December 2018 ‘s Picks

Bruno Peinado : From Paris with love, a code and a body for a new form of metaphysics
Porte de Saint-Ouen, Paris (France)

Inaugurated at the end of November within the frame of the “New Patrons” (les Nouveaux commenditaires) protocol and the extension of the T3 tram line in Paris, Bruno Peinado’s From Paris with Love is composed of two ensembles, installed at the crossroads of the 17th and 18th arrondissements, each made of different elements of the urban landscape – road signs, luminescent boxes, pylons – and wind turbines. These elements are transfigured by a play on materials and lights, bright colors, luminous messages in Morse code and the movement of wind blades. The work symbolizes the spirit of the renaissance and the different moods of a neighborhood, of passersby or of hospital visitors, and is a response to the artwork’s sponsor – a group of employees from the Hospital Bichat-Claude Bernard, along with a former patient.

The “New Patrons” allows citizens to take responsibility for the commissioning of artwork by contemporary artists from all disciplines with the support of a cultural mediator licensed by the Fondation de France. Other works are under way in the context of the extension of the T3 tramway line in Paris, including a sculpture by Joana Vasconcelos, Cœur de Paris.

The Nature of Arp
Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (United States)
Through January 6th, 2019

For its exhibition The Nature of Arp, the Nasher Sculpture Center gathered over 80 works by Jean Arp, co-founder of the Dada movement in Zurich in 1916, which deeply questioned artistic conventions at the beginning of the 20th century. Chance and uncertainty are at the core of Jean Arp’s aesthetics. He explores their creative possibilities to negate everything that pertains to tradition and institution and to achieve a creative act closer to that of Nature.

The Nature of Arp presents a selection of his biomorphic sculptures, his dada reliefs – shapes cut out in polychrome wood and assembled to create relief – or his abstract collages, which composition he entrusted to chance. The exhibition also explores the notion of fragmentation, evident in the artist’s work, and offers an exhaustive outlook on his life’s work.

Phyllida Barlow, tilt
Hauser & Wirth, 22nd Street, New York (United States)
Through December 22nd, 2018

Famous for her large-scale sculptures that occupy and transform wide spaces with materials such as cardboard, fabric, Styrofoam or cement, Phyllida Barlow presents her latest work in a new exhibition entitled “tilt” in one of the New York Hauser & Wirth galleries. A shift occurs. The large immersive sculptural installations are associated to autonomous sculptures of smaller scale, thus creating a new experience for the visitor. Through her work, Phyllida Barlow explores the relationship to the sculptural object, something in between bewilderment and fascination.

The artist was commissioned a piece for the High Line in New York that was recently inaugurated. Prop is inspired by a sculpture displayed in front of the British pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale. Prop is a large block of concrete with two circular holes, mounted onto a rudimentary metallic structure. About prop, Phyllida Barlow writes:

“[…] prop is a reminder of what might remain from an industrial past; it is an ambiguous object— although dependent on a hoarding structure, it cannot be that… the existing hoardings visible along the High Line are vast, supported by industrially fabricated structures; prop is a mere shadow of those contemporary monuments; in comparison to them, prop is a frail copy— […]”

Nancy Holt : Holes of Light (1973) and Mirrors of Light I (1974)
Dia:Chelsea, 541 West 22nd Street, New York (United States)
Through March 9th, 2019

Since September, the Dia Foundation is presenting two interior installations by Nancy Holt in her Chelsea space in New York: Holes of Light and Mirrors of Light I – the latter had not been displayed since its first installation in 1974. These two pieces prefigure Sun Tunnels (1976), Nancy Holt’s most famous Land Art installation, located in the Utah desert and purchased by the DIA Foundation at the beginning of 2018. Holt explores the question of perception and point of view, where the spectator stands, the use of the circle as a frame or field of vision and the potential of light as material. Holes of Light – offered by the Holt-Smithson Foundation to DIA at the time Sun Tunnels was purchased – consists for example of a panel with aligned holes; light projects changing shapes onto surrounding walls.

As most artists of her generation, Nancy Holt was extremely critical of galleries and only rarely created interior installations. They all offer a sensory experience that let spectators gain awareness of their surroundings.

Arte Stella
Borgo Valsugana (Italy)

At the end of October, a violent storm destroyed and severely damaged nearly half of the works installed in the Arte Sella sculpture park, located in the Trento Province of Italy, including some that had just been inaugurated in 2018. Among those that were damaged are installations by Michele de Lucchi, Kengo Kuma, Anthony Howe or Dominique Bailly.

Since 1986, this remarkable outdoor art project has produced and presented over 300 works that explore the relationship between humans, art, and nature, and has grown each year with new installations. Nils Udo, Chris Drury, Patrick Dougherty or Michelangelo Pistoletto have collaborated with Arte Sella and created new works there.

To help restore the works and rehabilitate the park and the forest, Arte Sella has launched a fundraiser. Click here to donate.