Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samori, Hugo Wilson @ Nicodim Gallery, New York - "Mondegreens and New Understandings" Exhibition - With Text by Ben Lee Ritchie Handler

Mondegreens and New Understandings

Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson

Nicodim Gallery, New York

September 2 – October 4, 2025

In death, in tragedy, in grief, in heartbreak, one’s recollections of the Before Times are often rose-tinted. Hindsight is not always 20-20; the moments before a fall are remembered with a false clarity, a nostalgia for the era prior to the Bad Thing that brought us to our current moment of despair. After the initial shock of the passing of a parent, the planes hitting, the papers being served, memory softens the years before whatever allegorical or literal bomb dropped. We subsequently highlight and reconfigure the way things were into an architecture that befits the narrative we wish to convey, like a eulogy strung together from slightly—sometimes severely—misremembered song lyrics.

Mondegreens and New Understandings is an exhibition of Starbucks lovers wrapped up like a douche while Tony Danza holds us closer in the bond that will bring us together. 

Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samorì, and Hugo Wilson’s respective practices build monuments to the act of tailoring recollections and reminiscences to suit one’s sense of self, in addition to personal and empiric legacies still being written and reconsidered. 

With Bactrian II, Wilson reappropriates a baseline symbol of Britain’s Orientalist duplicity with a rendering of a shaggy camel moulting its wool in a manner that recalls 18th century jewels of the crown like George Stubbs and John Wootten. The Bactrian breed is famously domesticated, but Wilson’s muse is flamboyant, unbridled, and sure-footed as he proudly trots through a greenish negative space that smirks of English school pretense. The camel is isolated, imperfections magnified—no gods, no masters. He’s almost winking at us, asking (and borrowing a mondegreen from Nigel Tufnel), “what’s wrong with being sexy?”

Aramesh’s Action 211, Site of the Fall: Study of the Renaissance Garden, At 12 noon, Monday 15 July 1968 presents a striking male figure carved in marble, either bound and stripped to be tortured, or slowly disrobing in anticipation of carnal fireworks. The work’s title is evasive in its specificity, the artist gives us an event, place, time, and date, inviting the viewer to speculate on the nature of the scene. Is this David in Calvin Klein preparing for la petite mort or the grand one? The artist’s staging of the human body challenges the viewer with questions of vulnerability and agency, but he alone knows the words to his song.

Samorì’s untitled oil-on-wood-with-copper-leaf piece features a man raising his arms above his head and craning his neck toward the heavens. The brushwork, palette, and subject are reminiscent of Caravaggio or Mario Minniti, but the medium itself is poetically deformed by Samorìs hand—he has peeled the figures arms off, exposing reflective copper leaf on its underside, the hanging “flesh” obscuring the subject’s face and torso. His positioning evokes both the ecstasy of a spiritual awakening and the agony of his dismemberment. If the medium is massaged back to wholeness, will the bodies contained within truly be restored?

In dialogue with one another, Aramesh, Samorì, and Wilson forge new pathways in the way we understand and interpret art history inside our present bubble. There are no fixed positions within the wonky salon of Mondegreens and New Understandings, but rather three unique practices which actively engage and manipulate the ever-evolving subjectivity of observing, reinterpreting, and misremembering the world through art and art in the world.

— Ben Lee Ritchie Handler

REZA ARAMESH (b. Iran) lives and works between London and New York. He received an MA in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths University, London, in 1997. Aramesh reimagines scenes of global conflict through sculptural reenactments, stripping them of overt signs of war, violence, and historical context. The resulting works are caught between beauty and brutality, and question the representation of the male body in relation to race, class, and sexuality. Exhibitions include Mondegreens and New Understandings: Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, New York (2025, forthcoming); Fragment of the Self, Night Gallery, Los Angeles (2025, solo); Foreigners Everywhere, 60th Venice Biennale, Venice (2024); Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone, Asia Society Museum, New York (2021); 12 noon, Monday 5 August, Asia Society Museum, New York (2019, solo); Action 180, Leila Heller Gallery, New York (2019, solo); Like Life: Sculpture, Color and the Body (1300–Now), The Met Breuer, New York (2018); Sculpture in the City, London (2021); Frieze Sculpture Park, London (2017); Art Basel Parcours, Basel (2017); At 11:57 am Wednesday 23 October 2013, Ab-Anbar Gallery, Tehran (2016, solo); and The Great Game, 56th Venice Biennale, Iran Pavilion, Venice (2015). His works have been staged in performative contexts at institutions such as the Barbican Centre, Tate Britain, and ICA, London. Aramesh’s practice is held in numerous public and private collections worldwide, including the Tate, UK; MOCAK, Poland; Rodin Museum; Versaille Palace Collection; Hugo Voeten Foundation; and the Zabludowicz Collection.

NICOLA SAMORI (b. 1977, Forlì, Italy) lives and works in Bagnacavallo, Italy. His work was included as a part of the Italian Pavilion at the 2015 Venice Biennale. Exhibitions include Mondegreens and New Understandings: Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, New York (2025, forthcoming); La bocca di Berlino, Galerie EIGEN+ART, Berlin (2025, solo); The Ballad of the Children of the Czar, Galeria Nicodim, Bucharest (2024); KAFKAesque, DOX Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2024); Blend the Blind, Nicodim, New York (2024, solo); DISEMBODIED, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2024); Luce e sangue, Duomo di Napoli, Neapel (2023, solo); Luce e sangue, Chiesa di Santa Lucia alla Badia, Syrakus (2023, solo); Medea, Antico Mercato, Syracuse (2023); Joshua Hagler, Devin B. Johnson, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023); DISEMBODIED, Nicodim, New York (2023); Le Ossa della Madre, Villa d’Este, Tivoli (2022, solo); On the Wall, Building Gallery, Milan (2022); MONO, Galerie EIGEN+ART, Lipsia (2022, solo); Sfregi, Palazzo Fava, Bologna (2021, solo); ROMA (Manuale della mollezza e la tecnica dell’eclisse), Monitor Gallery, Rome (2021, solo); Danae Revisited, Fondazione Francesco Fabbri, Pieve di Soligo (2021); 141 – Un secolo di disegno in Italia, Fondazione del Monte, Bologna (2021); Black Square, Fondazione Made in Cloister e Museo Archeologico Nazionale, Naples (2020, solo); In abisso, Galerie EIGEN + ART, Berlin (2020, solo); Lucìe, MART- Museo d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto, Rovereto (2020, solo); Stand 1D08, Galerie EIGEN + ART, Berlin (2020); Collective Care: A House with Many Guests, M WOODS, Chaoyang, Beijing (2020); Cannibal Trail, Yu-Hsiu Museum of Art, Caotun (2019, solo); Solstizio d’Inferno, Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna (2019, solo); Metafysica, Haugar Vestfold Kunstmuseum, Tønsberg (2019); Preparing for Darkness – Vol. 3: I’m Not There, Kühlhaus, Berlin (2019); Iscariotes: Matteo Fato/Nicola Samorì, Casa Testori, Milan (2018, solo); Malafonte, Galerie EIGEN + ART, Berlin (2018, solo); BILD MACHT RELIGION: Kunst zwischen Verehrung, Verbot und Vernichtung, Kunstmuseum, Bochum (2018); Begotten, Not Made, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York (2014, solo); The Venerable Abject, Ana Cristea Gallery, New York (2012).

HUGO WILSON (b. 1982, United Kingdom) lives and works in London. His work has been exhibited at the The National Museum, Stockholm, Busan Metropoli­tan Art Museum, the National Por­trait Gallery, and the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. Wilson is collected by the New York Pub­lic Library, the Deutsche Bank Col­lec­tion, the Janet de Bot­ton Col­lec­tion, the United States Library of Congress and many others. Exhibitions include Mondegreens and New Understandings: Reza Aramesh, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, New York (2025, forthcoming); The Raft, Galerie Judin, Berlin (2024, solo); SIRANI, Galerie Judin, Berlin (2023); Whatever Gets You Thru the Night, Nicodim, New York (2023, solo); Joshua Hagler, Devin B. Johnson, Nicola Samorì, Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2023); Carnal Agreement, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2022, solo); Hollow Moon, Nicodim, New York (2021); Hugo Wilson, Parafin, London (2020, solo); Coincidental Truths, Galerie Judin, Berlin (2020, solo); When You Waked Up the Buffalo, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2020); Iconic Works, The National Museum, Stockholm (2020); Ateneum Art Museum, Finnish National Museum, Helsinki (2020); Crucible, Galerie Isa, Mumbai (2019, solo); Skin Stealers, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2019); Hugo Wilson, Nicodim, Los Angeles (2018, solo); Dialogues / New Paintings from London, GASK, Kutná Hora Museum, Czech Republic (2018); Frieze Sculpture Park, Regent’s Park, London (2018).

NICODIM GALLERY 

15 Greene Street, New York, NY 10013

www.nicodimgallery.com

Sliced Tropics & Cosmic Dancers @ Luhring Augustine Gallery, NYC - Lygia Clark, Sarah Crowner, Mark Handforth, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Rezac, Philip Taaffe

Sliced Tropics & Cosmic Dancers

Luhring Augustine Gallery, New York

September 12 – October 25, 2025

Luhring Augustine presents a group exhibition that highlights the work of Lygia Clark, Sarah Crowner, Mark Handforth, Elizabeth Murray, Richard Rezac, and Philip Taaffe. These six artists share a kindred interest in disrupting of familiar forms, employing unique strategies such as manipulations of lines and planes – folding, pinching, slicing, splicing – and radical shifts in scale to reshape and reimagine recognizable and quotidian motifs. 

ARTISTS BIOS

Lygia Clark (b. 1920, Belo Horizonte, Brazil – d.1988, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) is one of the preeminent artists of the twentieth century, whose pioneering body of work reimagined the relationship between audience and the art object. A founding member of the 1950s Brazilian Neoconcretist movement, Clark proposed a radical approach to thinking about painting by treating its pictorial surface as if it were a three-dimensional architectural space. Her iconic Bichos, or sculptures constructed out of hinged metal planes, allowed for the audience to exercise authorship through participation. Clark’s reliance on the viewer to steer her sculptures through many possible configurations not only jeopardized the autonomy of the art object itself, but also reconfigured her art as a performative, time-based event.

Sarah Crowner (b. 1974, Philadelphia, PA) explores the spaces where geometry abuts gesture, materiality merges with composition, and the graphic confronts the handmade. Her sewn canvases initially appear pristine in their composition, however closer inspection reveals the various slippages, imprints, and nuances of hand-painted surfaces constructed from separate yet related elements. Architecture plays a significant role in many of her works; her site-specific wall pieces transform spaces into three-dimensional experiences in which the viewer processes the environment as one autonomous artwork. The patterns in her work, drawn equally from the natural world and historic sources, create an entryway between the art object and the context, enabling the viewer to be enveloped and literally step inside her work.

Mark Handforth’s (b. 1969, Hong Kong) works are interventions in space: offering novel engagements within existing environments and asserting new perspectives on familiar fixtures. His sculptures displace quotidian objects and recontextualize their forms in unexpected articulations. In some of his iconic works, the bodies of stars, streetlamps, and traffic signs whimsically buckle, twist, and droop. The seemingly defunct and defeated contortions in these forms are countered by a gracefulness imparted by Handforth’s meticulous craftmanship; this incongruity imbues the works with a wry humor and an endearing pathos. His works reference a post-punk aesthetic and utilitarian minimalism, while the capricious scale and juxtapositions draw on the legacies of Surrealism and Dadaist absurdism.

Elizabeth Murray (b. 1940, Chicago, IL – d. 2007, Granville, NY) was an artist at the forefront of American painting for five decades and is considered one of the most important postmodern abstract artists of her time. Her drive and determination produced a singularly innovative body of work characterized by a Cubist-informed Minimalism and streetwise Surrealism. Throughout her career, she reveled in the physicality of paint and approached her work through the constructive vocabulary of sculpture, warping, twisting, splintering, and knotting her canvases. In the 1980s Murray introduced three-dimensionality to her canvases, bringing about a complete break from traditional, flat, rectilinear compositions. Muddied, moody, and gestural, these paintings blazed a course of international recognition and notoriety.

Richard Rezac’s (b. 1952, Lincoln, NE) abstract sculptures, rooted in a studious consideration of the history of art, architecture, and design, quietly connote everyday sources, leaving the viewer with a sense of familiarity and closeness. Exceptionally precise in their execution, with each decision carefully considered by the artist, the pieces are made to be looked at and thought of with absorption. Their human scale and careful placement (the height on the wall, the distance they hang from the ceiling, etc.) initiates a dialogue that demands time, the works revealing themselves slowly. This combination of exquisite craft and spatial intentionality imparts a knowing presence to the sculptures, lending an ostensible sense that they are full of concealed information. Taciturn, earnest, and magnetic, they toggle between congruence and dissonance, space and form, lightness and solidity.

Philip Taaffe’s (b. 1955, Elizabeth, NJ) practice is distinguished by its elaborate sampling of techniques and symbols that merge iconography, design, and art historical and cultural motifs to generate something authentically new. Celebrated for his ability to build intricate and contemplative compositions culled from this wide-ranging lexicon of imagery, Taaffe produces transfixing works rife with geometric forms and interwoven complex patterns that call into question traditionally accepted definitions of realism and abstraction. The visual vibrancy and dynamism that underlie his work reveals the convergence of the optical and the conceptual, the decorative and the narrative, the natural and the man-made, as well as the ancient and the modern. 

LUHRING AUGUSTINE CHELSEA

531 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011

www.luhringaugustine.com

Tajammul @ XVA Gallery, Dubai - An exhibition that capture the evolving art landscape in the Middle East

Tajammul

A Summer Show

XVA Gallery, Dubai

July 1 - September 11, 2025

XVA Gallery presents 'Tajammul', a group exhibition bringing together sixteen artists that capture the aesthetics of the evolving art landscape in the contemporary Middle East.

Exhibited Artist:

Basil Alkazzi

B. 1938. Basil Alkazzi is a Kuwait-born British visual artist, of Saudi Arabian-Kuwaiti heritage. His passion for art began in early childhood, he attended the Central School of Art in London (now Central Saint Martins, a constituent college of the University of the Arts London). In 1986, he established the Basil Alkazzi Scholarship at the Royal College of Art in London; and a year later in 1987, established the Basil H. Alkazzi Award for young and emerging American painters. Through the New York Foundation for the Arts (NYFA), Alkazzi established in 2010 two biennial awards.

Hussein Al-Mohasen

B. 1971. Visual artist Hussein Al-Mohasen has been active in the art world in the Gulf region since his first appearance in 1999 at the Al-Janadriya Festival in his native Saudi Arabia, since then he has since then occupied a place alongside the pioneering Saudi artists. Behind the obvious simplicity of his works lurks a decades-long journey shaped by poetry from the Arab world and the complex intersections between modern spaces and personal freedoms. Al Mohasen’s work is visually global and overcomes regional paradigms, presenting the contemporary Arab experience after the fashion of the poetry and music that inspired him: In the end, we all speak the same language. Hussein Al Mohasen’s work has been exhibited all over the Middle East since 1999.

Charlotte de Bekker

Charlotte de Bekker is an award-winning filmmaker and artist based in the Netherlands. She spent the majority of her childhood in Ras Al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, going on to study both Film and Philosophy at NYU Abu Dhabi. Charlotte uses what she has learnt from her basis of being a filmmaker in the science, education and documentary fields, and ties this in with themes of futurism, nature, and folklore.

Debjani Bhardwaj

Debjani Bhardwaj was born in Kolkata, India and completed her Masters in Business Management at Birla Institute of Technology, Ranchi , India . She started her career as a financial analyst in New Delhi. She later moved into the field of art in the year 2007 and completed MA Fine Arts at the Open College of the Arts, UK. She is a multidisciplinary artist and expresses herself through sculpture (ceramics, paper), illustration, papercuts and printmaking. She has illustrated two children’ s books “World Tales “, a book of folk tales written by the students of Dubai International Academy (2009 ) and “A Magic Place” , a book of short stories used by middle school children in India (2010).

CC (Alireza Asbahi)

Born in 1969 in Tehran, CC’s artistic journey is a fascinating blend of personal experiences and cultural influences. At a young age, CC had to take the responsibility of being the head of his family, which shaped his outlook on life and his creative pursuits. It was during his time working at a clothing manufacturing company that he discovered his passion for art. Drawing inspiration from his father, who was a tailor, CC began experimenting with collaging and layering techniques, using an old sewing machine as his tool to craft intricate pieces. CC’s art is a reflection of his deep connection to Iranian history and culture, with a particular focus on exploring the aesthetics and symbolism of traditional iconography, such as the Lion and the Sun. His works exude a raw and powerful energy, blending patterns and colors in a way that is both understated and impactful. With a distinct and recognizable style, CC has established himself in the art world. His ability to breathe new life into ancient forms while preserving their timeless beauty is a testament to his skill and unwavering dedication to his craft.

Imran Channa

B. 1981. Imran Channa is a Pakistani visual artist. Channa’s primary interest is in historical documentation and how that documentation creates narratives, information and misinformation. He finds that historical narratives and the documents that create or support them are limited in scope and complexity. He uses drawing, moving image, installation and digital technology as means to re-examine historical documents and their influence, so inviting audiences to contemplate the contradictions of how we record and understand history.

Elizabeth Dorazio

The artist was born and raised in Araguari, deep in the Brazilian hinterland. Currently residing in Dubai, she works between Brazil and the UAE. Her practice draws on the visual cultures and popular techniques of both “homes”. Dorazio studied Visual Arts at the Guignard University of Art (Fundação Escola Guignard) in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, later specializing in Ancient Italian Art Techniques at the Institute for Art and Restoration (Istituto per L’Arte e il Ristauro), Florence, Italy, and finally, in Germany at the Abendschule, Staedelschule. She studied art history under Rodrigo Naves, one of Brazil’s foremost art critics and scholars. Dorazio’s practice centers on mixed-media works and installations. To skim through her myriad bodies of works is to glimpse a fascination with instability, shifting surfaces, the cosmic, the organic, the cellular, and skin. While she remains faithful to a certain technical classicism (drawing, etching, the use of egg tempera), she also disrupts through material (x-ray fragments, chair caning) and scale. Upstream, her works are process-driven; on reception, they seem urgent and interactive. The artist has exercised her skills as a curator in the exhibitions Existenzielle Korrespondenzen (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo, 2016), Blue Connection (Frankfurt am Main/São Paulo/Sorocaba, 2010-11) and Schweizer 9 (Frankfurt am Main, 2008).

Oussama Garti

Born in Rabat, he is a Moroccan architectural designer and artist trained at the Architectural Association in London. Fascinated by the infinite amount of similarities between macro and micro elements around him, Garti explores the idea of perception and works with an extensive research to produce his work. His environment and observations fuel his creative process. He also uses numerous tools to explore remote locations and builds a digital library of natural textures in different scales. He magnifies “moments” and celebrates their complexity on his canvas. With his immersive work, Oussama Garti takes us on a journey full of poetry and lyricism. Oussama is also the co-founder of INTERVAL, a non-profit cultural initiative that aims to widen access to art, invite different actors to debate around a range of topics, and support projects with high social impact in the MENA region.

Mahmoud Hamadani

B. 1958 Iran, lives in New York. Mahmoud Hamadani’s works have been shown at The British Museum, The New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York, as well as numerous solo and group exhibitions in New York, London, Dubai, Lausanne, Beirut and Hong Kong. He is in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The British Museum. He is a recipient of Pollock-Krasner Foundation grant. Hamadani earned a BA in Mathematics from State University of New York and a Masters degree in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

David Howarth

Associate Dean and Associate Professor in Graphic Design at the College of Arts & Creative Enterprises – Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. David earned an MA in Communication Design from the University of Salford, England. David is currently working on a Typography project connected to Land Art, inspired by the ecology of Sir Banyas Island.

Richard Ketley

B. 1964, Johannesburg, South Africa. Richard has painted since a young age and held his first solo exhibition while in school at Hyde Park High School, Johannesburg. During his early years he exhibited at Artist in the Sun, at the Sandton Gallery, Johannesburg, and also participated in an exhibition at the National Galley in Kampala, Uganda. Today Richard works principally in charcoal, acrylic and oil, and seeks to develop images that are drawn from life but extend the viewer’s imagination.

Behdad Lahooti

B.1976. Behdad Lahooti is an Iranian sculptor and an active member of the association of Iranian sculptors. He has years of experiences as director and general secretary of Tehran Sculpture Biennial, national Sculpture Expositions, and other sculpture-related events under his belt while cooperating with various Iranian art galleries, such as Aaran Art gallery and Hedayat Art Gallery as an artist and has had several solo and group exhibitions so far. He has experienced with a wide variety of materials over his long years of activity as a sculptor. Although his skill in working with varying kinds of metals has been particularly appreciated, he frequently uses wood, plaster, resin, ceramic, fabric, and many others in his creative process. New materials and techniques are always welcomed in Lahooti’s pieces and his art is characterized by implementing modern techs and processes. Distinctive and varied periods can be seen in the works of this prolific artist, distinguishable for one another in terms of forms and manners of dealing with subject matters. Nonetheless, social issues remain the key theme in his works and events in the world and Middle-East, wars, and news exert a big impact on him. Lahooti’s work has been well received by art enthusiasts dues their aesthetic qualities, both formal and visual, as well as their skillful construction. Although his works fascinate viewers by their sheer beauty at first sight, they provoke thought in all of them too.

Colleen Quigley

Colleen Quigley is a Japanese-American visual artist based in Tucson, Arizona. Her practice encompasses a broad range of media including sculpture, installation, painting, encaustic, and digital fabrication. Colleen Quigley’s research interests include postmodern strategies of making in relation to themes of materiality, perception, memory and place, and the transcultural flow of objects. Her work has been exhibited in Italy, Japan, Singapore, the United States, and the U.A.E.

Tor Seidel

Tor Seidel is a German artist, curator, and lecturer with extensive experience teaching art at universities, as well as in the gallery and exhibition sectors.

Moussa Tiba

B. 1939 D. 2014. Moussa Tiba studied at the Beirut Fine Arts Institute and later pursued further education in London, Rome, and other regions, exploring various artistic mediums. His style transitioned from figuration to abstraction in the 1970s, with watercolor becoming central to his work. Tiba’s art reflects a fusion of Western and Eastern influences, focusing on themes of creation, peace, and the regeneration of life. Tiba’s work has been exhibited internationally in Lebanon, France, Germany, Norway, Egypt, Kuwait, and Brazil. His pieces are held in major collections, including the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Chartres, the Institut du Monde Arabe in Paris, and UNESCO in Beirut. His family home in Qana has been converted into a museum dedicated to his art and also displays works by other prominent artists.

Morteza Zahedi

Born in 1978, Rasht, Iran and lives in Tehran. He started his artistic career at the age of 15, working as a professional graphic designer, children’s book illustrator, painter and sculptor. As of 2011, he is also an outsider art collector, curator, and gallerist.

XVA GALLERY

Al Fahidi Neighborhood, Bur Dubai, Dubai, UAE

www.xvagallery.com

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists @ MCA Australia, Sydney - Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists

MCA Australia, Sydney

5 September 2025 - 8 March 2026 

EMMALINE ZANELLI

Magic Cave, 2024 

6.5 x 4 x 2.4 m, bird, mouse, rat, cat, dog and 

hermit crab cages, plastic tunnels, toys, LED lights

Installation view, Firstdraft, Sydney

© and courtesy of the artist

Primavera is the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia's annual exhibition of young Australian artists aged 35 and under. Now in its 34th year, Primavera continues to be a significant platform for early-career Australian artists and curators to present exciting new work. Since its inception, the exhibition series has presented the work of more than 250 artists and 30 curators and propelled the careers of many of Australia’s most significant artists. Primavera was initiated in 1992 by Dr Edward Jackson AM, Mrs Cynthia Jackson AM and their family in memory of their daughter and sister Belinda, a talented jeweller who died at the age of 29.

The Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA Australia) announces the five artists to exhibit in Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists, Francis Carmody (VIC/NSW), Alexandra Peters (VIC), Augusta Vinall Richardson (VIC), Keemon Williams (QLD) and Emmaline Zanelli (SA).

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists is curated by MCA Australia Curator, Tim Riley Walsh. The artist selection is driven by the theme of society’s relationship to industry and the machine in the contemporary era. The work of the five artists address es technology and mechanical intertwinement in various ways.

About Primavera 2025, Riley Walsh said: 'The selected artists for Primavera 2025 reflect the innovation and sheer talent of the emerging contemporary Australian art world. Over the course of close to 50 studio visits I conducted across the country I saw intriguing shifts in how young practitioners are engaging with a rapidly changing sociopolitical and technological landscape. How this translates into creative practice is the focus of this presentation.'

'My ongoing interest as a curator is art’s power to make us look anew at subjects that typically evade representation or understanding. What is out of view or exceeds our senses. These five artists help broaden our world view and begin to unravel the complexity of the current era.'

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists - About the artists

FRANCIS CARMODY

Photo: Tim Herbertson

Francis Carmody 

Born 1998, Gadigal Country/Sydney. Lives and works Naarm/Melbourne 

Francis Carmody thinks of his practice as a form of speculative storytelling. He considers the social structures that underpin our current reality to understand our past and to imagine possible futures. Carmody’s work spans mediums and engages collaborators with expertise across diverse disciplines to investigate historical and natural phenomena. Francis Carmody received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne. Between 2022–2024 he was a Gertrude Studio Artist at Gertrude Contemporary, Naarm/Melbourne. Recently he has exhibited work at Gertrude Glasshouse, Conners Conners, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art and Mejia, all located in Naarm/Melbourne.  

FRANCIS CARMODY

Black Swan Event: Incubating (detail), 2024 

Plaster, horsehair, polymer paint, nylon, 

60 x 60 x 30 cm

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Christian Capurro

FRANCIS CARMODY

A Relic Remains, 2023 

Installation view, Gertrude Glasshouse, Collingwood 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Christian Capurro

Alexandra Peters 

Born 1990, Warrnambool. Lives and works Naarm/Melbourne 

Alexandra Peters is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Naarm/Melbourne. Her work spans painting, print, sculpture and assemblage, often taking the form of an installation. These arrangements explore the field of expanded painting through the interrogation of support structures and framing devices. Peters completed a Bachelor of Fine Art (Honours) at Monash University, Melbourne in 2022, where she was the recipient of the Monash University Museum of Art Award and the Megalo Print Award. Her works have been exhibited throughout Australia and internationally and include recent commissioned presentations at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne. She has also been featured in exhibitions by 1301SW, Melbourne; Asbestos, Melbourne; NAP Contemporary, Mildura; Perth Institute of Contemporary Art; and Propaganda Network, Tbilisi, Georgia. She is currently part of the studio program at Gertrude Contemporary.

ALEXANDRA PETERS 

Breakneck: Blowback (Source), 2024

Acrylic and water-based ink with screen-print 

medium and paste on leatherette, 250 x 180 cm

(2-panels, each 250 x 90 cm) 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Andrew Curtis

ALEXANDRA PETERS

Installation view, Future Remains: 

The 2024 Macfarlane Commissions, 

Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 

Naarm/Melbourne, 2024 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Andrew Curtis

ALEXANDRA PETERS

Breakneck: Fenestration (Auto-Extrication), 2024

Acrylic and water-based ink with screen-print 

medium and paste on leatherette,

250 x 480 cm (4-panels, each 250 x 120 cm) 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Andrew Curtis

AUGUSTA VINALL RICHARDSON

© the artist. Courtesy The Commercial, Sydney

Photo: Lucy Foster

Augusta Vinall Richardson 

Born 1991, Naarm/Melbourne. Lives and works Naarm/Melbourne 

Augusta Vinall Richardson makes abstract composite sculptures out of sheet and cast metals, employing industrial materials and processes in a practice underpinned by an ethics of responsibility for objects. Her works recall legacies of minimalism but celebrate irregularities and imperfections, investing especially in textural qualities. Her process begins with hand drawings or the building of cardboard and papier-mâché maquettes. In 2022 Vinall Richardson was awarded a Master of Fine Art by Monash University, Naarm/Melbourne. She has exhibited at La Trobe Art Institute, Djaara/Bendigo, and in the 2024 Melbourne Sculpture Biennial. In 2026, she will present a solo exhibition at Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne. She is represented by The Commercial, Sydney.

AUGUSTA VINALL RICHARDSON

Box Sculpture (side by side), 2025

Stainless steel, 150kg approx., 226 x 99 x 23 cm

© the artist. Courtesy The Commercial, Sydney. 

Photo: Andrew Curtis

AUGUSTA VINALL RICHARDSON

Day by day, 2025 

Bronze, patina, 120kg approx., 93 x 215 x 18 cm 

Private collection, Melbourne

© the artist. Courtesy The Commercial, Sydney

Photo: Andrew Curtis

KEEMON WILLIAMS

Photo: Sam Harrison

Keemon Williams 

Kuku Yalanji, Koa, Meriam, and South Sea Islander peoples. Born 1999, Gimuy/Cairns. Lives and works Magandjin/Brisbane 

Keemon Williams is a Koa, Kuku Yalanji, Meriam Mir and South Sea Islander artist and curator based in Magandjin/Brisbane. His practice considers queer, Indigenous and Australian experiences as lived in the shadow of colonisation. His work often draws on the language of production, as well as memory and humour. Williams has presented solo exhibitions at Kuiper Projects, Brisbane, Milani Carpark Gallery, Brisbane and Northsite Contemporary Arts, Cairns. His work has been featured at the National Gallery of Victoria; Institute of Modern Art, Brisbane; UQ Art Museum, Brisbane; QUT Art Museum, Brisbane; Griffith University Art Museum, Brisbane; and Museum of Brisbane. Williams is currently Assistant Curator, Indigenous Australian Art at QAGOMA, Brisbane. He was previously the Exhibitions Officer at Outer Space in Brisbane from 2022–2025. He graduated from Queensland University of Technology with a BFA (Visual Art) in 2019. 

KEEMON WILLIAMS

Installation view, Boomerangs, 2023

Wurrdha Marra, The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, 2023 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Tom Ross

KEEMON WILLIAMS

Business is Boomin’, 2021

Porcelain, underglaze, glaze, epoxy, 55 x 45 mm 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Kyle Weise

KEEMON WILLIAMS

Business is Boomin’, 2021

Porcelain, underglaze, glaze, epoxy, 55 x 45 mm 

© and courtesy of the artist. Photo: Kyle Weise

EMMALINE ZANELLI

Photo: Thomas McCammon

Emmaline Zanelli 

Born 1994, Tarndanya/Adelaide. Lives and works Tarndanya/Adelaide

Emmaline Zanelli’s work combines elements of video, photography, sculpture and performance. Influenced by absurdism and surrealism, she creates art that seeks humour and meaning in the everyday. Recently, her work has considered themes of labour and youth culture. Emmaline Zanelli completed a Bachelor of Visual Arts at Adelaide College of the Arts in Tarndanya/Adelaide in 2015, and a MA in Photography at the Photography Studies College in Naarm/Melbourne in 2021. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across Australia, including Stills Gallery, Sydney, Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, Centre for Contemporary Photography, Naarm/Melbourne, and the Art Gallery of South Australia, Tarndanya/Adelaide. Her work has been published in the British Journal of Photography and Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, and screened at the Arles Photography Festival in France. In 2022 her video work Dynamic Drills (2019–2021) was selected as the winner of The Churchie Emerging Art Prize. 

EMMALINE ZANELLI

Magic Cave, 2024 

6.5 x 4 x 3.8 m, bird, mouse, rat, cat, dog and 

hermit crab cages, plastic tunnels, toys, LED lights

Installation view, Studios: 2024, 

Adelaide Contemporary Experimental 

© and courtesy of the artist

EMMALINE ZANELLI

I take care of what’s mine (still), 2023–2024

Two channel video, sound, 25:47 minutes, 

Commissioned by Adelaide Film Festival X UniSA 

Samstag Museum of Art EXPAND Lab, 

Supported by Creative Australia 

© and courtesy of the artist

EMMALINE ZANELLI

I take care of what’s mine (still), 2023–2024

Two channel video, sound, 25:47 minutes, 

Commissioned by Adelaide Film Festival X UniSA 

Samstag Museum of Art EXPAND Lab, 

Supported by Creative Australia 

© and courtesy of the artist

EMMALINE ZANELLI

I take care of what’s mine (still), 2023–2024

Two channel video, sound, 25:47 minutes, 

Commissioned by Adelaide Film Festival X UniSA 

Samstag Museum of Art EXPAND Lab, 

Supported by Creative Australia 

© and courtesy of the artist

Primavera 2025: Young Australian Artists - Curator Tim Riley Walsh

TIM RILEY WALSH

Photo: Hamish McIntosh

Primavera 2025 Curator, Tim Riley Walsh, is Assistant Curator at the MCA Australia. Previously, he was Curator in Residence, Gertrude, Naarm/Melbourne, and held roles at Camden Art Centre, London and Queensland Art Gallery | Gallery of Modern Art, Magandjin/Brisbane. Riley Walsh’s MCA Australia curatorial projects include Data Dreams: Contemporary Art in the Age of AI (2025, co-curator), MCA Collection: Artists in Focus (2025, curatorium) and supporting the presentations of Hiroshi Sugimoto: Time Machine (2024) and Tarek Atoui: Waters’ Witness (2023–24). Outside of the MCA, his recent external projects include Unbecoming, La Trobe Art Institute, Djaara/Bendigo (2025) and You Are Here Too, Institute of Modern Art, Magandjin/Brisbane (co-curator, 2025).

MCA AUSTRALIA

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia

Tallawoladah, Gadigal Country

140 George Street, The Rocks, Sydney NSW 2000

www.mca.com

Pinta Lima 2025 - Curators - Galleries

PINTA LIMA 2025 - 12th Edition

Casa Prado, Lima, Peru

April 24 - 27, 2025 

Casa Prado, Lima, Peru

Photo courtesy of Pinta Lima

Pinta Lima 2025 is part of the international Pinta platform, a leader in promoting Latin American and Central American art, along with other contemporary art fairs such as Pinta Miami and Pinta BAphoto. It also includes special initiatives like Pinta Asunción Art Week and, this year, Pinta Panama Art Week. Supported by Arte al Día, its editorial founded in 1980, Pinta continues to expand its global network, celebrating the art and culture of the region.

Pinta Lima is the most important contemporary art fair in Peru, presenting in its 12th edition a solid program that celebrates the diversity of the Latin American artistic and cultural scene. Located at Casa Prado in Miraflores, Lima, the fair is an essential event where a network of artists, galleries, curators, and collectors from the region connect with the international scene.

In 2025, after 12 years of trajectory, Pinta PArC - Perú Arte Contemporáneo - evolves into Pinta Lima, highlighting the city and consolidating itself as the largest contemporary art fair in Peru. With this change, Pinta positions Lima as a key epicenter of Latin American contemporary art.

Under the Global Curatorship of Irene Gelfman, Pinta Lima 2025 will feature the Main Section, hosting over 30 galleries from various cities worldwide. The NEXT Section, curated by Emiliano Valdés, will showcase emerging projects, while the RADAR Section, curated by Florencia Portocarrero, will exhibit works addressing current issues. A prominent space will be the Sculpture Garden, with special curatorship by Giuliana Vidarte.

Pinta Lima will be a hub for exchanging ideas and debates with invited specialists at FORO, coordinated by Giuliana Vidarte, which will also include the Collection Talks cycle, coordinated by Pablo León de la Barra, addressing different collecting dynamics in Latin America. Additionally, special sections and initiatives such as awards and acquisitions will encourage the promotion of Latin American art on an international level.

PINTA LIMA 2025 - CURATORS

IRENE GELFMAN

Photo courtesy of Pinta Lima

Irene Gelfman is the Global Curator of Pinta. Her curatorial approach covers all Pinta events, with the goal of promoting Latin American art through a variety of initiatives. Among these, she selects renowned experts for the fair sections and coordinates their curatorial proposals, which undergo a careful selection and validation process, ensuring high-level projects in the field of Latin American art. Additionally, she is responsible for the Video Project and Special Project at each fair, which highlight the diversity and innovation of Latin American art.  

Graduate and teacher of Middle and Higher Education in Arts (FFyL - UBA); Irene Gelfman attended the # 11 Artists Program at UTDT (Critic and Curator). She is the winner of the first prize New Curators of the AMALITA Collection and the Argentine Association of Art Critics. She works in curation, management, and art criticism. She is the founder and director of Minerva Universos Visuales, an art studio focused on the dissemination of Art History content for diverse audiences, giving a clinic for artists and consulting for cultural projects. She writes for various media, publications and catalogs (Otra Parte, Colección de Artistas, among others). With more than seven years of experience in different areas of cultural management, both public (national and local) and private (foundations and NGOs), she coordinates and produces content. In addition, she put together the programming in areas such as theater, visuals, and music for different festivals, fairs, and international events in which Argentina was invited as a guest country. She developed and coordinated an aid program to promote Argentine artists abroad (APEX-Ministerio de Cultura Nación) and was a strategic advisor for the Barrios Creativos program.

EMILIANO VALDES

Photo courtesy of MAMM / Pinta Lima

Emiliano Valdés is a Guatemalan curator and strategic advisor based in Guatemala City. Until December, he served as the Chief Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Medellín, Colombia, where over the past decade he developed a program that amplified the voices resonating within the museum and positioned it internationally. He is currently advising the Guatemalan Institute of Tourism on exhibitions, culture, and international fairs, with an emphasis on artisanal and community-based processes. Until 2015, he was the Associate Curator of the 10th Gwangju Biennale (South Korea) and co-director of Proyectos Ultravioleta (Guatemala City). Previously, he was the curator and head of visual arts at the Cultural Center of Spain in Guatemala, where he also founded the space (Ex)Céntrico. Valdés has also worked with institutions such as dOCUMENTA(13) (Kassel), with a fellowship from the Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Collection, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (Madrid), and Contemporary Magazines (London). He has curated, among others, the following international art events: the XVII Paiz Art Biennial in Guatemala, the VIII Nicaraguan Visual Arts Biennial-2011, the Costa Rican Visual Arts Biennial 2013, and the First Tamaulipas Border Biennial, Mexico-2015. He has written for international magazines, catalogs, and books. Valdés is an architect from the Istituto Universitario di Architettura di Venezia (Italy), holds a postgraduate degree in the history of art and Hispanic literature from the Ministry of Culture of Spain and the Duques de Soria Foundation (Spain), and a Master's degree in Urban and Environmental Processes from EAFIT University (Colombia).

FLORENCIA PORTOCARRERO

Photo courtesy of Pinta Lima

Florencia Portocarrero (Lima, 1981) is an interdependent curator. Inside and beyond institutions, her cultural practice intertwines writing, teaching and the organization of exhibitions and public programs. Her research interests focus on how to rewrite art history from a feminist perspective, the questioning of hegemonic forms of knowledge and the processes of subjectivization within the neoliberal economy. Originally trained as a clinical psychologist with a psychoanalytic orientation, between 2012 and 2013, Portocarrero participated in the Curatorial Program at de Appel Arts Centre in Amsterdam, and in 2015 she completed a second MA in Contemporary Art Theory at Goldsmiths University in London. She has lectured at various international institutions and her writings on art and culture appear regularly in specialized magazines and publications. In Lima, she has worked as curator of proyectoamil's public program (2015-2019), was curatorial advisor to the Contemporary Art Acquisitions Committee of the Museo de Arte de Lima-MALI (2018-2020) and is a professor in the Masters in Art History and Curatorship at the PUCP. Since 2014 she is co-director of Bisagra: an art collective in which she has worked in collaboration with artists and professionals from different fields and backgrounds to carry out politically engaged and socially sensitive art projects.

MIGUEL A. LOPEZ

Photo courtesy of Pinta Lima

Miguel A. López (Lima, 1983) is a writer and currently Chief Curator of Museo Universitario del Chopo in Mexico City. He was a co-curator for the 2024 Toronto Biennial of Art. From 2015 to 2020, he worked as Chief Curator, and later Co-director at TEOR/éTica, Costa Rica. In 2019, he curated the retrospective exhibition Cecilia Vicuña: Seehearing the Enlightened Failure at the Witte de With (now Kunstinstituut Melly), Rotterdam, which traveled to Mexico City, Madrid, and Bogota. Between 2023 and 2024, a second retrospective Cecilia Vicuña. Dreaming Water, curated by López, was presented at the Fine Art Museum (MNBA) in Chile, MALBA in Argentina, and Pinacoteca de São Paulo in Brazil. Recent curatorial projects include Sila Chanto & Belkis Ramírez: Aquí me quedo / Here I Stay en el ICA-VCU, Richmond (2022), Hard to Swallow. Anti-Patriarchal Poetics and New Scene in the Nineties at ICPNA, Lima (2021), and And if I devoted my life to one of its feathers? at the Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna (2021).

PABLO LEON DE LA BARRA

Photo courtesy of Pinta Lima

Pablo León de la Barra was born in Mexico City in 1972 and lives in Rio de Janeiro. He earned his Ph.D. in Histories and Theories from the Architectural Association in London. Since 2013, he has been the Curator for Latin America at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, where he curated the exhibitions Under the Same Sun: Art from Latin America Today (2014–16), Cecilia Vicuña: Spin Spin Triangulene (2022), and Gego: Measuring Infinity (2023), and where he is responsible for the acquisition of works by Latin American artists for the museum's collection. He was Chief Curator of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (2016–2020) and Director of Casa França-Brasil in Rio de Janeiro (2015–2016), and founder and co-curator of the 1st and 2nd Tropical Biennial, San Juan, Puerto Rico (2011 and 2016). Over more than two decades of curatorial career, he has curated countless exhibitions internationally, in addition to having co-curated the Santa Fe Biennial, New Mexico (2017) as well as the Mexican Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale showcasing the work of Carlos Amorales. In 2012, he received the inaugural Independent Curators International / Colección Patricia Phelps de Cisneros Travel and Research Grant for Central America and the Caribbean in honor of Virginia Pérez-Ratton. He serves on the advisory boards of the Luis Barragán Foundation, Mexico; the Nasher Sculpture Prize, Dallas; the Caribbean Art Initiative, Basel; and is president of the jury for the Prince Claus Fund Impact Awards, Netherlands.

PINTA LIMA 2025 - EXHIBITING GALLERIES

Acacia - La Habana, Cuba

ALA Projects - Miami, USA

Aninat Galería - Santiago de Chile, Chile

Azart Gallery  - Woodstock, USA

Beatriz Gil Galería - Caracas, Venezuela

BLOC Art - Lima, Peru

Collectio - Santiago de Chile, Chile

Crisis - Lima, Peru

Departamento 112 - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Espacio Líquido - Gijón, Spain

Galería Daniel Cuevas - Madrid, Spain

Galería de arte La Sala - Santiago, Chile

Galería del Paseo - Lima, Peru

Galería Martín Yepez  - Lima, Peru

Galerie Younique - París, France

Imaginario - Buenos Aires, Argentina

1/1 Caja de arte- Buenos Aires, Argentina

La Galería de San Isidro - Lima, Peru

La Mille - París, France

Linse Galería - Buenos Aires, Argentina

LnS Gallery - Miami, USA

LyV - Córdoba, Argentina

Marissi Campos - San Isidro, Peru

Miranda Bosch - Buenos Aires, Argentina

NAC - Santiago, Chile

NG Art Gallery - Ciudad de Panamá, Panama

Pabellón 4  - Buenos Aires, Argentina

Ponce+Robles  - Madrid, Spain

Prima Galería - Santiago, Chile

Salón Comunal - Bogotá, Colombia

Sammer Gallery - Miami, USA

Segismundo - Ciudad de Guatemala, Guatemala

VAG - Florida, USA

Viedma - Asunción, Paraguay

PINTA LIMA 2025

Casa Prado - Av. 28 de Julio 878 - Miraflores, Lima, Peru

www.pintalima.art

Exposition Pause @ 49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine, Metz - Avec les artistes Rehaf Al Batniji, Sven Augustijnen, Nidhal Chamekh, Banele Khoza, Naeem Mohaiemen, Peter Piller, Oraib Toukan

Pause, Une exposition collective avec les artistes Rehaf Al Batniji, Sven Augustijnen, Nidhal Chamekh, Banele Khoza, Naeem Mohaiemen, Peter Piller, Oraib Toukan

49 Nord 6 Est - Frac Lorraine, Metz

6 septembre 2024 — 9 février 2025

Rehaf Al Batniji 

Gaza Timezone, 2022-2023 

The Chair of Love, 2016

Photographies

Courtesy de l’artiste

Certaines images nous restent en mémoire car elles résonnent avec ce que nous traversons. Elles semblent à la fois reliées à la situation présente ainsi qu’à des événements qui ont déjà eu lieu, matérialisant ainsi un point où passé et présent s’entrechoquent. Ces images qui contiennent plus qu’elles-mêmes nous font basculer de l’autre côté du miroir, dans un espace-temps suspendu où le futur n’est pas prédéterminé, où les possibles sont le point d’appui.

La manière dont le passé s’est perdu dans le présent, tout en continuant à l’informer, est au coeur de cette exposition. Elle nous invite à revisiter des images qui ont traversé l’histoire, qu’il s’agisse de natures mortes, de scènes de combat ou de mouvements de solidarités populaires – entre autres – pour approcher différemment le présent. Ces images qui ont glissé dans l’oubli, parfois par besoin de survivre, d’autres fois par déracinement, embarras ou mépris, resurgissent tels des fantômes qui hantent le présent et ponctuent nos errances visuelles, chargées d’un sens qui ne nous apparaît plus entièrement.

Notre empathie face aux images est explorée par les artistes dans l'exposition, pour sonder et mettre en perspective les contextes qui fabriquent cette empathie. Il s'agit surtout des médias et des réseaux sociaux, qui font défiler les images à un rythme nous empêchant de saisir la complexité des situations dont elles sont extraites.

Cette réalité met en évidence que notre attirance face aux images circulant autour de nous est ambivalente, guidée par le désir de se relier au monde sans en apprécier nécessairement toutes les facettes. Cela se manifeste dans l’envie de se connecter à un flux d’images pour savoir ce qui se passe autour de nous, tout en ressentant parfois le besoin de détourner notre regard, comme si les situations alors présentées constituaient une menace à notre bonheur. Celles-ci peuvent susciter le trouble ou le besoin d’être face à un répertoire pictural plus apaisant. Et ainsi notre quotidien d’images médiatiques alterne entre stupeur et chatons.

Dans une époque façonnée par la peur et les dérives autoritaires, le passé constitue une piste pour comprendre notre environnement visuel. Alors comment peut-il nous aider à regarder les images qui défilent devant nous ? Et puisque l’exposition revisite le passé pour proposer d’autres regards sur le présent : comment utiliser le pouvoir que l’institution a reçu en héritage pour sortir du motif du vainqueur et donner une place à d'autres généalogies ?

Pause rassemble des oeuvres qui s’appuient, pour certaines, sur des images issues du flux médiatique, glissées dans le quotidien et qui sont parfois difficiles à recevoir, ou qui ne reflètent qu’une partie de l’histoire. 

Oraib Toukan 

Offing, 2021 

Vidéo

Courtesy de l'artiste

L’artiste Oraib Toukan interroge les liens entre images en circulation et réalité de l’expérience, et par conséquent la réalité fabriquée par les médias - une zone de pouvoir à part entière. Elle isole certains aspects du champ de vision en les superposant à des récits vécus, qui révèlent la complexité des ressentis face à l’événement. 

Oraib Toukan est née en 1977. Palestinienne-jordanienne, elle vit et travaille à Berlin. Utilisant la post-production comme médium, Oraib Toukan emploie la photographie, le film, le texte et la parole pour interroger certaines représentations de la violence. En opposant des images tendres et banales à l'horreur dans Offing (2021), ou en rééditant des images d'archives restaurées dans Via Dolorosa (2021), elle interroge : à l'ère où les images de guerre sont immédiatement à portée d'écran, que signifie regarder la douleur à distance ? Oraib Toukan est boursière EUME du Forum Transregionale Studien, Berlin, et a reçu la bourse Clarendon de l'Université d'Oxford, Ruskin School of Art, où elle a obtenu un doctorat en 2019. Elle est l'autrice du livre Sundry Modernism : Materials for a Study of Palestinian Modernism (Sternberg Press, 2017). Jusqu'en 2015, elle a dirigé le programme d’arts et d'études des médias au Bard College Al Quds University (AQB), Palestine. Elle a notamment exposé au KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin, à l'Akademie der Künste, Berlin, au Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, et à la Triennale Asie-Pacifique.

Sven Augustijnen 

L’histoire est simple et édifiante. Une sélection 

d’articles parus dans Paris Match, 

première partie 1960-1972, 2014

Installation 

Courtesy de l'artiste 

L’artiste Sven Augustijnen évoque la présence à travers le monde d’un fusil d’assaut léger fabriqué en Belgique, en étudiant son apparition récurrente dans des conflits couverts par le magazine Paris Match, transposant le conflit dans le salon. 

Sven Augustijnen est né en 1970 à Malines. Il vit et travaille à Bruxelles. Cet artiste explore les frontières du genre documentaire, qu'il réévalue par le biais du storytelling et de l’historiographie. Il est particulièrement intéressé par la manière dont images, histoires et fictions se recoupent pour construire la réalité. Swen Augustijnen a notamment présenté ses oeuvres dans les institutions suivantes : Cultuurcentrum Strombeek Grimbergen (2019), The Hugh Lane, Dublin (2016), Kunsthall Trondheim (2015), VOX, Centre pour l’Image contemporaine, Montréal (2013), Kunsthalle Bern (2011), WIELS, Bruxelles (2011). Citons parmi les expositions de groupe : The Power Plant, Toronto (2015), Gestures and Archives of the Present, Genealogies of the Future, Biennale de Taipei (2016), Europe – The Future of History, Kunsthaus Zürich (2015), Ce qui ne sert pas s’oublie, CAPC, Bordeaux (2015), Enthousiasme ! Rencontres Picha, Biennale de Lubumbashi (2013).

Naeem Mohaiemen 

Two Meetings and a Funeral, 2017 

Film 

Courtesy de l'artiste

Naeem Mohaiemen revient sur l’espoir amené par le congrès d’Alger en 1973 pour penser un ordre mondial qui serait sorti de l’opposition entre les deux blocs et de la domination des Suds par le Nord, espoir envolé en peu de temps, mais dont les images qui suggèrent d’autres possibles nous reviennent comme un rendez- vous manqué, un espoir à ne pas oublier. 

Naeem Mohaiemen est né en 1969 à Londres. Il vit et travaille entre Dhaka et New York. Cet artiste associe films, photographies et essais dans sa pratique qui explore les formes d’utopie - dystopie au sein de cellules familiales, autour des frontières, de l'architecture et des soulèvements populaires – ces derniers prenant leur origine en Asie du Sud et rayonnant ensuite à travers le monde musulman après 1945. En 2006, il a entrepris la réalisation d’une série de films intitulée The Young Man Was, dans lesquels il examine la gauche révolutionnaire comme un cheval de Troie accidentel. Cette série a été réalisée à partir de séquences de films existants, d’images d’archives, de reportages télévisés, d’entretiens et de bandes audio. Le film Two Meetings and a Funeral (2017) issu de cette série a été présenté lors de la documenta 14, ainsi qu’à l’occasion de sa nomination au Turner Prize (2018). Les films de Naeem Mohaiemen figurent dans les collections du Museum of Modern Art (New York), de la Tate Modern (Londres), du MACBA (Barcelone), du Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), du Kiran Nadar Museum (Delhi), de la National Gallery of Singapore et de l'Art Institute of Chicago, entre autres. Naeem Mohaiemen est actuellement professeur à la tête du département de photographie de l'Université de Columbia, New York.

D’autres artistes proposent de reconfigurer le passé pour questionner le présent.

Nidhal Chamekh

Et si Carthage ?, 2023

Encre, mine de plomb sur papier, échafaudage

Courtesy de l'artiste et galerie Selma Feriani, Tunis

Ainsi Nidhal Chamekh reprend des images archéologiques pour interroger ce qui se serait passé si Carthage n’avait pas été détruite. Cette ville cosmopolite faisait tellement peur aux romains qu’ils avaient décidé de recouvrir sa terre de sel, pour être sûrs que rien n’y repousse.

Nidhal Chamekh est né en 1985 à Dahmani, Tunisie. Il vit et travaille entre Tunis et Paris. Nidhal Chamekh est diplômé des Beaux-arts de Tunis et de l'Université de la Sorbonne à Paris. Son oeuvre se situe au croisement du biographique et du politique, du vécu et de l’historique, de l’événement et de l’archive. Elle fragmente, défait et dissèque la constitution de notre identité contemporaine. Ses oeuvres ont été exposées à la 12e édition de la Biennale de photographie de Bamako (2019), à la Biennale de Venise (2015), à la Triennale d'Aïchi (2016), à la Biennale de Yinchuan (2016), au musée Modern Art Oxford (Royaume-Uni), Skissernass Museum (Suède), Dream City Biennial (Tunisie).

Banele Khoza 

Untitled, 2024 

Acrylique sur toile

Courtesy de l'artiste 

Banele Khoza reprend le genre historique de la nature morte pour l’associer à l’amitié. Pourtant ce genre pictural s’est développé sur fond de Contre-Réforme et de déploiement de l’empire colonial hollandais, dont les richesses étaient rassemblées dans les tableaux pour montrer la puissance du pays, tout en rappelant la fragilité de la vie. Là aussi une iconographie classique est réappropriée pour être recontextualisée, associée à d’autres paramètres et connotations, sans oublier le poids du passé – puisque l’Afrique du Sud fut notamment colonisée par les Pays-Bas.

Banele Khoza est né en 1994 à Hlatikulu, Eswatini. Il vit et travaille à Pretoria, Afrique du Sud. Le travail de Banele Khoza se déploie dans les médiums de la peinture et de la lithographie. Inscrit à la London International School of Fashion de Johannesburg, il se rend vite compte de sa passion pour le dessin et finit par obtenir une licence en beaux-arts à l'Université de technologie de Tshwane à Pretoria. En 2017, il remporte le prix Gerard Sekoto et ainsi une résidence de trois mois à la Cité Internationale des Arts à Paris. Fasciné par les fleurs, il a pris pour habitude d'en acheter pour les observer. Il dit que de côtoyer des fleurs coupées lui a appris que « la vie peut vous passer à côté si vous ne prêtez pas attention au moment présent ». L'amitié et les relations humaines sont une des sources d'inspiration de son travail. Ses oeuvres abordent les questions du genre à travers diverses techniques, telles que la lithographie, les encres acryliques et les croquis graphiques, pour créer des images qui s'apparentent à des journaux intimes. En 2022, il a effectué une résidence à Ampersand, New York. Ses récentes expositions personnelles ont notamment eu lieu à la galerie BKhz, Johannesburg (2023), au kunsthaus göttingen (2022) et à la Nil Gallery, Paris (2022). Khoza a également été exposé dans le cadre du Curatorial Lab au Zeitz MOCAA (2018).

Les photographies de Rehaf Al Batniji sortent des représentations habituelles des zones de conflit pour en présenter un aspect plus quotidien, presque banal. Ses images réalisées à Gaza montrent des paysages urbains où la dimension humaine et la poésie resurgissent envers et contre tout, comme un défi lancé à l’histoire tragique qui s’écrit en parallèle.

Rehaf Al Batniji est une artiste palestinienne autodidacte, née à Gaza en 1990. Après trois mois de guerre, elle parvient à quitter Gaza et rejoint la Cité internationale des Arts à Paris en février 2024 où elle réside depuis. Son parcours artistique est ancré dans la photographie de rue, considérant les rues comme des portails pour comprendre les vies, les cultures et les identités des habitants de sa ville. Rejetant la représentation du conflit par une imagerie brutale, elle utilise la couleur comme un outil de résistance pour montrer autrement la vie quotidienne sous occupation. Elle a récemment exposé son travail lors d’expositions collectives à l'Institut du Monde Arabe (Ce que la Palestine apporte au monde), au festival AWAN - Arab Women Artists Now (Londres), à la Fondation Al Qattan et la Fondation Kamel Lazaar (Tunisie), entre autres.

Parce que regarder dans une direction plutôt qu’une autre est un choix qui nous engage, Peter Piller nous rappelle dans sa série "In Löcher Blicken" (Regarder dans les trous), que parfois, dans le doute, nous regardons dans le vide, dans une percée du réel – telle une métaphore du doute visuel, une interrogation pleine d’humour sur notre regard qui continue à chercher des réponses face à l’incertitude.

Peter Piller est né en 1968 à Fritzlar. Il vit et travaille à Hambourg. Grâce à une observation minutieuse et un humour subtil, Peter Piller interroge le potentiel des images issues des médias. Attiré par les photographies apparemment les plus insignifiantes, l'artiste découvre ce « genre » dans la presse locale et construit une archive sans classements hiérarchiques, alphabétiques ou thématiques, et dont les intitulés sont souvent ambigus. Depuis les années 90, il classe ces images venues de contextes aussi différents que des archives d'entreprise, des stocks de l'armée, des journaux locaux, pour les réagencer dans des installations et des livres d'artistes. Peter Piller a exposé récemment à la Kunsthalle Düsseldorf (2023), à la Overbeck Gessellchaft, Lübeck (2022) et au Weserburg Museum, Brême (2021). Aujourd'hui, Peter Piller est professeur de beaux-arts à la Kunstakademie de Düsseldorf.

Directrice du Frac Lorraine et commissaire de l'exposition : Fanny Gonella

49 Nord 6 Est - FRAC LORRAINE

Fonds régional d’art contemporain de Lorraine

1 bis, rue des Trinitaires, 57000 Metz

www.fraclorraine.org