Art Monthly 477: June 2024

Contents

Gavin Jantjes, Freedom Hunters, 1977

Interview

The Colouring Book

Gavin Jantjes interviewed by Virginia Whiles

The Colouring Book was already published and when I showed it at the Hamburg Art Academy German secret police tried to arrest me and extradite me on the orders of the South African secret police. I only managed to avoid it because of being active in the student protest movement.

Michael Snow, La Région Centrale, 1970, production photo

Feature

Production Protocols

Mark Prince argues that digitalisation adds another dimension to debates about the gap between intention and processes involved in the production of art

The amenability of digital images to modification does not appear to have fundamentally weakened our belief in their veracity, at least not yet; it has only made us seem more credulous of what was always an illusion, and is now only more likely to be one.

Teorema, 1968, film, dir Pier Paolo Pasolini

Feature

Sacred and Profane

Andrew Key considers the continuing influence of the radical Italian filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini with those of the Arte Povera movement and beyond

By turning to what he interpreted as an internal ‘third world’ in Italy, which highlighted the uneven development of that society, Pasolini sought to interrogate the anti-modern remnants of Italian culture, which refused integration in the country’s new vision of itself.

Rory Pilgrim, RAFTS, 2020–22

Profile

Rory Pilgrim

Maria Walsh

In relation to the carceral and environmental trauma, Rory Pilgrim’s reparative interventions can only be provisional, but his insistence that activism can come from a space of joy is a necessary correlate to the punitive and discriminatory laws and empty promises made by government leaders of futures yet to come.

Editorial

A Bad Smell

The often misattributed quote ‘the test of a civilisation is the way it cares for its most helpless members’ is useful to keep in mind when considering the full-spectrum ‘hostile environment’ that so many people face today.

These headlines are in reference to the Crime and Justice Bill which, in a further stigmatisation of homeless people, included the provision that rough sleepers causing ‘smells’ could be considered a nuisance and therefore ordered to move on (where to, one might ask).

Artnotes

Paris Disquiet

A wealthy backer withdraws support from the Palais de Tokyo in Paris, causing a debate over Gaza, interference and philanthropy; UK art students join on-campus demonstrations calling for a ceasefire in Gaza; Arnolfini apologises for cancelling events featuring Palestinian artists; Russian art archives are raided by secret police; museums and galleries continue to be targeted for vandalism by activists; research shows strong public support for state funding of museums; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.

Obituaries

Frank Stella 1936–2024
Mark Prince
Alison Lloyd 1957–2024
Linsey Young
Marina Vishmidt 1976–2024
Larne Abse Gogarty

Thao Nguyen Phan, Becoming Alluvium, 2019, ‘Klima Biennale Wien’, Vienna

Exhibitions

Samia Henni: Performing Colonial Toxicity

Mosaic Rooms, London

Amna Malik

After Mallarmé: Part One – the page ... the place ...

Large Glass, London

Deborah Schultz

Matthew Krishanu: The Bough Breaks

Camden Art Centre, London

Edwin Coomasaru

Klima Biennale Wien

various venues, Vienna

Tom Jeffreys

Studio K.O.S.: Where we have gone

Morena di Luna, Hove

Chris Townsend

Adham Faramawy: In the Simmering Air and the Flows of the Undercurrent

Cubitt, London

Hati Gibson

Sukaina Kubba: Turn Me Into a Flower

DCA, Dundee

Sarah Messerschmidt

spread from Proceedings of the Remediators

Artists’ Books

Paul Buck: In the Bag

Proceedings of the Remediators

Michael Hampton

Paul Buck’s bag is a metaphor implying that however solid one’s career, every artefact is a fungible token, the stuff of life just passing through.

Culture is Not an Industry cover

Books

Justin O’Connor: Culture is Not an Industry – Reclaiming art and culture for the common good

Laura Harris

Justin O’Connor suggests that art and culture should sit in the pantheon of fundamental social goods such as housing and healthcare, without being made reducible to them (as they often are in the ‘social prescribing’ speak, for example).

Chantal Akerman, The Eighties, 1983, contact sheet

Film

Chantal Akerman: Travelling

Ellen Mara De Wachter

Chantal Akerman muses on the importance of writing when making a film, of persevering, even when one doesn’t know what the film is about, only to discover that ‘in the end’, her work is always about the same thing: her own inescapable ‘primal scene’, which she describes as ‘images of evacuation, of walking in the snow with packages toward an unknown place, of faces and bodies placed next to one another’.

Keith Piper, Viva Voce, 2024

Reports

Keith Piper at Tate Britain

Naomi Siderfin

I am having a conversation with two women I barely know; the conversation that Keith Piper wants us to have in front of his new commission for Tate Britain’s restaurant, which has been closed since 2020 in response to an unresolved controversy surrounding its site-specific mural by Rex Whistler.

David Hammons, Pissed Off!, 1981

Reports

Pissed Off: Homelessness, sanitation and public art

Henry Broome

There is definitely a link between notions of ‘cleanliness’ and ‘racial purity’ in right-wing discourse around public space and public art.

Nil Yalter, Exile is a Hard Job, 1983–

Reports

Letter from Venice

Chris McCormack

An emphasis on decolonial narratives pulsed through the Biennale, however it was also evident that in Europe, at least, we are living in a prewar era (not least an ideological one).

Brice Marden, Event, 2004–07, estimate $30m, withdrawn from sale

Salerooms

NY Spring Sales

Colin Gleadell

Brice Marden’s diptych, Event, 2004–07, was guaranteed by Christie’s with an estimate of $30m, but was withdrawn moments before the sale. Its owner, former Phaidon publisher Richard Schlagman, would not have cared because he had already accepted Christie’s guarantee, meaning Christie’s now owns the painting.

Damien Hirst, Myth Explored, Explained, Exploded, dated 1993–99

Artlaw

When I Paint My Masterpiece

Henry Lydiate

Artists’ moral rights were introduced almost a century ago reflecting artists’ absolute right to determine authorship of their original works – including assigning their completion date. Legal rights are usually accompanied by tacit ethical responsibilities: to act with professional honour and integrity.