Urgency to preserve our common goods, a critical look at history and its heritage, futuristic scenarios integrating all living things; the international artistic community opens as many doors as necessary to find a new way of inhabiting the earth, and sharing its equitably between humans and non-humans.
The routes of this cultural change stretch from Finland to Slovenia, via the United States and Jordan, before zooming in on France, in our next issue…
The sea, a common good in turmoil
The first Helsinki Biennale will be held on the island of Vallisaari from June 12 under the title “The Same Sea“. The island dimension will be explored there as a metaphor for a fragile world and will question the sea as a common good, around works by both Finnish and international artists such as Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Katharina Grosse, Gustafsson & Haapoja and Tadashi Kawamata. The Arctic Ocean and its flow are the subject of many explorations by artist Julian Charrière, retraced since May 2 in his exhibition Towards No Earthly Pole at the Dallas Museum of Art in the United States. The warmer seas, another concern with their links to global warming, unite Swiss artist Claudia Comte and her accomplices at TBA21. The artist focuses on the complexity of corals in a sculptural exhibition entitled After Nature, running from May 11 at the Thyssen-Bornemisza National Museum in Madrid.
Decolonial ecology, a new approach in art
Thinking about decolonial and environmental issues together is imperative if we are to truly integrate both biological and social diversity and explore other narratives than those of “white ecology”. The Postcolonial Ecologies exhibition currently underway in Darat al Funun (Khalid Shoman Foundation), Jordan, focuses on colonial practices and the impact of extractive economies on the natural environments of indigenous peoples and on endemic ecosystems. This approach, inspired by Frantz Fanon, brings together artists such as Ali Jabri, Ahmad Nawash, Amal Kenawy, Asunción Molinos Gordo, Gouider Triki, Jananne Al-Ani, and Jumana Emil Abboud.
The questioning of post-colonial culture and unequal globalization is also found in the work of Yinka Shonibare CBE, one of the artists most necessary to the evolution of consciousness. His new solo exhibition End of Empire at the Salzburg Museum in Austria brings together some sixty works, including monumental sculptures.
Credits: Ditto Ditto, Precious Okoyomon, exhibition Sun Rise | Sun Set, Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin, Germany, 2020 ©Malina Heinemann / Yinka Shonibare CBE, End of Empire, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, 2021 ©Rainer Iglar
The latest winner of the Frieze Artist Award, Precious Okoyomon, is part of this process through a natural world perceived as an object of colonization and enslavement. A careful selection of invasive and endemic plants from the Colorado region will invade and transform the rooftop terrace of the Aspen Art Museum, starting June 10.
Imagination, a necessity for a sustainable future
Allora & Calzadilla, Marcus Coates and Marjetica Potrč are among the thirty artists in residency at the EKO8 International Triennial of Art and the Environment, which takes place until July 18 in the former Maribor textile factory in Melje, Slovenia. Under the title “A Letter to the Future“, the Triennale intends to offer new stories in the time of the climate crisis, question the industrial past of the site and learn from the native peoples.
The Sun Rise | Sun Set exhibition is a project that seeks to harness the power of the imagination into a possible new world, bringing contemporary artists and artists from the 19th century together (Monira Al Qadiri, Max Ernst, Max Hooper Schneider, Pierre Huyghe, Emma Kunz, Neri Oxman, Rachel Rose, Torbjørn Rødland…). Through surreal landscapes and futuristic scenarios,the exhibition creates the experience of another greener world, a masterful and inspiring journey, curated by Nina Pohl and Agnes Gryczkowska, at the Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin until July 25, 2021.
Alice Audouin et Céline Chiasera
Helsinki Biennale, The Same Sea, Vallisaari, Finland, from 12 June 2021 to 26 September 2021
Concentrations 63: Julian Charrière, Towards No Earthly Pole, Dallas Museum of Art, USA, from 2 May 2021 to 8 August 2021
After Nature, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain, from 11 May 2021 to 22 August 2021
Postcolonial Ecologies, Darat al Funun – Fondation Khalid Shoman, Jordanie, from 9 March 2021 to 30 September 2021
Yinka Shonibare CBE End of Empire, Museum der Moderne, Salzburg, Germany, from 22 May 2021 to 21 September 2021
Precious Okoyomon, Aspen Art Museum, Colorado, USA, from 10 June 2021 to 16 October 2021
EKO 8, International Triennial of Art and Environment / A Letter to the Future, Former Maribor Textile Factory, Ulica heroja Šaranoviča, Melje, Slovenia, from 21 May 2021 to 18 July 2021
Sun Rise | Sun Set, Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany, from 27 February 2021 to 25 July 2021
May 2021
Credits: Henri Rousseau, La Belle et la Bête, exposition Sun Rise | Sun Set, , Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany, 2020 ©Andrea Rossetti / Claudia Comte, Underwater Cacti Series, Port Antonio, Jamaïca, 2019 ©F-StopMovies
Find all the articles from Impact Art News n°30 – May 2021
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