Ocula Conversation Hito Steyerl: How To Build a Sustainable Art World 'A Picture of War is Not War', we read in Hito Steyerl's iconic film November (2004), an essayistic Super 8 film tackling the definition of terrorism constructed around the figure of the artist's best friend Andrea Wolf, who was killed as a terrorist in 1998 in Eastern Anatolia after she joined the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party). Mixing documentary...
Ocula Report Aichi to Okayama: Art in Japan Looks to the Future 11 Oct 2019 : Stephanie Bailey for Ocula There has been a flurry of triennial and biennial art activity in Japan this year. The Aichi Triennale opened in Nagoya this August, sparking a national debate about the shutting down of a display of formerly censored works—the result of public backlash against a burnt image of Emperor Hirohito and a statue commemorating the women forced into...
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...
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 Photolog Frieze London 2019 3 October 2019 'Frieze London brings together more than 160 galleries from 36 countries, representing the fair's most international edition since its launch. Introducing new curators and sections showcasing performance, emerging artists and the contemporary significance of complex art genealogies and colonial legacies, Frieze London creates an exceptional moment...
Ocula Report Frieze Week Lowdown: London Shows to See 20 Sep 2019 : Tessa Moldan for Ocula London's galleries and museums are gearing up for a lively October, with Frieze London and Frieze Masters running between 3 and 6 October 2019 at Regent's Park, along with 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair, taking place across the same dates at Somerset House; and the tenth anniversary of the Sunday Art Fair, showcasing new and emerging artists...
Ocula Conversation Renee So Renee So's first institutional solo exhibition in Europe, Bellarmines and Bootlegs (8 March–2 June 2019) at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, centres on a long-standing motif in her work: the eponymous Bellarmine—a domestic jug used in the Rhineland in the 16th and 17th centuries to carry wine and beer from barrel to table. Following its...
Ocula Conversation Rana Begum Artist, United Kingdom and Bangladesh Rana Begum, winner of the Abraaj Group Art Prize 2017, is an Anglo-Bangladeshi artist whose conversation with the historical legacy of minimalism is textured by childhood memories of reading the Quran inside a mosque in Bangladesh. Her union of styles and influences, which combine references ranging from Donald Judd and Agnes Martin to Islamic art...
Ocula Conversation Francis Upritchard Artist, New Zealand Francis Upritchard’s artistic lexicon is perhaps best known for her curious, and at times disconcerting, small-scale figurative sculptures which in their fantastical forms also embody a constellation of historical and contemporary references. These figures inhabit a universe whereby imagination and the ancient and contemporary collide....
Ocula Report 'Freedom Farmers' At The Auckland Art Gallery 4 Dec 2013 : Kate Brettkelly-Chalmers for Ocula Occupying the lion’s share of exhibition space at the Auckland Art Gallery, Freedom Farmers is said to be the museum’s largest survey of contemporary art in the last twenty-five years. Curated by the gallery’s own Natasha Conland, the exhibition looks at how the utopian energy of the 1970s is being artistically deployed in...
Ocula Conversation Natasha Conland Curator, Contemporary Art, Auckland Art Gallery Natasha Conland is Curator, Contemporary Art at the Auckland Art Gallery, Auckland, New Zealand. She has curated numerous exhibitions including A Puppet A Pauper A Pirate A Poet A Pawn & A King: From the Naomi Milgrom Art Collection (2013); Made Active: The Chartwell Show (2012); the 4th Auckland Triennial, Last Ride in a Hot Air...
