Le Petit Sou, 1900

Lithographie en couleurs sur papier, 135 × 96 cm

MCBA. Donation Paul et Tina Stohler, 2021

Photo : MCBA

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

Passé le détroit. Dessin pour Gil Blas illustré, 1895

Encre de Chine et pastel sur papier, 37,2 × 32 cm

MCBA. Acquisition, 2022

Photo : MCBA

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen

Couverture pour Fernand Vandérem, Asche, 1895

Lithographie en couleurs sur papier, 20 × 26,5 cm

MCBA. Donation Paul et Tina Stohler, 2021

Photo : MCBA

Le Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (MCBA) célèbre Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, fabuleux chroniqueur du Paris Belle Époque, mort il y a tout juste 100 ans. L’exposition présente pour la première fois un riche ensemble d’oeuvres issues de la donation Paul et Tina Stohler.

Dessinateur, graveur, caricaturiste, illustrateur, affichiste, peintre et sculpteur, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (1859-1923) met ses talents d’observateur de la société au service de son militantisme : « – À quoi bon prêcher ? Il faut agir. Le monde ne va pas ainsi qu’il devrait aller… ». Né à Lausanne et installé à Paris dès 1881, il rejoint les artistes du cabaret littéraire Le Chat noir et devient un contributeur régulier de leur revue, conquérant rapidement la réputation d’un des meilleurs illustrateurs de son temps. Ses dessins, amusants ou mordants, envahissent les pages des revues enfantines, du Mirliton d’Aristide Bruant et surtout du Gil Blas illustré, son gagne-pain. Il fournit aussi avec la même productivité des sujets socialisants et contestataires à des journaux engagés tels Le chambard socialiste, L’assiette au beurre, ou La feuille. Toujours du côté du petit peuple, il dénonce les injustices et les violences, en particulier avec ses célèbres estampes de la Première Guerre mondiale qui décrivent l’épouvantable boucherie des tranchées. Cette face publique est la plus connue et lui assure une réputation internationale, mais Steinlen est aussi le peintre de l’intime. Dans le cercle familial, il croque avec tendresse ses proches, ses modèles et ses chats, livrant des dessins et des estampes qui révèlent son beau tempérament, son regard compatissant et sans préjugés, son adhésion spontanée à la vie dans toutes ses manifestions.

L’exposition présente pour la première fois de nombreuses oeuvres issues de l’exceptionnelle donation des époux Paul et Tina Stohler, fervents admirateurs de l’artiste. Elle instaure un dialogue entre ce riche ensemble et la collection du MCBA qu’il vient enrichir. Coups de griffe et patte de velours : mort il y a tout juste cent ans, Steinlen interpelle et émeut, aujourd’hui comme hier.

Publication : Catherine Lepdor, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen. Coups de griffe et patte de velours (FR), 48 p., 41 ill., MCBA, 2023 (coll. Espace Focus, n° 11).

Commissaire de l'exposition : Catherine Lepdor, conservatrice en chef

MCBA LAUSANNE

Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne

Plateforme 10 - Place de la Gare 16 - 1003 Lausanne

www.mcba.ch

Steinlen. Coups de griffe et patte de velours, MCBA, LAUSANNE, 22.9.2023 – 18.2.2024

John Wesley @ Pace Galley, NYC - "WesleyWorld: Works on Paper and Objects 1961–2004" Exhibition

John Wesley 

WesleyWorld: Works on Paper and Objects 1961–2004 

Pace Galley, New York 

January 12 – February 24, 2024 

John Wesley 

Untitled (Ducks), 1983 

© John Wesley, courtesy of 

The John Wesley Foundation and Pace Gallery

Pace presents its first exhibition dedicated to the work of John Wesley since the gallery began representing his estate in early 2023. This exhibition brings together over 30 works on paper and painted objects produced by John Wesley over the course of his career, from the early 1960s to the early 2000s.

John Wesley, who died in 2022 at age 93, is known for his flattened, idiosyncratic figurations that defy easy classification within any single artistic movement. Drawing inspiration from images in comics and other mass media, the artist cultivated a distinctive, graphic style characterized by bold, weighted lines, unmodulated color, and an absurdist- edge.

Marked by eroticism, wry humor, and often a slight sense of unease, John Wesley’s work explores a wide range of imagery informed by pop cultural and literary sources as well as the artist’s own memories and daily experiences. Many of his works are concerned with enactments of balance and symmetry, examining nuances of sexuality and desire through a formal language characterized by unexpected crispness and precision.

“The puzzling, open-ended ambiguity of Wesley’s depictions encourages expansive gestures of critique, whatever their ultimate merits,” art historian Richard Shiff writes in a newly commissioned essay for Pace Publishing’s digital catalogue accompanying the gallery’s Wesley exhibition. “To a theorist, his art readily demonstrates that interpretation has no limits, for every nuance of graphic difference initiates multiple interpretive threads with the potential to lead just about anywhere.”

John Wesley produced a large body of landscapes regularly depicting tranquil shorelines and stormy seascapes, but also rolling hills and urban skylines. In his figurations, the human body and its constituent parts are often used to experiment with repetition as a formal device. Wesley also frequently reimagined characters from popular culture— most notably Dagwood Bumstead and his wife Blondie from the Blondie comic strip—in scenes across his body of work.

“His often caustic wit also has a warm-heartedness to it when the topic demands, and his sense of comedy is no less pronounced than his sense of tragedy,” art historian Martin Hentschel wrote in his 2005 publication on Wesley’s works on paper, continuing later, “He directed his gaze above all to the human condition, with all its peaks, ambiguities, and abysses.”

A unique voice in the canon of Contemporary art, John Wesley (b. 1928, Los Angeles, California; d. 2022, New York) is known for his precise, lyrical, and often deadpan painterly investigations of the American subconscious. With no formal artistic training, two of Wesley’s jobs had a direct impact on his early practice. At the age of 24, he began working as an illustrator in the Production Engineering Department at Northrop Aircraft in Los Angeles where he translated blueprints into drawings. In 1960, he moved to New York, where he worked as a postal clerk, utilizing symbols such as the shield-like postage stamp and his employee badge in his paintings. Later, his practice expanded to incorporate varied and enigmatic iconographies such as animals, beguiling women, and portraiture of subjects including Theodore Roosevelt, Rudyard Kipling, and Count Henri de Baillet-Latour, the president of the 1932 International Olympic Committee. Through a carefully refined visual vocabulary of clean lines, solid shapes, and repetition, John Wesley imbued everyday scenes and quotidian subjects with humor and wry wit. Exploring themes relating to trauma, eroticism, innocence, and coyness, paintings within his oeuvre are characterized by a linear stylized formation, similar to comic strips, and are often populated with cartoon characters such as Dagwood Bumstead, Popeye, and Olive Oyl. His series, Searching for Bumstead, which he began in 1974 and continued for the entirety of his career, depicts empty interiors—including a vacant armchair, slippers by a bedside, a bathtub filled with water—and is an exploration of the trauma of losing his father, whose sudden death deeply affected him.

John Wesley defies categorization as an artist. During the 1960s, as the tenets of Pop art began to take shape, he was grouped with the movement due to the basic elements of his style and subject matter. Wesley exhibited alongside Pop artists such as Andy Warhol, Tom Wesselman, and Roy Lichtenstein but ultimately eluded true categorization both in theory and in practice due to his unique visual language. His first solo exhibition was at the Robert Elkon Gallery, New York, in 1963. Minimalist artist Donald Judd, a lifelong supporter of the artist, reviewed the paintings in the show: “the forms selected and shapes to which they are unobtrusively altered, the order used, and the small details are humorous and goofy. This becomes a cool, psychological oddness.” John Wesley was given his own room at the Documenta 5 Retrospective at Kassel (1972) and by the mid 70s it became clear that his work lay somewhere between Pop, Surrealism, and Minimalism, though no label ever encapsulated his singular style. John Wesley’s contributions to painting are undeniable. Envisioned by Donald Judd, the largest collection of works by John Wesley, spanning from 1963 to the present, are permanently on view in his eponymous gallery at the Chinati Foundation, Marfa, Texas. His work is held in public collections worldwide including the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Kunstmuseum, Basel; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, among others.

PACE GALLERY 

540 West 25th Street, New York City

www.pacegallery.com

Design, art et artisanat finlandais @ Institut Finlandais, Paris - Exposition "Jardin Imaginaire"

Jardin Imaginaire

Design, art et artisanat finlandais

Institut Finlandais, Paris

1er décembre 2023 - 30 mars 2024

© Hannakaisa Pekkala

Jardin Imaginaire réunit les oeuvres de neuf designers et artistes finlandais émergents. Les pièces présentées, captivantes et ludiques, reflètent la tendance artisanale qui a conquit le milieu du design finlandais.

Le design finlandais est souvent connu pour son approche ultra-fonctionnelle et minimaliste. La nouvelle génération de créateurs présente une manière plus colorée, originale et haptique de faire les choses. Leurs créations incarnent les changements que connaît actuellement leur industrie, puisqu’ils se réapproprient le rôle de fabricant en confectionnant leurs propres séries limitées et pièces uniques. Il en résulte des oeuvres empreintes d’une nouvelle authenticité, qui combinent artisanat, design et expression artistique.

Jardin Imaginaire présente une variété de matériaux, comme du laiton brillant, des pièces en verre audacieuses et délicates, de la céramique agréable au toucher et des textiles doux. Chaque créateur travaille avec ses matériaux de prédilection en utilisant différentes techniques ou en les combinant à d’autres matières pour obtenir des résultats toujours plus inspirants.

La plupart des créateurs de l’exposition sont inspirés à la fois par la diversité de la nature et par le pouvoir de l’imagination. Le recours aux matériaux naturels et aux méthodes de production artisanales et écologiques est au coeur de leur travail. Entre leurs mains, des objets communs s’emplissent de magie et apportent beauté et fantaisie à notre quotidien.

L’exposition est organisée en collaboration avec UU Market, une galerie en ligne et collectif de design finlandais qui promeut le nouveau design et l’art finlandais à l’international. Avec ses 30 membres issus de différents domaines créatifs, UU Market monte des événements tels que des salons, des boutiques éphémères et des expositions. Le collectif représente aussi le design finlandais auprès des revendeurs et autres partenaires.

La co-fondatrice de UU Market Hannakaisa Pekkala est la commissaire de cette exposition.

Les portraits ont été photographiés par : Teemu Heljo, Jef Claes, Aino Huhtaniemi, Katztudio, Lina Jelanski, Markus Peltomaki, Heikki Humberg, Hannakaisa Pekkala, Elina Simonen et Janne Naakka.

Ville Auvinen

Ville Auvinen est un designer et artisan qui évolue aisément entre l’expression sculpturale et la production industrielle. Travaillant sur l’île pittoresque de Lauttasaari à Helsinki, il recherche la beauté et l’harmonie à travers une expression simple. C’est en travaillant de ses mains que Ville se sent le plus à l’aise, en réalisant de nouvelles idées, en voyant une vision prendre vie. Depuis qu’il a ouvert son studio, Studio Ville Auvinen, en 2016, il conçoit du mobilier pour des marques et pour sa propre collection, et plus récemment, des oeuvres sculpturales uniques. Son objectif est de créer des objets agréables qui honorent les matériaux utilisés.

Elisa Defossez

Elisa Defossez est une designer textile et conceptrice de produits basée à Helsinki. Elle a étudié le design industriel à l’ENSAV La Cambre en Belgique et a obtenu un master en design textile à l’université d’Aalto en Finlande. Avec une approche pluridisciplinaire, Defossez cherche à faire naître des émotions et un sentiment de bien-être à travers de subtiles nuances de couleurs et de matériaux, en accordant une importance singulière au rôle de l’objet dans la vie de tous les jours. Après avoir travaillé quelques années chez Hermès, elle a décidé de poursuivre sa quête du confort dans le design en créant son studio en 2021. Elle travaille actuellement entre la Finlande et le Japon.

Laura Itkonen

Laura Itkonen est une designer et artiste qui vit et travaille à Helsinki, en Finlande. Elle travaille principalement sur des céramiques architecturales tactiles et visuellement détaillées, ainsi que sur des sculptures de collection. Pour Itkonen, l’intersection de l’art et du design est le point le plus intéressant où travailler pour explorer le potentiel des matériaux. Ce domaine lui offre l’opportunité passionnante de repousser les limites de la créativité et d’expérimenter dans le contexte de différents projets. L’utilisation qu’elle fait des matériaux met en évidence leurs caractéristiques uniques, tandis que leurs formes soigneusement élaborées lient le tout. Les contrastes sont un facteur unificateur dans son travail, créant des pièces dynamiques et spectaculaires.

Dylan Katz

Dylan Katz souffle le verre depuis l’âge de douze ans. Il a rencontré sa compagne Greta aux États-Unis et, en 2013, ils ont décidé de s’installer dans le pays natal de Greta, la Finlande, où Katztudio a été fondé en 2016. Leur objectif est de produire des produits haut de gamme adaptés à tous les budgets, avec l’idée de rendre l’art verrier plus accessible. Dylan Katz est passionné par le verre et les possibilités infinies qu’offre ce matériau de création.

Päivi Keski-Pomppu

Päivi Keski-Pomppu est une designer, architecte d’intérieur et orfèvre basée à Helsinki. Elle est la fondatrice et la créatrice indépendante de la marque de bijoux Keski-Pomppu et la cofondatrice de Studio Bom. Päivi Keski-Pomppu crée des bijoux de haute qualité dans son studio, en utilisant des métaux précieux recyclés et soigneusement choisis, et des méthodes de travail traditionnelles. Pour garantir la longévité et l’intemporalité des collections, les produits sont fabriqués en petites séries, en accordant une attention particulière aux moindres détails. L’inspiration et les idées lui viennent de l’expérimentation et de son environnement quotidien.

Viivi Lehto

Viivi Lehto est une créatrice basée à Helsinki travaillant à la fois sur des projets cartistiques et commerciaux. Son travail artistique se concentre principalement sur l’art verrier et sur la peinture. La série Garden, sur laquelle elle travaille actuellement, est composée de sculptures en verre colorées et multidimensionnelles. Le thème du jardin qui se répète souvent dans ses oeuvres représente l’évolution personnelle ainsi que l’importance du jeu, des sentiments et des traditions. En plus de son travail dans le domaine des arts visuels, elle est auteure-compositrice-interprète de musique.

Kati Peltola

Kati Peltola travaille le verre à la flamme dans son atelier de Vallila, à Helsinki pour créer des bijoux et des sculptures. Une manipulation intuitive des matériaux et une curiosité pour le processus constituent la base du travail artistique de Kati Peltola. Elle s’habitue encore au caractère imprévisible du verre, et à ses polarités : il est à la fois banal et luxueux, durable mais parfois cassant, mou lorsqu’il est en fusion et dur lorsqu’il est refroidi.

Paula Pääkkönen

Paula Pääkkönen est souffleuse de verre et artiste verrier. Elle a choisi le verre comme matériau de prédilection pour son aspect stimulant : les techniques de soufflage du verre sont pour elle une source d’inspiration inépuisable. Elle travaille actuellement sur les thèmes de l’enfance, des souvenirs et de l’imagination, et poursuit le moment où les choses ordinaires ont encore un soupçon de magie et où les proportions du monde peuvent varier. Pääkkönen travaille pour d’autres designers et artistes, tout en travaillant sur son propre travail artistique.

Milla Vaahtera

Milla Vaahtera est une designer et artiste qui travaille à Helsinki. Ses oeuvres portent sur les thèmes de l’image corporelle, l’intuition, et du dialogue dans le processus créatif. Elle est surtout connue pour sa série de mobiles et stabiles Dialogue, dans laquelle elle associe des pièces de verre audacieuses à des pièces de laiton délicates. Milla Vaahtera a commencé à travailler sur cette série en mai 2017 avec plusieurs souffleurs de verre du village des verriers de Nuutajärvi. Vaahtera est passionnée par la revitalisation de l’héritage finlandais du soufflage de verre et par le fait de donner à la jeune génération d’artisans de nouvelles opportunités d’approfondir leurs compétences.

Hannakaisa Pekkala

Hannakaisa Pekkala est designer et cofondatrice du collectif UU Market. Depuis six ans, elle travaille avec passion à la promotion internationale du design et de l’art contemporains finlandais. Elle croit au pouvoir de la coopération : on ne peut pas conquérir le monde tout seul. À travers son travail, elle cherche à rassembler des personnes talentueuses et à former un réseau qui fait ressortir le meilleur du design finlandais en réunissant les thèmes, les techniques et l’esthétique les plus pertinents de la nouvelle génération.

INSTITUT FINLANDAIS, PARIS

60, rue des Écoles

33, rue du Sommerard

75005 Paris

institut.finlandais.fr

UU MARKET

uumarket.fi

Artor Jesus Inkerö @ Helsinki Contemporary - "Home Is Where My Mouth Is" Exhibition

Artor Jesus Inkerö 

Home Is Where My Mouth Is 

Helsinki Contemporary 

12 January - 11 February 2024 

ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ

Home Is Where My Mouth Is, 2023

House and furniture paint on paper

66 x 92 cm

Photo: Jussi Tiainen

ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ

You stretched me into a ladder, from the 

rooftop you could see a star, 2023

House and furniture paint on paper

67,5 x 95,5 cm

Photo: Jussi Tiainen

ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ

Architectural Sodomy, 2023

House and furniture paint on paper 

145,5 x 104,5 cm

Photo: Jussi Tiainen 

Helsinki Contemporary presents a solo exhibition featuring previously unseen works by ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ. In these debuting works, images and actions materialize as words, and text functions as gesture. Using house paints on paper, the artist has inscribed phrases that are deeply personal, political and associative, such as Home is Where My Mouth is, Extreme Form of Hedonism, and Architectural Sodomy. Besides invoking linguistic structures, the handwriting – by virtue of its material – suggests home renovation or remodelling. The exhibition additionally marks the premiere of Inkerö’s new video piece made in collaboration with various artists.

Thematically, Home Is Where My Mouth Is explores the domain between the private and the public. Following up their previous studies of queer identity and social issues, Artor Jesus Inkerö’s recent work examines the nature of queer space and the need for queer architecture. In the displayed works, architecture is linked directly to the body and corporeal experience. The contemporary ethos is reflected in the recurring word ‘home’, which for Artor Jesus Inkerö represents a site of human agency. The works express the artist’s thoughts on the changing nature of families and their status as an institution. “I feel that certain social roles and power structures are being reshaped. For instance what does ‘community’ mean in relation to home and family?"

Artor Jesus Inkerö’s relationship with language and writing is a significant one – it is through writing that they have found connections with other people. “Writing by hand has always been the germinal starting point for all my art, whether ceramics or performance. Written text is always at the core.” Writing is also central to the work of the American painter Cy Twombly, who began combining text and expressionistic brushwork in the 1960s. Echoing Twombly, Artor Jesus Inkerö’s handwriting is a material expression of today’s ethos, alluding to things beyond itself, and blurring the line between the maker and the experiencer. The final interpretation is left up to the reader.

The works in the exhibition convey a powerful message, yet not in an insistent or dogmatic way. The painted texts seem to expand rather than reduce ideas. Humour plays a central role. The artist for instance embraces ‘himbo’ subculture. This aptly named masculine equivalent of the clichéd bimbo is muscular, handsome – and stupid. The term challenges academic discourse and offers an alternative way of processing the world. “I see himbo culture as a fascinating take on an understanding of stupidity that permits things to be experienced through the body instead of theory, or where theory becomes part of corporeal experience without necessarily needing a verbal equivalent.”

Digital elements round out the analogue nostalgia in a natural continuum. Artor Jesus Inkerö’s new video combines artist-shot footage with opera. “My libretto describes a sewer, which I find an amusing word, because I feel like something of a sewer myself. Everything both good and bad goes down the drain, coalescing and transforming into something new.” Artor Jesus Inkerö’s moving images and texts are combined with music composed by Juulia Haverinen and performed by opera singer Sam Taskinen.

 

ARTOR JESUS INKERÖ (b. 1989) is a Finnish visual artist whose works have been exhibited in New Museum in New York, Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen, SALTS gallery in Basel, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma in Helsinki and NOON Projects in Los Angeles. They have participated in artist residencies, such as the Somerset House in London and the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam. In their art practice, Artor Jesus Inkerö focuses on topics of queer identity and belonging through exhibitions, performances and public art works and projects. The Finnish Cultural Foundation is supporting the artist’s work.

HELSINKI CONTEMPORARY

Bulevardi 10 - 00120 Helsinki

helsinkicontemporary.com

Arts/Industry 2024 Artists-in-Residence announced by the John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Arts/Industry Announces 2024 Artists-in-Residence

12 Artists Selected for Arts/Industry’s 50th Anniversary Year

The John Michael Kohler Arts Center has announced the 12 artists participating in its prestigious Arts/Industry residency program during 2024. They include Sharif Bey, Shae Bishop, Justin Favela, Cathy Hsiao, Sahar Khoury, Mary Anne Kluth, Lauren Mabry, Harold Mendez, Martha Poggioli, Lee Emma Running, Edra Soto, and Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj.

The Arts/Industry artists-in-residence will each spend three months creating new work in studios located in the pottery or foundry at the Kohler Co. factory in Kohler, Wis.

Arts/Industry marks its 50th anniversary in 2024, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center is dedicating the year to celebrating the program’s achievements.

“Throughout the year, exhibitions at JMKAC will reflect the history of Arts/Industry, current residents’ work, alumni highlights, and the invaluable contributions of industry professionals,” said Program Director Siara Berry. “We are excited to share the various ways that art and industry coexist; not only within the Kohler factory and residency, but within our everyday lives.”

THE ARTISTS

Sharif Bey 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Sharif Bey lives and works in Syracuse, New York, where in addition to his studio practice, he is an associate professor in arts education and teaching and leadership in the College of Visual and Performing Arts and Syracuse University’s School of Education. Bey earned his BFA in ceramics from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania, an MFA in studio art from the University of North Carolina, and a PhD in art education from Penn State University.

Sharif Bey’s work is included in the collections of Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery, Washington DC; and Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio, among others.

Shae Bishop 

Photo: Loam

Shae Bishop was born in Tennessee, but grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. There, he spent his childhood half at his desk and half in the woods, cultivating his two main passions: art and reptiles.

Shae Bishop attended the Kansas City Art Institute, earning a BFA in ceramics and art history. After completing a two-year residency at Red Star Studios in Kansas City, he moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, assisting with classes at the Penland School of Crafts. He has completed residencies at the Archie Bray Foundation in Montana, San Diego State University, and California College of the Arts. Shae Bishop divides his time between Richmond, Virginia, and North Carolina, where he is a founding member of Treats Studios in Spruce Pine.

Justin Favela 

Photo: Mikayla Whitmore 

Based in Las Vegas, Justin Favela is known for large-scale installations and sculptures that manifest his interactions with American pop culture and the Latinx experience. He has exhibited his work internationally and across the United States.

His installations have been commissioned by museums including the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Arkansas; and El Museo del Barrio, New York. He is the recipient of the 2021 Joan Mitchell Foundation Fellowship. He holds a BFA in fine art from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Cathy Hsiao 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Cathy Hsiao is a Chicago-based artist and educator who grew up between the US, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BA in history and art history from the University of California, Berkeley.

Cathy Hsiao is a 2019 Newcity Magazine Breakout Artist, a 2020 Graham Foundation Artist Grantee, a 2022 Hopper Prize winner, and a 2022 Fountainhead Artist-in-Residence in Climate and Environmental Sustainability. Her work has been exhibited at Chicago Artists Coalition and at Carrie Secrist Gallery and DePaul Art Museum in Chicago.

Sahar Khoury 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Sahar Khoury is an artist and educator based in Oakland, California. She received her BA in anthropology from UC Santa Cruz. She earned an MFA from University of California, Berkeley, and teaches in the Department of Art Practice. She was the recipient of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 2019 biannual SECA Art Award. Her work was shown in the 2018 triennial exhibition Bay Area Now 8 at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and has been exhibited at the Wexner, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Oakland Museum of California, The Wattis Institute, and UC Berkeley Art Museum, among others. Khoury’s work has been written about in The New Yorker, Art Review, BOMB Magazine, and Hyperallergic.

Mary Anne Kluth 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Mary Anne Kluth studied at University of California, Berkeley, as an undergraduate, and received a BFA from California College of the Arts and an MFA from San Francisco Art Institute.

Mary Anne Kluth’s work has been shown at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, and the Las Vegas Contemporary Art Center. Her artwork has been featured in such publications as Artweek, ARTnews, and Harper’s. Her critical writing has appeared in Art Ltd., KQED, Stretcher, and Art Practical.

Lauren Mabry 

Photo: Ryan Collerd 

Lauren Mabry is recognized internationally for her bold, dynamic glazes, and inventive use of material, color, and form. Her ceramic vessels, objects, and dimensional paintings embrace experimentation in questioning the boundary between abstract painting, minimalist sculpture, and process art.

Lauren Mabry has received grants from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, the Independence Foundation, and the National Council on Education in the Ceramic Arts Emerging Artist Award. She has worked at the Jingdezhen International Studio in China and the Gaya Ceramic Art Center in Bali, Indonesia. Mabry has shown work at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Nebraska; Fuller Craft Museum, Massachusetts; and Milwaukee Art Museum. Her work is included in the collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Missouri, among others.

Lauren Mabry received her BFA from Kansas City Art Institute and her MFA from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She is represented by Pentimenti and by Ferrin Contemporary.

Harold Mendez 

Photo courtesy of Patron Gallery, 

Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami.

A first-generation American, born in Chicago to Colombian and Mexican parents, Harold Mendez works with installation, photography, sculpture, and text to reference reconstructions of place and identity. His work addresses the relationships between transnational citizenship, memory, and possibility, considering how history is not only an affirmed past but a potential future. His recent work examines how reclaimed objects, makeshift monuments, and images reveal a life parallel to conflict, demonstrating both factual evidence and where traces of fiction emerge.  

Selected exhibitions of Harold Mendez’s work include the 2017 Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Renaissance Society; Museum of Modern Art / PS1, New York; Studio Museum, Harlem; Drawing Center, New York; and Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago. Reviews of his work have appeared in The New York Times, Artforum, and Frieze.

Martha Poggioli 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Martha Poggioli, born in Brisbane, Australia, is a Colorado-based interdisciplinary artist, educator, designer, and researcher. Her work explores systems of production and cultures of consumption to consider how communities and bodies contend with the material world. Her practice involves industrial engagement and minimally invasive surgical device technology.

Martha Poggioli has received numerous awards including the LeRoy Neiman Foundation Ox-Bow Fellowship, the New Arts Society Merit Scholarship, and a Career Development Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. Poggioli has exhibited at LVL3, Space P11, Extase in Chicago; RMIT Design Hub and C3 Contemporary Art Space in Melbourne; and Kunstgewerbemuseum in Dresden, Germany.

She holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a BFA from Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Lee Running 

Photo courtesy of the artist 

Recognized for her arresting sculptures, Lee Emma Running’s work directly engages our relationship with the natural world. Her sculptures made of roadkill animal bones, kiln-cast glass, and precious metals were the center of a solo exhibition, Verge at PACE in Council Bluffs, Iowa, in 2021/22.

In 2022/23 Lee Running was an artist-in-residence with Opera Omaha and a 2022 speaker at TEDx Omaha. Her window installations using images of native plants are permanent fixtures in the Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs; the Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest in Bernheim, Kentucky; and the Edgar Fine Arts Center at Upper Iowa University. Her work has been featured in exhibitions at St. Ambrose University; the Morris Graves Museum, Eureka, California; and the Western Carolina Museum of Fine Art, Cullowhee, North Carolina. She has been an artist-in-residence at Pine Meadow Ranch Center for Arts and Agriculture, Ucross, Santa Fe Art Institute, Jentel, and the Penland School of Crafts.

Edra Soto 

Photo: Steph Murray

Edra Soto is a Puerto-Rican born artist, curator, and educator based in Chicago. She is co-director of the outdoor project space, The Franklin. Through her work, Soto instigates conversations surrounding socioeconomic and cultural oppression, erasure of history, and loss of cultural knowledge. Edra Soto’s work has evolved to raise questions about constructed social orders, diasporic identity, and the legacy of colonialism.

Edra Soto has exhibited at venues including El Museo del Barrio (New York), the Museum of Contemporary Art of Chicago, ICA San Diego, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. She was awarded the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant, the Efroymson Contemporary Arts Fellowship, the Illinois Arts Council Agency Fellowship, the Foundwork Artist Prize, the Bemis Center’s Ree Kaneko Award, and the US LatinX Art Forum Fellowship, among others. Soto exhibited in and traveled to Brazil, Puerto Rico, and Cuba as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s International Connections Fund. Soto holds an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Escuela de Artes Plásticas y Diseño de Puerto Rico.

Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj 

Photo: Kham La Xiong 

Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj was born in Thailand and immigrated to the United States in 1993 as a Hmong refugee of the Vietnam War. As one of a stateless people, he creates work that explores the navigation and negotiation of cultural identity from his Hmong American experience through the lens of assimilation, colonization, and migration.

Ger Xiong/Ntxawg Xyooj’s work has been exhibited throughout the US and has also been published in Australia. His work primarily consists of metals, jewelry, adornment, and textiles. He is a Fulbright Scholar who researched, documented, and collaborated with Hmong artisans working in silversmithing and textiles in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He received his BFA with an emphasis in metals and jewelry at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and his MFA at New Mexico State University.

JOHN MICHAEL KOHLER ARTS CENTER

608 New York Avenue, Sheboygan, WI 53081

www.jmkac.org

Design Doha Biennial 2024 - First Edition of the Biennial, hosted in Qatar’s Doha Design District

DESIGN DOHA BIENNIAL 2024

24 - 28 February 2004

Hozan Zangana

Hapiru Stool, 2023

Photography by Erik & Petra Hesmerg

Courtesy of Design Doha

Hozan Zangana

Nahiru bench

Photography by Erik & Petra Hesmerg

Courtesy of Design Doha

First Edition of the Biennial, hosted in Qatar’s Doha Design District, to Consist of Regional Survey of Arab Designers, New Commissions, Juried Awards, Panel Conversations with Global Industry Leaders, Collaborations with regional design studios, coaching programs on the business of design, and Special Events.

Qatar Museums announced the inauguration in 2024 of Design Doha, a biennial showcase for excellence and innovation in the design community in Qatar and the MENA region. Established under the leadership of Qatar Museums’ Chairperson, Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa bint Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, Design Doha will be a new platform for practitioners from across the Arab world, helping to build professional pathways, and engage with the acclaimed design professionals from around the world who will convene at the event.

Naqsh Collective 

Bridal Chest, 2023

Photography by Nermeen Abudail 

Courtesy of Design Doha

Naqsh Collective 

Bridal Chest (detail), 2023

Photography by Nermeen Abudail 

Courtesy of Design Doha

Omar Chakil 

Gros Guillaume Stool, 2022 and HATHOR, 2023

Courtesy of Design Doha

Her Excellency Sheikha Al Mayassa said, “As a global hub for culture, Qatar Museums not only builds museums and galleries and presents great collections and exhibitions but also develops the nation’s creative industries and helps emerging talents be successful in their careers. Recognizing that there are far too few platforms in our region for designers to present their work, the inauguration of Design Doha is a testament to the excellence and innovation of our region's design community. With so much talent in the region, our aim is to provide a platform to support Arab designers in advancing their creative practices and businesses, and to share their talent with the world.”

Glenn Adamson

Photography by John Michael Kohler Arts Center

Led by Artistic Director Glenn Adamson, the inaugural Design Doha will take place from 24-28 February 2024. Design Doha events will be held within Msheireb, a creative neighbourhood that nurtures collaboration, creativity, and innovation and is serving as host for the event. The Doha Design District is the heart of Msheireb, one of the smartest and most sustainable cities in the world, which was meticulously designed to be in harmony with local traditions and modern standards with the help of its bespoke Seven Steps architectural language. Design Doha takes on a crucial role in this district, further activating it as a vibrant hub for creatives.

Doha Design District’s Interior Design Senior Manager Shaikha Al Sulaiti said, “We’re honoured to host the inaugural Design Doha events. As a dynamic and innovative community, where creative talent can meet and be mutually inspired, the Doha Design District has quickly become a key piece of Doha’s cultural fabric, helping position the city as the regional design hub. We can’t wait to welcome the world’s design community next year and witness the exchange of ideas and collaborations that are sure to abound.”

Design Doha will offer exhibitions of work from a wide variety of design practices, ranging from architecture, urbanism, and landscape design to textiles, wood, glass, ceramics, and graphic design. Among these are over 20 activations curated by partner design studios based in the region. A site-specific commission by South Korea-based designer Choi Byung Hoon will go on permanent view at the National Museum of Qatar, and a commission by Dutch designer Joris Laarman entitled the Doha Dragon will be installed in the Doha Design District. Juried prizes will provide monetary awards, mentorship opportunities with international design experts, and market exposure. Design Doha will also feature a series of illuminating conversations with global leaders of design and the creative industries.  

The exhibition program will be anchored by Arab Design Now, a regional survey of more than 70 Arab designers, which will be on view from 24 February to 5 August 2024 at M7, Doha’s centre for innovation, entrepreneurship, fashion, and design. Curated by Rana Beiruti, founder of Amman Design Week, Arab Design Now examines how local and regional designers balance contemporary design with traditional methods derived from the region’s heritage, with a particular focus on environmental and sustainable design. Other exhibitions which will be unveiled at M7 during the biennial are Colors of the City: A Century of Architecture in Doha, Weaving Songs in collaboration with Turquoise Mountain, and 100/100 HUNDRED BEST ARABIC POSTERS Round 04.

100/100 HUNDRED BEST ARABIC POSTERS 

Taken in Alula, Saudi Arabia, 

by Jochen Braun, February 2023

100/100 HUNDRED BEST ARABIC POSTERS

Taken in Abu Dhabi, UAE at 421, 

by Regina Rammelt, February 2023

100/100 HUNDRED BEST ARABIC POSTERS

Taken in Abu Dhabi, UAE at 421, 

by Jochen Braun, February 2023

Glenn Adamson said, “For Design Doha, we have adopted a museum-based curatorial model, dedicated to showcasing designers from across the Arab world. The energy in the region is extraordinary, and Doha has rapidly become a global design destination. The biennial will take its place alongside museums, stadiums, studios and infrastructure, creating a platform for the creative industries into the future.” 

Fahad Al Obaidly, Deputy Director of Programming and Partnerships of Design Doha, said: “The modern development of Qatar’s design community started 25 years ago with the opening of VCU Qatar, the oldest art and design school in the region. That tradition continues today through the openings of M7 and Liwan and the development of the future Qatar Preparatory School, devoted to the creative industries. This commitment to excellence in design was internationally recognised in 2021, when Doha joined UNESCO’s Creative Cities Network as a Creative City of Design – and we are hoping to reinforce this journey with the Design Doha inaugurating next year”. 

M7 

Courtesy of Design Doha

M7

Courtesy of Design Doha

Msheireb

Courtesy of Design Doha

Msheireb

Courtesy of Design Doha

Qatar Museums’ M7, Liwan Design Studios and Labs and Doha Design District located in Msheireb will serve as hubs for Design Doha throughout the five-day biennial, which will take place as part of the winter gathering of Qatar Creates, the national cultural movement that curates, promotes, and celebrates the diversity of cultural activities in Qatar and connects residents and global audiences with Qatar’s creative industries. 

The Design Doha Forum, the headline programming event for the biennial, is curated by Dr. Jelena Trkulja, the Senior Advisor for Academic and Cultural Affairs at Qatar Museums. Its primary objective is to position Doha's design sector within a global context, with a particular emphasis on the design of inclusive and equitable cities. The Forum will bring together Qatar-based and international design experts, who will explore how design can contribute to creating urban spaces that are inclusive and equitable for all. Through engaging discussions and diverse perspectives, the Design Doha Forum offers a unique opportunity to connect with designers, professionals, and other experts while gaining insights into the evolving world of design. 

Running throughout Design Doha will be The Designers Breakfast Club in partnership with FROMM, a design platform based between Qatar and Italy. The programme aims to empower emerging designers in Qatar through targeted coaching that aims to enhance creative processes, promote personal and professional development, and equip designers with valuable skills for success in interior, furniture, and accessories design. 

Commenting on the partnership, Founder and CEO Alia Rachid said: "Qatar Museums’ initiative with Design Doha marks a significant milestone, and FROMM. is honored to contribute to this event, particularly through 'The Breakfast Club' coaching series. At FROMM., we are dedicated to cultivating our talent, offering comprehensive mentorship, guidance, and business insights — all crucial for bringing their designs to the global stage.”

During Design Doha, Liwan Design Studios and Labs will host an event for creatives to launch their annual design publication, Al Journal, an initiative connecting local and global design voices, and encouraging collaboration and commentary on creative, cultural, and intellectual matters centred on design. 

QATAR MUSEUMS / DESIGN DOHA BIENNIAL 2024

qm.org.qa