The new year has officially started with many artistic forecasts of the main contemporary art spaces. Indeed, as ever, it's difficult to itemize all the most important shows of this year, but here we are with a preliminary sketch dedicated to 10 unmissable exhibitions for 2019. Read more about the latest news from the 58th Venice Biennale!
1. “Das letzte Bild. Fotografie und Tod / The last Image. Photography and death” in Berlin.
WHAT: Through over 400 artworks selected by Felix Hoffmann, the group show “Das letzte Bild. Fotografie und Tod” reasons with death and its representations, from the dawn of photography to the present day. For the first time, an extensive selection of artistic works will be placed alongside numerous personal, journalistic, scientific and studio photographs. The exhibition will include works by Christian Boltanski, Bertolt Brecht, Broomberg/Chanarin, Larry Clark, Tacita Dean, Thomas Demand, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Jochen Gerz, Nan Goldin, Douglas Gordon, Peter Hendricks, Thomas Hirschhorn, Damien Hirst, Peter Hujar, Spring Hurlbut, Erik Kessels, Adolf Laazi, Brigitte Maria Mayer/ Heiner Müller, Arwed Messmer, Duane Michals, Lee Miller, Mark Morrisroe, Nadar, Arnold Odermatt, Arnulf Rainer, Timm Rautert, Dirk Reinartz, Gerhard Richter, Walter Schels/Beate Lakotta, Andres Serrano, Andy Warhol, and Weegee.
WHERE: C/O BERLIN IM AMERIKA HAUS
WHEN: December 8 2018 – March 03 2019
2. “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving” at the Brooklyn Museum
WHAT: “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving” is the largest U.S.A exhibition in ten years devoted to the iconic painter and the first in the United States to display a collection of Frida Kahlo clothing and other personal possessions. The exhibition—which was already a hit across the pond at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum— is the perfect opportunity for Frida lovers to get inside the most intimate parts of her work.
WHERE: The Brooklyn Museum, New York
WHEN: February 8 - May 12, 2019
3. Giorgio Andreotta Calò "CITTÀDIMILANO” at the Pirelli HangarBicocca
WHAT: Curated by Roberta Tenconi Giorgio Andreotta Calò "CITTÀDIMILANO” is the major institutional exhibition in Italy of the Venetian artist. For this occasion, Calò will present a unique selection of works from the past as well as new productions, conceived as a single landscape that will transform the perception of the environment in relation with the natural light filtering into the exhibition space. After his suggestive intervention for the Italian pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale the exhibition will focus on the artist’s sculptural practice, presenting groups of works made from 2008 onwards, the result of a long research study into the materials—for instance, caranto clay, wood, bronze and other natural elements—and the geographical and cultural context in which they are shown and from which they originate. Read more about the parallel exhibition dedicated to Marzio Merz "Igloos"...
WHERE: Pirelli HangarBicocca, Milan
WHEN: February 4 – July 21, 2019
Courtesy Studio Giorgio Andreotta Calò. Photo: Roberto Morossi
4. "M+ building" at Hong Kong West Kowloon Cultural District
WHAT: After the official opening in 2016 the largest museum of modern and contemporary visual culture in the world is ready to be completed. Located adjacent to the Art Park of Hong Kong as part of West Kowloon Cultural District, the building signed by Herzog & de Meuron only in the latest part of the horizontal structure houses can count 17.000 square metres of exhibition space, three cinemas, a lecture theatre, a learning centre, a museum shop, performance spaces, cafés, a mediatheque and a public roof terrace with views to Victoria Harbour and the Hong Kong skyline.
WHERE: West Kowloon Cultural District, Hong Kong
WHEN: Date to be confirmed
5. “Joan Miró: Birth of the World” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
WHAT: MoMA takes one of Joan Miró‘s most major works, "The Birth of the World" (1925), as a lens through which to view a selection of 60 of his paintings, works on paper, prints, and other objects made primarily between 1920, the year of Miró’s first, catalytic trip to Paris, and the early 1950s, when his unique visual language became internationally renowned—to shed new light on the development of his poetic process and pictorial universe.
WHERE: The Museum of Modern Art, New York
WHEN: February 24 - July 6, 2019
6. "Dune Art Museum" at the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing
WHAT: In Qinhuangdao, a coastal city of Northeast China four hours from Beijing and outside of usual itineraries the Dune Art Museum will be inaugurated the home of the Ullens Center for Contemporary Art outside Beijing. Signing off the project - in true Guggenheim style - will be Li Hu and Huang Wenjing, founding partners of OPEN Architectureof. Ucca Dune, almost completely invisible from the outside, covers a total area of 930 square meters with seven internal tunnels and three external ones that look like caves, a cafeteria and a reading room. The center it’s ready to be open with its sister development: The Sea Art Museum. The two museums will be connected by a narrow stone passage, accessible only at low tide.
WHERE: Ullens Center for Contemporary Art, Beijing
WHEN: Date to be confirmed
7. "LETIZIA BATTAGLIA" solo show in Livorno.
WHAT: Promoted by the Carlo Laviosa Foundation and held in collaboration with the Municipality of Livorno, the “LETIZIA BATTAGLIA” collection comprises fifty photographs: newspaper chronicles which have become historical documents recounting the changing face of Italy. Curated by Serafino Fasulo this exhibition will present shots about salient facts of the Italian chronicles, images of the people of Palermo, her famous portraits of women and children, as well worldly gatherings which render the Gattopardoesque charm of the Sicilian aristocracy. All of them always characterized by Battaglia's incredible use of black and white.
WHERE: Granai di Villa Mimbelli-Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori, Livorno
WHEN: January 19 - March 15, 2019
8. “Implicit Tensions: Mapplethorpe Now” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
WHAT: Get ready for a year of Robert Mapplethorpe at the Guggenheim. The important institution will dedicate the whole year to one of the most critically acclaimed yet controversial American artists of the late twentieth century. As one of the biggest public collections of Mapplethorpe's work - thanks to 200 photographs gift from his foundation in 1993 - the exhibition has been split in two phases. The show will kick off with a selection of Mapplethorpe’s photos including early Polaroids, self-portraits, and the controversial S&M images, before transitioning to the work of other contemporary artists in the Guggenheim collection who have been influenced by his work, or who take a similar approach to the body and identity.
WHERE: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
WHEN: January 25 - July 10, 2019 / July 24, 2019 - January 5, 2020
The Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation, 1993 © Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation.
9. "Hockney - Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature" at the Van Gogh Museum
WHAT: "Hockney - Van Gogh: The Joy of Nature" is an huge exhibition that wants to prove the unmistakable influence of Vincent van Gogh (Groot Zundert, 1853-Auvers-sur-Oise, 1890) on the work of David Hockney (Bradford, 1937) who last September presented a stained glass designed for Westminster Abbey in London in honour of the Queen, made with an iPad. The exhibition presents almost 120 works, including the impressive “The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire” (2011), from the collection of the Pompidou Center, Hockney's intimate sketchbooks and his drawings on the iPad, with which he creates sparkling landscapes, exhibited in large format.
WHERE: Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
WHEN: March 1 – May 26, 2019
10. “Sophie Calle: Cuídese Mucho” at the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago de Chile
WHAT: French Conceptual artist Sophie Calle, is ready for another tribute to female power. Known for her vulnerable, deeply personal practice, the artist made parsing break-up messages an art form. This title of this exhibition - which features 107 women’s interpretations of a relationship-ending email she received 11 years earlier—intended to help her and other girls to move on. Indeed, the translation of the title is “Take care of yourself.”
WHERE: Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Santiago de Chile
WHEN: January 3 - 30, 2019
Stay Tuned on Kooness magazine for more exciting news from the art world.