Ocula Conversation Pierre Huyghe: The Artist as Director Pierre Huyghe is a producer of spectacular and memorable enigmas, with works that function more like mirages than as objects. Abyssal Plain (2015–ongoing), his contribution to the 2015 Istanbul Biennial, curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, was installed on the seabed of the Marmara Sea, some 20 metres below the surface of the water and close to...
Ocula Report MoMA Expansion: Once the Modern, Always the Modern 29 Nov 2019 : Mohammad Salemy for Ocula In the early decades of its existence, New York's Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), founded in 1929, transformed from a philanthropic project modestly housed in a few rooms of the Heckscher Building on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, to an alleged operating node in the United States' cultural struggle during the cold war, and one of the...
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...
Abbas Akhavan's practice ranges from site-specific ephemeral installations to drawing, video and performance. The domestic sphere, as a forked space between hospitality and hostility, has been an ongoing area of research in Abbas' work.
Residencies include The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, (USA), Atelier Calder (France); Foundation Marcelino Botin with Mona Hatoum (Spain); Le Printemps de Septembre (France); Trinity Square Video, Western Front, and Fogo Islands (Canada); The Watermill Center (USA); and The Delfina Foundation (Dubai, UAE & London, UK).
Solo exhibitions include cast for a folly, The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco, USA, (2019); Folly, Vie d'ange, Montreal, Canada (2018); variations on a landscape, The Power Plant Contemporary Art Gallery, Toronto, Canada (2018); recently, The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2018); variations on a garden, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin, Ireland (2017); Abbas Akhavan, Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2017); variations on a garden, David Roberts Art Foundation, London, UK (2017); Study for a Curtain The Third Line, Dubai, UAE (2015); variations on a garden, Mercer Union, Toronto, Canada (2013); Study for a Garden, Delfina Foundation, London (2012). Selected group exhibitions include Second Hand, Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE (2019); But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise, Galleria d'Arte Moderna Milano, Milan, Italy (2018); A Poethical Wager, MOCA Cleveland (2017); Disappearing Act, Thames Art Gallery, Toronto Canada (2017); The Uses of Art, SALT Galata, Istanbul, Turkey (2017); Making Nature: How we see animals, Wellcome Collection, London, UK (2016); But a Storm Is Blowing from Paradise, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2016); Common Grounds, Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (2015); Accented, Maraya Art Center, Sharjah, UAE (2015); The politics of food, Delfina Foundation, London, UK (2014); Tactics for Here & Now, Bucharest Biennale, Romania (2012); Tools for Conviviality, Power Plant, Toronto (2012); Beacon, Darling Foundry, Montreal (2012); Seeing is Believing, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2011).
Abbas is the recipient of Kunstpreis Berlin (2012); Abraaj Group Art Prize (2014) and Sobey Art Award (2015). His work has been featured in the Liverpool Biennial (2018); New Orleans Triennial (2017); Sharjah Biennial (2017); Gwangju Biennial (2014); Montreal Biennial (2014); Athens Biennial (2013); and in Performa, New York (2011).
His works can be found in private and public collections around the world, including The Jameel Arts Centre, Dubai, UAE; The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York; the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canada; UBS Investment Bank; The Farook Collection, Dubai, UAE; and Alma Mater Society: University of British Columbia, Canada.
He lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
