Douglas Gordon at Giacometti Foundation, Paris

Douglas Gordon’s solo exhibition ‘The Morning After’ is on show at Giacometti Foundation in Paris, France. The Giacometti Institute gives carte blanche to the contemporary artist Douglas Gordon. His work on the distortion of time and the tension between opposite forces (life and death, good and evil, blessed and damned, captive or free, etc.) share common ground with Giacometti’s questioning on the human condition. Taking hold of the characteristics of the domestic space occupied by the Giacometti Institute, Douglas Gordon imagines a dialogue between his work and Giacometti’s work. For the occasion, the artist has made a series of original works never exhibited before that will be presented with some sculptures and drawings by Giacometti that are little-known or have never been shown previously in public. April 24 – June 21, 2020.

Simon Fujiwara at Calouste Gulbenkain Museum, Lisbon

Simon Fujiwaras’s works ‘New Pompidou’ (2014) and ‘Rebekkah’ (2012) are on show at the group exhibition ‘Infinite Sculpture. From the Antique Cast to the 3D Scan’ at Calouste Gulbenkain Museum in Lisbon, Portugal. This exhibition brings together sculptures by contemporary artists and casts from the collection of the Faculty of Fine Arts of Lisbon, analysing the relevance of the casting technique in current artistic practices and exploring its infinite possibilities. Casting has been a way to make copies from other artworks, from life, from nature, from buildings, in the past and in the present. Casting in plaster still happens, but the exhibition has many more modern technologies on show, including 3D printing. April 24 – September 07, 2020.

Shilpa Gupta at Ala Scaligera, Isole Borromee

The group exhibition ‘Fantastic Utopias’ displays art work by Shilpa Gupta at Ala Scaligera at the Rocca di Angera on Isole Borromee, Italy. On display are the works of 15 international artists who, in their diversity, give rise to unexpected and perhaps even magical images and objects, both seductive and frightening at the same time, able to take us to alternative universes far removed from verosimilitude. The fantastic, relegated to the world of childhood ever since the 19th century, has become the means to break with conventions and imagine what seems impossible and unknown. Each of these works uses the fantastic to talk of fantastic utopias into which society and its idiosyncrasies are transformed. These artists testify to how imagining an alternative reality offers the first step towards reaching it. The exhibition has come about from the premise that in our post-real world, in which conflicts and political and environmental crises seem to follow each other in rapid succession, the fantastic and its representations have returned to being at the centre of contemporary reflections. Phenomena and trends such as the worldwide success of Harry Potter, the Oscar for the film The Shape of Water (2017) or TV’s obsession with Game of Thrones (2011–2019) are the proof of this. With the aim of escaping reality, we dream of being surrounded by magical creatures, we live thinking about monsters and battles between dystopian worlds, as though the secularisation of society were to lead to the need to imagine ourselves in other worlds. In collaboration with Galleria Continua.  April 20 – September 27, 2020.

Douglas Gordon at Dundee Contemporary Arts

Douglas Gordons solo exhibition ‘k.364’ is on view at Dundee Contemporary Art in Dundee, Scotland. This exhibition focuses on Gordon’s major film installation ‘k.364‘ and marks the premiere of this work in a public gallery in the UK. The film features two Israeli musicians of Polish descent (Avri Levitan and Roi Shiloah) traveling to Poland from Berlin by train. Shown on multiple screens and with layered audio, the film follows the two men through a desolate landscape in a country whose tragic and violent history is barely resolved for them. Gordon films the musicians on this personal journey, isolating intimate moments when their passionate love of music seems to move between them. Leaving Berlin, they first travel through Poznań, home of the celebrated Amadeus Chamber Orchestra. The journey concludes with the musicians’ performance, at the Warsaw Philharmonic concert hall, of Mozart’s Sinfonia Concertante in E-flat major (also known as Mozart’s Köchel Composition k.364, from which the title of this piece is derived). This work is an intimate document of the relationship between individuals and the power of music, against the subtly drawn backdrop of a dark and unresolved social history. April 11 – July 19, 2020.

Thomas Hirschorn at Espace culturel associatif de la Mairie de Saint-Chamand, Avignon

Thomas Hirschhorn’s solo exhibition ‘20 ans ‘Deleuze Monument” is on show at Espace culturel associatif de la Mairie de Saint-Chamand in Avignon, France. April 4 – June 30, 2020.

Adel Abdessemed at Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris

Adel Abdessemed is part of the exhibition ‘Crossing views’ at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris that is presented parallel to a retrospective of Cindy Sherman. ‘Crossing Views’ displays a selection of works from the Fondation’s Collection which was chosen in collaboration with Cindy Sherman. Echoing her work, the exhibition is centered on the theme of the portrait and its interpretation through different approaches and media: painting, photography, sculpture, video and installation. The exhibition brings together around twenty French and international artists, of different generations and backgrounds. It includes around sixty works, many of which have previously never been on display at the Fondation. April 2 – August 31, 2020.

Douglas Gordon and Lawrence Weiner at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin

Douglas Gordon and Lawrence Weiner are part of the group exhibition ‘Magical Soup’ at Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin. The group exhibition explores social, political, spatial, bodily and imaginary borders. Music and sounds make up a combined point of departure for the works of media art, installations and works on paper featured in the exhibition, ranging from the 1970s through to the present day. April 2 -August 16, 2020.

Naama Tsabar at High Line, New York City

Naama Tsabar takes part in the group exhibition ‘The Musical Brain’ at various locations on the High Line in New York City, US. The exhibition reflects on the power music has to bring us together. It is named after a short story by the Argentine contemporary writer César Aira, and explores the ways that artists use music as a tool to inhabit and understand the world. The featured artists approach music through different lenses—historical, political, performative, and playful—to create new installations and soundscapes installed throughout the park. Traditionally, music is thought of as an art form we construct ourselves. With different organizing rules, instruments, and traditions across cultures, music has underpinned essential collective moments in societies for as long as we know. But music is also the way that we hear the world around us. Often used to described nature (wind whistling through trees), the cosmos (in the Music of the Spheres, or musica universalis), and even the built industrial environment (the rhythmic lull of a train car), music is the order we project onto a cacophonous world. Humans seek order and patterns but also relish chaos and noise; in many ways, music becomes the way that we can experience both at the same time. The artists in this exhibition listen closely to the sonic world and explore the different temporal, sculptural, social, and historical dimensions of the ways we make music, and the ways we listen. They wonder what stories discarded objects tell when played, what happens when a railway spike becomes a bell, and how the youth of our generation sing out warnings to save our planet. They remind us that music is a powerful tool for communication, especially in times when spoken language fails us. The sonic brings us together to celebrate, protest, mark the passage of time, and simply be together. For the High Line, Naama Tsabar makes a metronome installed on a stone pedestal. The work was inspired by contemporary conversations around the removal of confederate monuments, but goes further to explore the shifting relationship between history and time. In her work, Tsabar ignites the push-and-pull between static sculptures and the time-based performances and experiences that bring them alive. Opening: April 2020.

Thomas Hirschhorn at École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence

Thomas Hirschhorn is giving a lecture on ‘Destruction in Contemporary Art’ at a conference at École supérieure d’art d’Aix-en-Provence, France. March 31, 2020, 2pm.

Thomas Hirschhorn at RMIT Gallery, Melbourne

Thomas Hirschhorn is part of the group exhibition ‘ The Image Looks Back’ at RMIT Gallery in Melbourne, Australia. In an era of post truth, fake news, and manipulated images, ‘The Image Looks Back’ explores the reconfiguration of photography, asking how notions of visual truth and human experience are shaped by new technologies of vision. If the photograph has conventionally been understood as a record or memory of the world, what happens when the image looks back? March 27 – May 16, 2020.