Ocula Report Havana Biennial 2019: Constructing the Possible 17 Apr 2019 : Federica Bueti for Ocula I first visited Havana in November 2016, a few days after Fidel Castro died, and just under a year before Hurricane Irma hit Cuba in September 2017. Since then, much has changed, including the hand-painted signs that punctuate the journey from the airport to the city centre, which today do not celebrate the revolution so much as the 'Unidad y...
Ocula Conversation Andrew Stahl and Guo Xiaohui The exhibition Beyond Boundaries at Somerset House in London (12 March–2 April 2019) marked the historic contributions of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (CAFA) and the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London, on the occasion of their 100th and 150th anniversaries, respectively. Spread across several rooms of Somerset House's...
Ocula Report The National 2019: New Australian Art 13 Apr 2019 : Elyse Goldfinch for Ocula The National 2019: New Australian Art features work by 70 contemporary Australia-based artists split across three venues: the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) (29 March–21 July 2019), as curated by Isobel Parker Philip, curator of photographs at AGNSW; Daniel Mudie Cunningham,...
Since the early eighties Joep van Lieshout produces objects in mainly bright coloured polyester, the material that would become his trademark in subsequent years. In 1995 he founded Atelier Van Lieshout (AVL), undermining the myth of the individual artistic genius. Atelier Van Lieshout has attained international recognition for objects that balance on the boundary between art, architecture and design. These works of art are practical, uncomplicated and substantial. Recurring themes in the work of AVL are autarky, power, politics and the more classical themes of life and death.
One of the most known projects is AVL-Ville, 2001, the cultural freestate in the harbor of Rotterdam. Although only existing for less than a year of this 'new city' a lot of visitors, professional or recreational, were inspired. After that Atelier Van Lieshout realised a number of large autonomic art projects like the large scaffolding installation Sportopia, 2002, the large biogas installation Technocrat, 2003–2004, and the dystopian city SlaveCity, 2005–2009, and the large recycling installation Cradle to Cradle, 2009–2010.
Related Press Atelier Van Lieshout’s Doomsday Devices Take Us Back to the Industrial Revolution Frieze : 8 March 2019 Joep Van Lieshout is a highly unreasonable artist. That, at any rate, was the verdict of the Louvre, which abruptly pulled one of his sculptures from a planned installation in the Jardin des Tuileries in 2017. It was easy to see why: the huge structure, entitled Domestikator, suggested an agricultural shed that had, Transformer-like, assumed the...
