September’s Picks

Sculpture in the City
London (United Kingdom)
Through April 2019
Every year since 2018, monumental sculptures are displayed throughout the City, in the heart of London, at the foot of famous skyscrapers such as the Gherkin or the Cheesegrater. The urban stroll combines contemporary art and architecture. The 8th edition of the event offers a selection of 19 works by international artists including installations by Tracey Emin, Sean Scully and Sarah Lucas. New this year, the exhibit includes two sound installations that defy the limits of public art. Tree (1972) by Marina Abramovic, installed in a real tree, broadcasts the slightly distorted and repetitive sounds of birdsong. The second sound work, Miroslaw Balka’s The Great Escape, offers several whistled interpretations of the eponymous film’s theme song.

Daniel Buren: Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile
Cowles Pavilion, Minneapolis Sculpture Garden, Minneapolis, Minnesota (United States)
Through October 7^th, 2018
Eighteen brightly striped boat sails are currently displayed in the huge transparent pavilion of the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. This outdoor installation by Buren, invited by The Walker Art Center, is a premiere in the US and is part of the series Voile/Toile – Toile/Voile (1975-2018). This work by Buren is always comprised of two distinct events: a regatta during which the sailboats feature the artist’s signature sails, and an exhibition of the sails after the race. The play on words Voile/Toile emphasizes the dual nature of the striped canvases as both paintings and sails, inserting painting into a discourse of utility, which Daniel Buren holds dear.

Biennale internationale d’art contemporain de Melle (France)
Through September 23^rd, 2018
For the eighth edition of the contemporary art biennial of Melle, curators Chloé Hipeau-Disko and Frédéric Legros have gathered about 30 artistic proposals in several unusual places, populating the city with outdoor artwork. Ghada Amer will present his memorial Love Grave (2003-2018); Yoko Ono will display her installation Riverbed/Stone Piece (2015-2018), for the time outdoors; Gloria Zein will take over the town’s music kiosk with Faire partir l’ombre (2018) and will install a sculpture for the sheep, du vertige de la contingence (2018), in a field. Specifically designed for the biennial and tied to Melle’s minting past, Clemens Botho Goldbach’s 50 Euruin (2018) stands in front the Saint-Hilaire church: two wood sculptures, interpretations of the fictive architectures represented on 50 euro bills.

Autumn (… Nothing Personal), une installation de Teresita Fernández
Tercentenary Theatre, Harvard, Cambridge, Massachusetts (United States)
Through October 1st, 2018
Inaugurated on August 27^th in front of the Tercentenary Theater at Harvard University, Autumn (… nothing Personal) is the second commission for American artist Teresita Fernández, who is best known for her exterior installations that are often inspired by natural phenomena and miracles and tied to colonialism. The artwork refers to the famous 1964 collaborative book Nothing Personal by James Baldwin and Richard Avedon. From late August to early October, dozens of volunteers will take turns reading Baldwin’s essay in public, thus participating to the transformation of the space orchestrated by Teresita Fernández. This area of the campus, where people usually just pass through, becomes a public space for dialogue, discussion, meeting and performing.

Bernar Venet, Rétrospective 2019-1959
MAC – contemporary art museum of Lyon (France)
From September 21^st to January 6^th, 2018
On September 20^th, the MAC – musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (contemporary art museum of Lyon) will inaugurate, with a corpus of 170 artworks, the most exhaustive retrospective ever devoted to French sculptor Bernar Venet. Internationally renowned for his monumental Corten steel sculptures, Venet developed a complex and poetic work in which he combines his practice of sculpture with performance, sound works, painting and drawing. The retrospective, curated by Thierry Raspail, retraces 60 years of creation.