Tel Aviv Art Guide - July

July is not the peak of our Israeli summer but temperatures can get quite high and so this month’s recommendations are all about museums. Chilled and quiet, they might be the best way to pass your days. 
 
  
Exhibition title: Woven and Untangled - New Video Works in the Museum Collection
Artist/s: Group exhibition
Venue: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Helena Rubinstein Pavillon
Dates: Until 28 October 2017 

The Helena Rubinstein Pavilion is one of the most beautiful Modern buildings in Tel Aviv, having the ability to change itself completely for each exhibition. This time it has been turned into a cinema hall for presenting a Video Art only show. This exhibition is a great way of get acquainted with young Israeli Video Art, dealing with various political issues such as gender, immigration tensioned histories and more. 
 

Mika Hazan Bloom at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

Exhibition title: The Kids Want Communism 
Artist/s: Max Epstein, Toy Boy, Jonathan Gold, Tal Gafni, Matti Lahat
Venue: Moby Museum of Bat Yam
Dates: From 22 June, 2017  

This is part three of a trilogy dedicated to the communist manifest published 99 years ago. Socialist questions are rising up again due to difficult economic atmosphere in Israel and around the globe. It is fascinating to see how young multi-disciplinary artists react to this situation.    

Tamar Nissim at MoBY

Exhibition title: Escape Room
Artists: Shahar Afek, Dorian Gottlieb, Eden Hevroni, Efrat Hakimi, Niv Cohen, Gili Lavy, Dor Zlekha Levy, Guy Nissenhaus, Chen Serfaty, Tal Rosen, Iris Chetritt
Venue: Nahum Gutman Museum
Dates: Until 2 September, 2017


This great exhibition portrays the works of some of Israel art scene’s intriguing new voices. Inspired by popular Escape Room games every work in the show functions as a clue and the whole exhibition is a quest to be solved by the viewers. If you get to the museum, don’t skip Gutman’s paintings exhibited in the second floor.   

Tal Rosen, 'When we strike roots', Nahum Gutman Museum


Header Image: The Kids Want Communism - MoBY, Bat Yam

- by Shani Werner (Talking Art)

San Francisco Art Guide - June - July

These are some of the top Gallery and Museum shows that I highly recommend this Summer in San Francisco.


I.
Exhibition title: Here and Home
Artist: Larry Sultan
Venue: SFMOMA
Dates: Until 23 July, 2017


This major retrospective of Larry Sultan (American, 1946–2009) Here and Home, examines the work and 35-year career of the internationally renowned photographer.  The exhibition includes more than 200 photographs, a billboard created with conceptual artist and frequent collaborator Mike Mandel, a film, as well as "Study Hall" — a room offering a unique glimpse into Sultan’s exploratory process. Sultan’s often intensely personal images — many drawn from his own family’s history — blend documentary and staged elements in their explorations of storytelling, family, and domesticity. Sultan had deep ties to the Bay Area as both an artist and an educator.

II.
Exhibition title: Soundsuits
Artist: Nick Cave
Venue: Anderson Collection at Stanford University
Dates: Until 14 August, 2017


Interdisciplinary artist Nick Cave (American, b. 1959) challenges conventions on what it means to be a visual artist, a performer, a crafter, and an educator. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, which are full-body sized sculptures, often worn as costumes and performed in and conceal the wearer’s identity leaving the viewer with no indication of race, gender, or age. Cave's Soundsuits are made of everything from collected and repurposed buttons, to wooden sticks, beaded baskets, doilies and sequined fabric. While seeing Cave's exhibition you can also have a look at the fabulous Anderson Collection upstairs. 

III.
Exhibition title: Order of Appearance
Artist: Jim Jocoy
Venue:  Casemore Kirkeby @ Minnesota Street Project  
Dates: 16 June - 29 July


One of my favorite art galleries in San Francisco, Casemore Kirkeby will be presenting Jim Jocoy: Order of Appearance.  Jim Joyce (Korean, b. 1952) was born in South Korea to his Korean mother and American Father.  Moving to Sunnyvale in 1969 with his family, in 1976, at the start of the San Francisco punk scene, Jocoy became a student at UC Santa Cruz. The exhibition is an intimate and revealing selection of images embracing the burgeoning San Francisco punk club scene from 1977-1980. The opening will take place June 16th with a reception and book from 6-8pm, Order of Appearance, will contine through July 29th. In addition, on Saturday, July 15th, the artist will be in conversation with music journalist and critic Sam Lefebvre at Casemore Kirkeby at 5pm. After viewing the exhibition take a peek at all the other current exhibitions at MSP and then try the new restaurant. 

- by Marissa Halbrecht 

Brussels Art Guide - June

I.
Exhibition title: Material Light Shows by Georges Meurant
Artist/s: Georges Meurant
Venue: Aeroplastics contemporary, rue Washington 186 à 1050 Brussels
Dates: From 15 June, 2017


George Meurant is a belgian colorist painter whom I particularly like. In 1990 he invented the figural field, the experiment of which continues. His painting becomes a patchwork of colored rectangles by which he experiences the interactions between tones. He paints in oil, on wood, in generally square formats, no color is the same, and varies according to the hours of the day

II.
Exhibition title: Nicolas Party, Three Seasons
Artist/s: Nicolas Party
Venue: Xavier Hufkens Gallery, 107 rue Saint-Georges, 1050 Brussels
Dates: Until 15 July, 2017


For his inaugural exhibition at the gallery, Swiss artist Nicolas Party has executed two site-specific murals that transform the interior while creating a singular environment for a recent group of large-scale pictures and bronze sculptures. The simple, classical and almost generic subjects (the still life, the landscape, the nude) coupled with the artist’s distinctive style (inexpressive, reductive, devoid of anecdote) gives rise to images of great visual immediacy and a profound, almost unsettling, stillness.  

III.

Exhibition title: Benoît Platéus, Telephone Poles
Artist/s: Benoît Platéus
Venue: Albert Baronian Gallery, 2 rue Isidore Verheyden, 1050 Brussels
Dates: 9 June - 15 July 2017


The young belgian artist Benoît Platéus photographs the spaces he experiences : modern urban views, interiors, caves - as many spaces that surround him but which he does not master. He pays particular attention to light, that light whose intensity deconstructs the image; A powerful flash that can be caused by a ray of sunlight as well as a flashlight. These moments of blinding openness, those meanwhile we enjoy when a ray of sunlight blinds us a fraction of a second and immediately forget them, are moments that he places at the center of his work.

- by Jacinthe Gigou

TLV Urban Art Guide - June

June brings heat to the streets of Tel Aviv, and the urban art scene is heating up as well!


Work: Nitzan Mintz and Dede Ad Takeover
Area: Corner of Lincoln and Yehuda Ha-Levi Street.


Introducing a new medium, relatively unused in the streets of Tel Aviv, especially in a scale like this; Nitzan Mintz and Dede take over two huge ad spaces in central Tel Aviv. Nitzan introduced a known poem of hers in a very big scale. Notice that each of the letters was finished by hand. Dede pushed the envelope with a supposedly nude model (it's our beloved gallery tour guide Tali Kayam!) covered with his famous bandaids. Could this be a new series? We hope so!

Nitzan Mintz

DEDE

Work: Tel Aviv Proud stencils
Area: Florentin Neighborhood.


Just in time for the best event in town during June – Tel Aviv Pride parade – here is a selection of some proud stencils that can be found in Florentin neighborhood.

Work: New piece by urban artist Ame 72
Area: Abarbanel Street, Florentin Neighborhood.


Ame 72 is a known artist in the streets of Tel Aviv. He also recently had his work exhibited in the ZK Gallery in San Francisco. A very fresh piece of his can be found on Abarbanel street, this one addresses the issue of global warming, which is very appropriate for our global conditions and the local weather getting hotter and hotter this time of year.

- by Cobi Krieger

Melbourne Art Guide - June

Here are my exhibition picks for June, the first month of winter, in Melbourne: 

I.
Exhibition title: Tossed by Waves
Artist: Angelica Mesiti
Venue: Anna Schwartz Gallery
Dates: Until 1 July, 2017


Tossed by Waves is a new video and sculpture installation from Mesiti. Engaging with Morse code, the sculptures comprise of dots and dashes that enable them to signal messages. The video component, filmed at the Place de la République in Mesiti’s adopted city of Paris, mediates on ideas of hope, despair and resilience. 

Image caption: Angelica Mesiti, Tossed by Waves (still), 2017, single-channel High Definition video, 16:9, colour, silent, 6 minutes, 17 seconds

II.
Exhibition title: DDesign
Artist: Matthew Griffin
Venue: Neon Parc
Dates: Until 24 June, 2017


Matthew Griffin’s new collages contain an assortment of images, many sourced from Italian designer and founder of the Memphis collective, Ettore Sottsass. In these works, the sacred forms of the vessel and the painted body are subverted through satirical pop-culture references. This exhibition marks a re-entry into the art world for Griffin, who nearly a decade ago, decided to quit being an artist and sold all of his work on eBay.

Image caption: Matthew Griffin, DDesign (Bad Speech), 2017, synthetic polymer paint and collage on paper, 31 x 25cm

III.
Exhibition title: (Not titled)
Artist: Noriko Nakamura
Venue: Daine Singer
Dates: Until 1 July, 2017


Noriko Nakamura’s practice follows an interest in the Japanese indigenous religion of Shinto animism: a belief that the boundary between the physical and spiritual is not absolute. Using stone carving and organic elements such as cat hair, Nakamura explores and transforms these materials to reveal their spiritual force.

Image caption: Noriko Nakamura, studio view, 2017


Header Image: Angelica Mesiti, Tossed by Waves, 2017, Installation view, Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne. Photograph: Zan Wimberley.

- by Melissa Loughnan