Ocula Conversation Jess Johnson: Worlds Within Worlds Geometric patterns, anthropomorphic characters, architectural spatial environments, and relics of the ancient world appear throughout Jess Johnson's artworks.Johnson's solo art-ventures began in drawing, but her long-term collaborative relationship with animator Simon Ward brings her drawings to life in videos and virtual reality. The animator has...
Ocula Conversation Melati Suryodarmo: Performance Art as Trigger In 2012, Melati Suryodarmo opened Studio Plesungan in her native Surakarta, also known as Solo, the historic royal capital of the Mataram Empire of Java in Indonesia. Suryodarmo had returned to Indonesia from Germany, where she studied Butoh and choreography with Butoh dancer and choreographer Anzu Furukawa, time-based media with avantgarde...
Ocula Report Lagos Biennial 2019: Stories from Africa’s most Populous City 15 Nov 2019 : Jareh Das for Ocula Under the direction of Folakunle Oshun, the second edition of the Lagos Biennial (26 October–23 November 2019) includes works by over 40 Lagos-based and international artists, architects, and collectives. Curated by architect Tosin Oshinowo, curator and producer Oyindamola Fakeye, and assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute of...
Ocula Insight | Video 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...
GALERIE GMURZYNSKA is an international art gallery with locations in Zurich, Zug and St. Moritz, Switzerland, that specialises in modern and contemporary art as well as Russian avant-garde.
The gallery was founded in 1965 in Cologne, Germany by Antonina Gmurzynska. From the beginning, the gallery was interested in organising exhibitions that had a documentary character both through the choice of themes and through its publications.
In 1996 Mathias Rastorfer became a partner of both extensions of the gallery, having been with it since 1991 when he left his position as Associate Director at Pace Gallery in New York. Under his influence and in addition to the gallery’s traditional repertoire, the work of contemporary artists such as Donald Judd, Louise Nevelson and Yves Klein amongst others, was incorporated. Ten years later the gallery opened its third branch in St. Moritz at Via Serlas, in 2003.
Forty years after its establishment, Krystyna Gmurzynska and Mathias Rastorfer relocated the gallery from Cologne to its new flagship location in Zurich’s Paradeplatz in 2005. The building that currently houses the gallery dates back to 1857 and it is the same building in which the Dada movement was founded in 1917. The first exhibition in Zurich was a solo exhibition by Alexander Calder entitled, The Modernist, that was thoroughly endorsed by the Calder Foundation, which described it is as, 'rare to experience a presentation of this quality outside of a museum'. As with each exhibition at the gallery the show featured a fully illustrated catalogue with important essays.
Galerie Gmurzynska continues to present unique exhibitions that are both historically well researched and scientifically documented. It also continues to work with leading art historians as well as collaborating with museums on exhibitions and for the enlargement of their permanent collections. Additionally, it currently participates in several art fairs such as Art Basel Miami Beach, Art Basel Hong Kong, Frieze Masters in London, Salon in New York and Art Basel, Switzerland. In the past it has taken part in FIAC, Abu Dhabi and PAD New York.
Both Krystyna Gmurzynska and Mathias Rastorfer were awarded the Chevalier des Art et des Lettres by the French Minister of Culture. Krystyna Gmurzynska was the first foreigner to receive the merit for special achievements by Michael Shvydkoy, the Russian Minister of Culture, recognising her 'important contribution to scientific research, and for the organisation of exhibitions in the field of Russian art of the 20th century.'
Ocula Photolog FIAC, Paris 2019 17 October 2019 'FIAC brings together 197 galleries from 29 countries. Coming together from all over the world, the diversity of FIAC's exhibitors and their loyalty year after year reflects the magnetic attraction of Paris in theinternational creative community.' – FIAC Paris, Press Release.
Ocula Insight | Video Frieze Sculpture 2019: See the Contemporary Art in London’s Regent's Park 13 August 2019 For three months, Frieze Sculpture (3 July–6 October) transforms Regent's Park, London, into an open gallery with sculptures by artists from all over the world. This year's edition is again curated by Clare Lilley, director of programme at Yorkshire Sculpture Park since 1992 and curator of Frieze Sculpture since 2012. This video, created for...
Ocula Photolog TEFAF New York Spring 2019 6 May 2019 'The Fair's timing in early May is intended to coincide with auctions, exhibitions, and other fairs in New York dedicated to modern and contemporary art and design. The historic Park Avenue Armory provides the prime Manhattan location and setting for the world's leading art dealers to meet with curators and collectors.' –TEFAF New York Spring,...
Ocula Photolog Art Basel in Hong Kong 2019 31 March 2019 'Art Basel reinforces its ongoing commitment to showcasing exceptional art from Asia and the Asia Pacific, with over half of the participating galleries having exhibition spaces in the region. The main sector of the show features 196 of the world's leading galleries presenting the highest quality of painting, sculpture, drawings, installation,...
Related Press How Surrealism’s Playful Aesthetic Was Deeply Political Hyperallergic : 16 September 2019 Susan Laxton's book Surrealism at Play passionately traces how a particular art movement envisioned and articulated its own transformative potential. As Laxton illustrates, the Surrealists agitated for exploding art into life, which meant engaging with their day-to-day reality, and taking a critical stance toward it. A professor of art history at...
Related Press Will the Real Tom Wesselmann Please Stand Up? Frieze : 13 August 2019 Who is Slim Stealingworth? He wrote an 80-page essay for a Tom Wesselmann monograph in 1980. He also penned various catalogue essays for Wesselmann until 2002, two years before the American pop artist's death. 'Many of these earliest works began with finding a piece of wood that seemed special,' Stealingworth notes about Wesselmann's process.
Related Press Exposing Ghosts of the Past, Michael Rakowitz Pulls Back the Curtain Hyperallergic : 13 August 2019 LONDON — Following Baghdad's fall to US troops in 2003, more than 15,000 artifacts were looted from the National Museum of Iraq by thieves. The presence of ISIS went on to facilitate further destruction of ancient culture in the country, yet looting and pillaging in Iraq is nothing new. Western archaeologists have been laying their claim over...
Related Press ‘Drawing in space’ – the ingenious structures of David Smith Apollo : 17 July 2019 'Sculpture,' wrote David Smith in 1951, 'is as free as the mind; as complex as life'. That freedom and complexity is on full display in this exhilarating show of more than 40 pieces by the artist generally regarded as the dominant sculptor of Abstract Expressionism. Ranging across three decades, it traces Smith's development, from early wooden...
