December–January 2012–2013
FEATURE
Art & Catastrophe: Bob Dickinson charts artists’ responses to environmental disasters
In the face of recent devastating environmental catastrophes, many of which are man-made, how have artists, from John Fekner and Alan Sonfist in the 1960s through to contemporaries Paul Chan, Dadang Christanto, Jason deCaires Taylor, Peter Fend and Ichi Ikeda, attempted real-world change through their art?
FEATURE
Imaging China: Is contemporary art from China packaged for Western consumption? asks David Morris
The continuing glut of exhibitions in the West focusing on Chinese contemporary art raises interesting questions: how does the work connect to both the Western canon and traditional Chinese art, and what is its relationship with the Western art market and contemporary China?
FEATURE
Human Nature: Michael Hampton on contrasting views of outdoor art
Recent exhibitions, including Garden of Reason and Wild New Territories, have presented art in pastoral settings. How have artists, such as Gordon Cheung, Alexandre da Cunha, Kathleen Herbert, Alan Kane, Michael Landy, Simon Periton and Daphne Wright, responded to nature and mankind’s determination to shape it?
EDITORIAL
Triple Dip
Chancellor George Osborne singled out the arts for cuts in 2010 and the talk is of more pain to come: abolishing the arts in the school curriculum, local councils cutting arts funding and the return of museum entry charges. With talk of a triple dip in the economy, now is emphatically not the time to cut the arts, which represent one of the success stories of the past decade at a cost of less than 0.05% of government spending.
ARTNOTES
The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is selling off its Henry Moore while another Moore work stands unclaimed outside Parliament; Arts Council England cuts its administrative budget in half; Hurricane Sandy hits Manhattan’s Chelsea galleries; Commissions East closes after 20 years following ACE budget cuts; libraries get ACE funding; the French government cuts its arts budget; Venice Biennale pavilions are swapped around; the Armory art fair is looking for a buyer; a Chinese gallerist is arrested for money laundering; galleries open and close; all the latest news on appointments, events, commissions and more.
PROFILE
Céline Condorelli: Christopher Townsend on an artist of collaboration
Céline Condorelli’s practice is generous in spirit, inviting others to bring the work to completion, whether through its use as prop in a film, inviting viewer’s to connect disparate objects, or a sculpture that solicits book donations to the only public art library in Istanbul.
EXHIBITION REVIEWS
30th São Paulo Biennial: The Imminence of Poetics Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion—Teresa Gleadowe
Materializing ‘Six Years’: Lucy R. Lippard and the emergence of Conceptual Art Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York—Kathy Battista
Mel Bochner: If the Colour Changes Whitechapel Art Gallery, London—Mark Prince
Moral Holiday Northern Gallery of Contemporary Art, Sunderland—Paul Usherwood
Jeff Keen: Shoot the Wrx Brighton Museum and Art Gallery—Morgan Quaintance
Gary Stevens: Now and Again Southampton City Art Gallery— David Trigg
The Tanks: Art in Action Tate Modern, London—Larne Abse Gogarty
Richard Hughes: Where It All Happened Once Tramway, Glasgow—Bryony Bond
Berlin Round-up daadgalerie • Blain|Southern • Plan B • Supportico Lopez • Galerie Buchholz • Johnen Galerie • Hamburger Bahnhof—Martin Herbert
BOOKS
Critical Art Ensemble: Disturbances
Colin Perry on the group whose homebrew laboratory is a site of dissent.
What We Are Fighting For: A Radical Collective Manifesto
John Douglas Millar ponders the future of the Occupy movement.
SOUND
Mark Peter Wright: 30 Minutes of Listening
Cherry Smyth discovers the transformative power of sound.
FILM
Kimi Conrad: Birth & Health
Nicholas Warner watches the art duo’s quotidian feature film.
SYMPOSIUM
Rogue Game
Daniella Rose King encounters a participatory exhibition and symposium.
ZURICH
Home to the Absurd
Aoife Rosenmeyer on the Swiss art scene’s ludicrous political wranglings.
PUBLIC POLICY
Endangered Public Sculptures
Henry Lydiate suggests a legal approach to protecting public artworks.
EXHIBITION LISTINGS
Art Monthly‘s exhibition listings and London gallery map can also be viewed online here.
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