Ocula Conversation Sandrine Colard on the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the largest Francophone nation in Africa with vast resources and nearly 80 million inhabitants, is a place where commodities play a vital role in the national economy and the country's significance on the world stage. This is the context from which the 6th Lubumbashi Biennale (24 October–24 November...
Ocula Report From 20 to 21 July 2019, Artspace Sydney held a two-day symposium that brought artists in conversation with leading curators, writers, activists, academics, diplomats, and journalists from across Asia. The symposium was the final chapter of the 52 ARTISTS 52 ACTIONS exhibition, publication, website, and Instagram project. Instigated and...
Ocula News U.K. Election Artist Nicky Hirst Reflects on ‘Fractured and Febrile’ Campaign 13 December 2019 'Seeing the democratic electoral process in action has made me thankful for our system but even more thankful that I am an artist and not a politician,' Hirst said. Boris Johnson's Conservative Party won an overwhelming majority in yesterday's U.K. General Election despite the efforts of artists such as Anish Kapoor and Antony Gormley , who...
Ocula Insight Hans Hartung and Art Informel at Mazzoleni London (1 October 2019-18 January 2020) presents key works by the French-German painter while highlighting his connection with artists active in Paris during the 50s and 60s. In this video, writer and historian Alan Montgomery discusses Hartung's practice and its legacy. Born in Leipzig in 1904, Hans...
Barakat Contemporary is Barakat Gallery's new space devoted to contemporary art.
Read MoreBarakat Contemporary will continue to explore the points of contact and conflict among diverse cultures through Barakat Gallery’s extensive collection and archives encompassing the humanities and anthropology and will actively implement research-based projects. In collaboration with artists who cross-cross the humanity and civilizations, Barakat Contemporary will showcase exhibitions that open up new horizons for contemporary art and will introduce internationally noteworthy artists, thus supporting artists’ long-term growth.
Barakat Contemporary will produce knowledge and discourse and lead the art scene by not only planning professional exhibitions but also creating arenas for exchange with experts from various fields.
Ocula Report 58th Venice Biennale: May You Live In Interesting Times 24 May 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula The 58th Venice Biennale , May You Live In Interesting Times (11 May–24 November 2019), certainly benefitted from low expectations, given the lacklustre curatorial of the previous edition, when different segments of the show were conceptually framed with titles like 'Pavilion of Joys and Fears' and 'Pavilion of Colours'. Add to this the...
Ocula Report Gwangju Biennale: Imagined Borders 20 Sep 2018 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula 'I have felt persecuted for weeks by this same asphyxiating dream.' So narrates the forlorn Portuguese speaker in Kiluanji Kia Henda's film, Concrete Affection – Zopo Lady (2014), as city scenes and modernist buildings in Luanda flit past the camera's lens. The narration is pulled from Another Day of Life (1971), Polish writer Ryszard...
Ocula Report 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London 27 Oct 2017 : Amina Diab for Ocula Visitors arriving in the courtyard of Somerset House for 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair (5–8 October 2017) were greeted by a large work by Pascale Marthine Tayou entitled Summer Surprise (2017). In this site-specific installation, wooden spears crisscrossed by colourful cobblestones made up a structure that sat atop the Edmond J. Safra...
Ocula Report Sydney Summer Report 12 Jan 2016 : Rachel Fuller for Ocula When Silence Falls Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney 19 December 2015 - 1 May 2016 Currently showing in the contemporary galleries of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, When Silence Falls is a collection-based, group exhibition curated by AGNSW curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art, Cara Pinchbeck....
Related Press Museum of Fine Arts, Houston Announces 7 Site-Specific Installations The New York Times : 5 December 2019 The artists are El Anatsui, Byung Hoon Choi, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Olafur Eliasson, Trenton Doyle Hancock, Cristina Iglesias and Ai Weiwei, and they were commissioned to create a mix of sculptures, light installations and suspended artworks for the 14-acre premises, known as the Susan and Fayez S. Sarofim Campus.
Related Press Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell: The Art of Marriage The Brooklyn Rail : 28 November 2019 The cover photograph for the informative catalogue that accompanies this dazzling show was taken by Hans Namuth and catches Robert Motherwell and Helen Frankenthaler at their wedding lunch on April 6, 1958. Her look is all love; Motherwell, averting his gaze from Namuth, has a vacant, slightly ironic expression. Was it because he'd already been...
Related Press What to look for at Frieze London The Guardian : 2 October 2019 Modernist architecture is still a big focus for artists – as long as its Eurocentric and male-dominated history can be rewritten while its buildings are celebrated. Frieze Live is one of the fair's main curated sections, and this year it features British artist Shezad Dawood's performance piece. Dawood's work draws on the work of Bangladeshi...
Related Press The Art Newspaper's pick of the 2019 Venice Biennale The Art Newspaper : 30 April 2019 There are hundreds of exhibitions in Venice during the Biennale. Alongside the main exhibition in the Giardini and Arsenale, there are 90 national presentations, many in nearby pavilions in the Giardini and in spaces around the Arsenale, but also dotted throughout Venice. Then there are the official collateral exhibitions in museums and galleries,...
Related Video & Audio El Anatsui: ‘The golden rule is, there are no rules’ Art Basel : 7 June 2019 El Anatsui has carved a name for himself with his monumental hanging sculptures made with recycled metal scraps. As imposing and spectacular as they are fragile and portable, these works have been exhibited in some of the world's most prestigious institutions, most recently at Munich's Haus der Kunst and in the Venice Biennale's first Ghana...
