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December 2024 Newsletter

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Art Monthly Magazine

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Contents

Issue 482 Dec 2024 – Jan 2025

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Kutlug Ataman, Snow White, 2024

Interview

Back to Nature

Kutlug Ataman interviewed by Maria Walsh

I went back into nature and started taking care of animals and planting a lot of trees, which is a ritual I do every year; I plant 5,000 trees. Doing all this holistic work gave me the freedom to reset my mind. Suddenly you start thinking of new art projects.

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ANGA collective campaigning at the 2024 Venice Biennale

Feature

Critical Correspondences

Francis Frascina finds clear connections between the ‘critical correspondences’ that Bertolt Brecht drew between image and text in his wartime journals and the events unfolding in Gaza today

At Raven Row, Brecht’s image and text from 1941 made me think, again, of Theodor Adorno’s question posed in 1959: ‘What does working through the past mean?’, and his argument that ‘after Auschwitz’ there was a necessity, no matter how complicated, for postwar Germans to examine the Nazi era.

Art Monthly cover  

From the Back Catalogue
The Art of Denial
Bob Dickinson on artists who have engaged with legacies of trauma. First published in 2022, now free online.

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Sturtevant, Stella Averroes, 1989/90

Feature

Cultural Protectionism

Mark Prince argues that, for all its swagger, postwar US modernist abstraction betrays the country’s perennial fear of the other, revealing the cultural protectionism at its heart

Consider the rich seam of postwar formalism in US art as cultural protectionism: a metaphor that allows some shades of the primary economic sense of that term, although this is a form of production more defined by what it withholds than what it offers.

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Ufuoma Essi, Bodies in Dissent, 2021

Profile

Ufuoma Essi

Tendai Mutambu

As if to visualise the unbidden return of repressed memories in our compulsion to replay them, Ufuoma Essi’s shots bounce back several times, repeating like reverb or a broken record.

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Editorial

The Trifecta Factor

The results of the US presidential election have significant implications for the whole world, not least the civilian victims of wars being perpetrated whether by regimes the US currently counts as allies or as enemies.

For the ‘losers’, as Donald Trump would no doubt call those who did not vote for him, there was only despair. Losing the presidency is one thing, but the fact that the Republicans also won a majority in both the Senate and the House of Representatives – the trifecta – was so much worse.

Artnotes

Budget Blues

The first budget of the Labour administration gives cold comfort to the arts sector; a study shows that arts leaders are overwhelmed; Just Stop Oil tones down it stunts targeting artworks; Russia’s state collection of contemporary art is put at risk; the US National Archives modifies future displays to mollify white conservatives; plus the latest on galleries, people, awards and more.

Obituary

Gary Indiana 1950–2024
Chris Townsend

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Rirkrit Tiravanija, untitled 1996 (rehearsal studio no. 6), 1996/2024, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin

Exhibitions

Mike Kelley: Ghost and Spirit

Larne Abse Gogarty

Karanjit Panesar: Furnace Fruit

Amna Malik

Anya Gallaccio: preserve

Cherry Smyth

Barbara Walker: Being Here

Tom Denman

Osman Yousefzada: When will we be good enough?

Lizzie Lloyd

Rirkrit Tiravanija: Happiness is not always fun

Mark Prince

Lauren Halsey: emajendat

Martin Herbert

Lucy McKenzie: Super Palace

Camiel van Winkel

Heague Yang: Leap Year

Martin Holman

Hilary Lloyd: Ok darling, show’s over!

Michael Kurtz

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Temporary Monuments

Books

Rebecca Zorach: Temporary Monuments – Art, Land, and America’s Racial Enterprise

Richard Hylton

Rebecca Zorach’s complex but gripping narrative debunks myths of American modernism’s apoliticism and firmly implicates it in the nation’s racial enterprise.

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Navigation Beyond Vision

Books

Navigation Beyond Vision

Nicholas Gamso

This book of essays was inspired by a claim that German video artist Harun Farocki made a few weeks before his death in 2014: that navigable, computer-rendered worlds would supplant cinematic montage as the topos of 21st-century visual culture.

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Sam Ashby, Sanctuary, 2024

Film

Sam Ashby: Sanctuary

Theo Gordon

By juxtaposing road-trip footage of flowers and birds in the blue sky with Purusha’s desire to enable people to expand consciousness, the filmmaker seemingly breaks with Purusha’s proscriptions on when and how transcendence can be accessed, suggesting that it can continually permeate our lives if one looks in the right places.

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Nina Cristante, The Richest Man in Babylon, 2024

Film

Nina Cristante: The Richest Man in Babylon

Ellen Mara De Wachter

Elda dances her heart out to explain her predicament, while her doctor stares at the clock before handing her antidepressants. We are left to guess at the cause of Elda’s illness: overwork, an excess of empathy, the brutality of modern city life or freelance survival?

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Seanie Barron dressed as An Poc Ar Buile (The Mad Puck Goat), c1970

Events

Tulca 2024: The Salvage Agency

Chris Clarke

Tulca occupies most of the city’s arts spaces with a programme of performances, talks and screenings that elaborate on the festival’s central premise: how can art create something new from the wreckage of civilisation?

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Salvo, ‘Arriving on Time’, Pinacoteca Agnelli

Reports

Letter from Turin

Chris McCormack

Strikingly, the curators batch work along the changing light of the day – from bright sunshine to sunset and night-time. This obsessive relation to the sky’s seasonal changes in colour in Salvo’s paintings characterises a certain romantic, even Arte Povera-like attachment to the fleetingness of the material world, albeit one inflected by the chemical emissions of local industry.

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Kengo Kuma’s extension to the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian

Reports

Letter from Lisbon

Henry Broome

The structure is supported by recessed V-shaped columns that are cast under shadow, almost invisible: it appears as if the roof is levitating. The extension is considered neither public nor private, a transitional space between the museum and the city, intended to be a link between the old and the new, screening the original building while simultaneously revealing it.

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Smart Fund campaign graphic

Artlaw

Smarter Artists’ Funding

Henry Lydiate

Missing from the budget was a proposal that would not require government expenditure, but which would significantly benefit all UK creators, including visual artists: the creation of a national Smart Fund.

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Michael O’Pray Award

New writing on innovation and experimentation in the moving image


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Garrett Bradley, America, 2019

2024 Winner

Not to Scale
Bami Oke examines Bradley Garrett’s embodied video reflection on US culture


Additional Awardees

Looking at Palestine
Nevan Spier views Palestine through the films of Mustafa Abu Ali and Elia Suleiman

The Screen is a Drum
E De Zulueta explores the delirious resistance of Mexican filmmakers Colectivo los ingrávidos

The Michael O’Pray Award is a Film and Video Umbrella initiative in partnership with Art Monthly, supported by University of East London and Arts Council England. The awardees were commissioned on the strength of proposed texts; the winner received £750 and the additional awardees each received £350.

Art Calendar

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Michael Petry, At the Foot of the Gods, 2017–
artist talk, 5pm 7 December 2024, Vane, Gateshead

Selected Events

  • Mirage: Neighbourhood Breakfast and Exhibition Tour
    Gasworks, London, Wed 27 Nov 8.30am
  • Online Screen Walk with Anshul Roy
    The Photographers’ Gallery, London, Wed 27 Nov 6.00pm
  • Video on Screen: The Early Years in Europe Screenings
    Tate Modern, London, Wed 27 Nov 6.30pm
  • Carol Jacobi Talk: Francis, Henrietta and Isabel
    National Portrait Gallery, London, Thu 28 Nov 1.00pm
  • Book Launch: Eight Weeks by Baroness Lola Young
    Autograph, London, Thu 28 Nov 6.30pm
  • In Conversation: Habda Rashid and Ekow Eshun
    Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, Thu 28 Nov 6.30pm
  • Unsuitable: A History of Lesbian Fashion with Eleanor Medhurst and Joelle Taylor
    Charleston, Lewes, Sat 30 Nov 5.00pm
  • Pauline Rowe’s Reading Round
    Open Eye Gallery, Liverpool, Mon 2 Dec 11.00am
  • Behind the Scenes Tour
    The Box, Plymouth, Tue 3 Dec 1.30pm
  • Patricia Allmer Lecture on Unica Zürn: Surrealism, Trauma, Resistance
    Courtauld Institute, London, Tue 3 Dec 5.30pm
  • Screening: Shooting the Mafia
    The Photographers’ Gallery, London, Tue 3 Dec 6.20pm
  • Favoriten UK Premiere and Q&A with Ruth Beckermann
    Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Tue 3 Dec 6.30pm
  • Meet the Artist: Kader Attia
    Tate Liverpool, Liverpool, Wed 4 Dec 6.30pm
  • Solidarity Screenings: Revolutionary Films
    Listen Gallery, Glasgow, Thu 5 Dec 6.00pm
  • What’s the Point of It? Book Launch and Discussion on Writing on Art
    The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Thu 5 Dec 6.30pm
  • Lates: Back Toward Oneness
    Modern Art Oxford, Oxford, Thu 5 Dec 6.30pm
  • The Studio – Staging Desire: A BSL Response
    Autograph, London, Thu 5 Dec 6.30pm
  • Brighter Days Craft Markets
    Turner Contemporary, Margate, Sat 7 Dec 10.00am
  • Performance: We Are in Flood
    Camden Arts Centre, London, Sat 7 Dec 4.00pm
  • Michael Petry Artist Talk
    Vane, Gateshead, Sat 7 Dec 5.00pm
  • Memories Float for a Moment and then Fall
    Beaconsfield, London, Sat 7 Dec 7.30pm
  • London Premiere: By the Stream by Hong Sangsoo
    Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, Sun 8 Dec 4.30pm
  • Panel Discussion: Destabilising 20th-Century Art Histories through Curatorial Practices
    Barbican, London, Mon 9 Dec 5.30pm
  • A Life Drawing Class in the Spirit of Julia Margaret Cameron
    The Regency Town House, Hove, Wed 11 Dec 10.30am
  • The Screen: Mo Better Blues
    Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, Wed 11 Dec 6.30pm
  • Creative Wellbeing Session: Drawing and Painting
    Two Queens, Leicester, Fri 20 Dec 1.00pm
  • Curator Tour of Nairy Baghramian: Jumbled Alphabet
    South London Gallery, London, Wed 8 Jan 6.30pm
  • Beats and Boards with Haseeb Iqbal
    Tate Modern, London, Thu 9 Jan 6.30pm
  • Ruth Waters Tour of Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst: The Call
    Serpentine Gallery, London, Sat 11 Jan 12.00pm
  • Artisan Ensemble - The Painters in My Garden: From Burns to the Glasgow Boys
    Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Thu 23 Jan 6.30pm
  • Gemma Rolls-Bentley in Conversation with France-Lise McGurn
    Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 24 Jan 3.00pm
  • Lecture: Mapping the Dynamic Spread of Buddhist Print Culture in China and Beyond
    Courtauld Institute, London, Tue 28 Jan 5.30pm
  • Curator Talk: Brasil! Brasil! The Birth of Modernism
    Royal Academy of Arts, London, Fri 31 Jan 6.30pm

Selected Exhibition Openings

  • Broken Token
    The Box, Plymouth, until 12 Jan 2025
    A two-screen film by artist Paul Rooney that explores the idea of home during times of conflict and which has involved local veterans and folk singer Hannah Martin. An IWM 14-18 Now Legacy Fund commission.
  • promoted

  • Paul Winstanley
    Kerlin Gallery, Dublin, opens Fri 29 Nov | PV 28 Nov
  • I Santa
    studio1.1, London, opens Thu 5 Dec | PV 5 Dec
  • Jack Jubb
    Cell Project Space, London, opens Fri 6 Dec | PV 5 Dec
  • Amanda Holiday, Nick Fox
    Vivienne Roberts Projects, London, opens Sun 8 Dec | PV 7 Jan
  • Martin Parr
    Rocket, London, opens Wed 11 Dec | PV 11 Dec
  • Kyler Garrison
    Carl Kostyal, London, opens Thu 12 Dec | PV 12 Dec
  • Within and Beyond: Looking into the Infinite
    Gallery Rosenfeld, London, opens Sun 15 Dec | PV 14 Dec
  • Diane Chappalley
    Cedric Bardawil, London, opens Fri 10 Jan | PV 9 Jan
  • Jennifer Binnie
    Richard Saltoun, London, opens Tue 14 Jan | PV 14 Jan
  • Acaye Kerunen
    Pace Hanover Square, London, opens Wed 15 Jan | PV 14 Jan
  • Rike Droescher
    Alice Amati, London, opens Fri 17 Jan | PV 6 Jan
  • Fairy Story
    Alison Jacques, London, opens Fri 17 Jan | PV 16 Jan
  • Land Sea Sky: Ingrid Pollard, JMW Turner & Vija Celmins
    The Box, Plymouth, until 12 Jan 2025
    Three artists connected through their close observation of nature. In partnership with ARTIST ROOMS, Tate and National Galleries of Scotland.
  • promoted

  • Sara Sadik
    Annka Kultys, London, opens Fri 17 Jan | PV 16 Jan
  • Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
    Corvi-Mora, London, opens Sat 18 Jan | PV 18 Jan
  • Katie Cuddon
    Matt’s Gallery Nine Elms, London, opens Wed 29 Jan | PV 26 Jan
  • Débora Delmar
    Stanley Picker Gallery, London, opens Wed 29 Jan | PV 29 Jan
  • Christiane Baumgartner
    Cristea Roberts Gallery, London, opens Mon 30 Jan | PV 29 Jan
  • Damian Taylor
    Thames-Side Studios Gallery, London, opens Sat 1 Feb | PV 31 Jan

Selected Digital Resources

Gallery Maps

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London and UK Gallery maps

Find local shows with the Art Monthly gallery maps!

Podcasts

Art Monthly Talk Show

 

Art Monthly on the Radio

Art Monthly hosts a show to discuss the current issue at 8pm on the second Monday every month on Resonance 104.4 FM , with the show repeated at 10am the following Wednesday.

On iTunes

The Art Monthly Talk Show is available as a podcast on iTunes – subscribe for free automatic downloads

Online

Audio recordings are available in the Events section of the Art Monthly website: www.artmonthly.co.uk/events

  • Oct: Bob Dickinson discusses artists who connect the sleep crisis to the climate crisis, while Tom Denman reviews the ‘Towards New Worlds’ exhibition at MIMA in Middlesbrough.
  • Sep: Michael Kurtz discusses the work of Delcy Morelos; Lauren Velvick on Roy Claire Potter’s ‘The Wastes’; Sarah E James examines the exhibition as performance.
  • Jul: Vaishna Surjid, Amna Malik and Henry Broome discuss Soumya Sankar Bose, Perminder Kaur, and public art in relation to homelessness and sanitation.

Jobs

Programme Manager

The Art Station, Saxmundham | 1 Dec
theartstation.uk

Programme Assistant

Hub Sleaford, Midlands | 1 Dec
jobs.better.org.uk

Museum Project Manager

Worthing Theatres & Museum | 1 Dec
wtm.uk

Intern for a Digital Art Platform

Verse, Remote | 1 Dec
verse.works

Collections & House Officer

National Trust, East | 1 Dec
careers.nationaltrust.org.uk

Programme Assistant (Civic and Learning)

Studio Voltaire, London | 2 Dec
studiovoltaire.org

Casual Worker Learning Facilitator

London Museum | 2 Dec
jobs.londonmuseum.org.uk

Art and Object Handler

Royal Museums Greenwich | 2 Dec
app.vacancy-filler.co.uk

Exhibitions and Administrative Assistant

Ilminster Arts Centre, South West | 5 Dec
ilminsterartscentre.com

Freelance Studio Assistant

Nicholas H Wood, South West | 6 Dec
artsjobs.org.uk

Head of Marketing and Admissions (Maternity Cover)

Watts Gallery: Artists‘ Village, South East | 9 Dec
wattsgallery.org.uk

Assistant Curator

Yorkshire Contemporary | 9 Dec
yorkshirecontemporary.org

Director of Partnerships and Engagement

The Bowes Museum, North East | 10 Dec
thebowesmuseum.org.uk

Digital Producer

Impreial War Museum, London | 10 Dec
imperialwarmuseums.tal.net

Relationship Manager, Museums and Cultural Property

Arts Council England, South East | 12 Dec
isw.changeworknow.co.uk

Part Time Personal Assistant

Anna Miszewska, Nottingham | 12 Dec
artsjobs.org.uk

Curator

Spike Island, Bristol | 12 Dec
spikeisland.org.uk

Development Manager, Grants & Legacy Giving

Pallant House Gallery, Chichester | 13 Dec
pallant.org.uk

Trusts and Foundations Managers x 2

Peridot Partners, London | 16 Dec
peridotpartners.co.uk

Junior Registrar

Almine Rech, London | 20 Dec
alminerech.bamboohr.com

Studio Assistant - Polymaker

Hexham Studio, North East | 31 Dec
antonygormley.com

Painting / Ceramics Tutor

Paintvine, York | 31 Dec
wkf.ms

Exhibitions Coordinator

Outside In, UK Wide | 6 Jan
outsidein.org.uk

Development Assistant

The Holburne Museum, Bath | 6 Jan
holburne.org

Mountmaker

University of Oxford | 17 Jan
my.corehr.com


Residencies/Fellowships

Assetto Fellowship

Warburg Institute, London | 30 Nov
universityoflondon.smapply.io

Palazzo Monti Residency

Brescia, Italy | Rolling
palazzomonti.org


Competitions/Commissions

Artist/Group Commissions Call Out

Ground Up Burnley | 9 Dec
artsjobs.org.uk

Seedbed 2025 Artist Callout

101 Outdoor Arts, Greenham Common | 16 Dec
101outdoorarts.com

Call for Interested Artists for Public Art Installations

Bedfordshire Council | 20 Dec
tritaxbigbox.co.uk

Designs Invited for A Mischief of Rats

Puffins Galore, Yorkshire | 13 Jan
amischiefofrats.co.uk

FluxusMuseum Prize for Experimental Video

FluxusMuseum, Greece | 15 Jan
fluxusmuseum.org


Scholarships/Grants

Call for Grant Applications from Finnish Artists

Frame Contemporary Art, Helsinki | 30 Nov
frame-finland.fi

Grants and Fellowships for Research on British Art

Paul Mellon Centre, London | 31 Jan
paul-mellon-centre.ac.uk

Funding for Underrepresented Artists

The Black Heart Foundation, UK Wide | Rolling
blackheartfoundation.org

Black Artists Grant

Creative Debuts | Rolling
creativedebuts.co.uk

Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grants

Pollock-Krasner Foundation | Rolling
www.pkf.org

National Lottery Project Grants

Arts Council England | Rolling
artscouncil.org.uk

Grant Programme

ARTCRY | Rolling
artcry.co.uk

The Digital Artists Grant

The Moniker Foundation, Creative Debuts | Rolling
avnode.net

Jonathan Ruffer Curatorial Grants

Art Fund | Rolling
artfund.org


Exhibiting

Environmental Professional and Emerging Artists

Laura I. Art Gallery, London | 30 Nov
lauraiartgallery.com

Call for Exhibition Proposals

1853 Studios and Gallery, Chadderton | 8 Dec
1853studios.com

300 sq/m Gallery Space Available for Free

Mayfair | Rolling
gallery@allartwelcome.com


Courses/Workshops

Riso Print Christmas Cards Workshop

Two Queens, Leicester | 30 Nov
2queens.com

Workshop for Audio Enthusiasts with Shino Yanai and Ken Ikeda

Beaconsfield, London | 4 Dec
eventbrite.co.uk

Studies in Art Writing with Rebecca Jagoe

g39, Cardiff | 7 Dec
g39.org

Teacher Workshop: Introduction to Drawing

Tate Liverpool and RIBA North | 12 Dec
tate.org.uk

Darkroom Printing Taster Session

The Art House, Wakefield | 11 Jan
the-arthouse.org.uk

Fire and Water: The Rivalry of Constable and Turner Seminar

The National Gallery, London | 14 Jan
nationalgallery.org.uk

Interfaces Monthly

Barbican & The Trampery | Rolling
docs.google.com

Artquest One-to-One

Artquest | Rolling
artquest.org.uk


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