The January/February issue of frieze is out now, with a tribute to the late experimental filmmaker Chantal Akerman, a feature revisiting the art and music of Chicago’s black radical tradition and, on the occasion of his retrospective at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, an interview with the American poet and artist John Giorno.
Farewell: An Homage to Chantal Akerman
Following the filmmaker’s death in October 2015, frieze asked nine curators, artists and filmmakers to reflect on what Akerman’s work meant to them: “We can’t get Akerman back, but I am so thankful for what she gave us: deep, patient observation and a tough, curious, intelligence unlike any other.” –Jem Cohen
Watching the Mind: John Giorno
“With Burroughs, it was like getting hit with a baseball bat. Drinking and taking a lot of drugs daily with him for nine months, I got truly radicalized.” To coincide with Ugo Rondinone: I ♥ John Giorno at the Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Andrew Hultkrans talks to poet and performance legend John Giorno about Beat culture, Pop Art, psychedelia and Buddhism—from New York to Darjeeling.
Also featuring:
Ian Bourland takes a fresh look at the black radical tradition in art and music, following the exhibition The Freedom Principle at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Gary Zhexi Zhang explores the online anthropology of Jon Rafman; Jörg Heiser examines repetition and reiteration in a new film by Jay Chung & Q Takeki Maeda; and James Bridle discovers labyrinthine associations and elastic meaning in the work of Heather Phillipson.
Columns & reviews:
Matthew de Abaitua on a new book and exhibition at London’s Whitechapel Gallery about the avant-garde interwar collective Kindred of the Kibbo Kift; Matthew Erickson explores the riotous inventiveness of fluxus artist and musician Takehisa Kosugi at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; Alice Rawsthorn questions the options for customized design in a time of fluid identities; and, in the wake of the Paris attacks, Lauren Elkin ponders the recent expansion of the French capital’s boundaries.
Plus, 34 exhibition reviews from around the world and a questionnaire from artist Judy Chicago, whose retrospective is currently on view at Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, before travelling to CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain de Bordeaux in February.
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frieze video:
Miranda July’s New Society: An interview with the Los Angeles-based artist Miranda July about her most recent performance.
On the blog:
Regular contributors, including Charlie Fox and Timotheus Vermeulen, share their personal cultural highlights of 2015.
More from frieze:
Explore the frieze archive at frieze.com/magazine to find more than 20 years of the best writing on contemporary art and culture.