Art Basel
The 16th edition of Art Basel in Miami Beach is coming! Alongside the shows staged in Basel, Switzerland and Hong Kong, it is one the most important annual art fairs offering a comprehensive look at the state of art today. The show starts soon on December 6th, so you better check out what’s worth seeing during these days.
Among the most important art galleries from around the world you will have the chance to see few accents from Central Europe. For example, one of the most influential galleries from Poland, Foksal Gallery Foundation, will participate in the upcoming edition of Art Basel Miami Beach, presenting pieces by Jakub Julian Ziółkowski – a painter, sculptor, and draughtsman, who is also cooperating with Hauser & Wirth (where he currently has a solo exhibition titled ‘Ian Moon’). Ziółkowski conjures an imaginary universe in which phantasmagoric visions appear across diverse media including ceramics, sculptural reliefs and works on canvas. Individually compelling, but seen together, his works create a transgressive mindscape, bristling with narrative and detail.
We are also glad to be there! Contemporary Lynx team will take part in the magazine section at Art Basel Miami Beach – a collective booth where you can grab your own copy of our newest issue.
The New Art Dealers Alliance – NADA (7-10 December) is a non-profit arts organisation supporting new voices in contemporary art. This year the fair shows many artists and galleries from Poland, including Raster Gallery, LETO Gallery, Dawid Radziszewski Gallery and BWA Warszawa.
Warsaw-based gallery Raster presents works by their flagship artists – Rafał Bujnowski, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Przemek Matecki and artists who have had recent exhibitions in the gallery – Michelle Rawlings, and Mika Tajima.
LETO Gallery’s presentation features a trio of artists (Marcin Dudek, Aleksandra Waliszewska and Radek Szlaga) who draw us into the innocent and carefree realm of youth, existing in parallel to a world of violence and taboos. The selected works depict the critical moment when an individual passes from a childhood state into adulthood, as the rebellious struggle on the inside clashes with the call for compliance on the outside. A reflection of the past reveals the trouble with formulating one’s identity while having to take on established roles determined by social norms.
Radek Szlaga, Untitled from the series Deities, 2016, mixed media plastic, wood, courtesy LETO Gallery
Dawid Radziszewski Gallery is presenting an exhibition combining works by Adam Rzepecki – born 1950, a member of an artistic collective Łódź Kaliska, a photographer, performer, and author of installations and videos, and works by Tomasz Kowalski – born 1984, a painter, illustrator, and author of collages, object-machines, installations, and video art.
BWA Warszawa’s show focuses on Karol Radziszewski, an author of films, installations, paintings, and zines relating to the Polish queer community. His project at NADA spans a series of paintings drawn from Radziszewski’s childhood illustrations, serving as a commentary on the political events taking place in Poland at the turn of 1989/1990. The scaled-up drawings have been transferred straight from his sketchbooks onto canvas: the iconic SOLIDARITY symbol, the heroes of those times set within a scene conjured up by the typical juvenile Imaginarium (mermaids, animals and princesses). The paintings are presented alongside works from the AIDS series, inspired by a 1989 collage by Ryszard Kisiel, published in an issue of “Filo” – a gay zine created by him.
Karol Radziszewski, Lech Wałęsa (from the series 1989), 2017, 100×100 cm, acrylic on canvas, courtesy of BWA Warszawa
Another Polish element we can see at the NADA fair is at Antoine Levi Gallery. They will present a double presentation by the British artist Zoe Williams (b. 1983) together with the Polish painter Piotr Makowski (b. 1985).
Piotr Makowski will show a series of works called Neopopavantgarde composed of large-scale paintings performed with coloured inks on unprimed canvases. The artist’s reflection is based upon the international historical avant-garde. The new “Neopopavantgarde” paintings that will be shown at NADA Miami can be read as questioning the nature of painting. This new iconology of abstract painting and its compositions is the result of the artist’s last few years of work, where he has been developing his “visual language” and vocabulary in which he combines the representation of formal aspects of painting with abstraction, linearity, draughtsmanship. Imbued also by strong connotations of self-portrayal, this series of works also reveals the artist’s respectful and fairly acknowledged approach to the matter of painting.
Piotr Makowski, Kompozycja NM 06, 2017, inks on canvas, 200 x 200 cm, unique, courtesy the Artist and Antoine Levi, Paris
Untitled, Art is an international, curated art fair that innovates the standard fair model by selecting a curatorial team to identify and curate a selection of galleries, artist-run exhibition spaces, and non-profit institutions and organisations, in dialogue with an architecturally designed venue. The December edition of Untitled will take place simultaneously alongside other fairs in Miami Beach.
Harlan Levey will be presenting diverse works from Ella Littwitz, Emmanuel Van der Auwera, TR Ericsson and a Polish artist followed by Contemporary Lynx – Marcin Dudek. Contemporary Lynx will also take part at this art fair and we will be distributed among the exhibitor as a special gift from the organisers.
Accompanying events
Tired of fairs? Public institutions, galleries, museums and private galleries in Miami also have prepared many interesting events and exhibitions for art lovers. Try this!
Rubell Family Collection / Contemporary Arts Foundation have prepared a special exhibition “STILL HUMAN” opening on December 6th which confronts the complex consequences of the digital revolution and recent technological developments as they redefine the human condition. Twenty-five artists working across a range of mediums address concerns related to artificial intelligence, biotechnology, bioethics, planned obsolescence, desire as mediated by technology, surveillance, social justice, and virtual existence.
Mika Rottenberg, Cosmic Generator, 2017. Video and sculptural installation. Dimensions variable. Duration 26 minutes, 37 seconds. 6 variants, 1AP. © Mika Rottenberg
Simultaneously they have an exhibition in Washington – called “NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection”. It focuses on and celebrates works made by more than a hundred female artists of different generations, cultures and disciplines. Works by Aneta Grzeszykowska feature in their stunning collection.
On the other hand in Miami Pérez Art Museum presents an installation with a subject relating to the main theme of the latest issue of Contemporary Lynx Magazine – contemporary migration and nomadism. Hew Locke’s installation “Those in Peril on the Sea 2” (2011) consists of dozens of scaled-down replicas of ships suspended from the ceiling. The piece of art creates the impression of a mass exodus taking place throughout the architectural space above the viewer. With its significant links to the South Florida community, this installation, part of Pérez Art Museum Miami’s permanent collection, promises a powerful experience for visitors.
Also highly recommended in the museum is a video installation by Steve McQueen – film director, producer, screenwriter, and video artist, whose work focuses on historical narratives, politics, race, and other themes concerning a deep social consciousness. In the video End Credits, McQueen pays homage to the African American singer, actor, and Civil Rights activist Paul Robeson (1898–1976).
It is also worth having a look at the classicists of American modernity. “Pop Art Prints” in Lowe Art Museum presents a selection of thirty-seven prints from the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s permanent collection by Allan D’Arcangelo, Jim Dine, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Roy Lichtenstein, Claes Oldenburg, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Andy Warhol and Tom Wesselmann.
During-installation-of-Ugo-Rondinone’s-Miami Mountain, 2016. Photo © Jorge Graupera, 2016. Courtesy of J. G. Films and The Bass, Miami Beach.
The Bass is Miami Beach’s contemporary art museum focusing on exhibitions of international contemporary art, seeking to expand the interpretation of art by incorporating disciplines of contemporary culture, such as design, fashion and architecture, into the exhibition programme.
Contemporary Lynx recommends two exhibitions in The Bass – Mika Rottenberg’s self-titled solo show which presents a selection of work focused on elucidating the mechanics of late-stage, global capitalism by way of absurd and poetic comparisons; and an exhibition entitled “good evening beautiful blue” by Ugo Rondinone, which is part of a major multi-institutional retrospective comprising works that span three decades of the artist’s practice, from the late 1990s to the present day.
See you in Miami this week!
Mika Rottenberg. Image courtesy Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York
