News | Frith Street Gallery

MARLENE DUMAS: MEASURING YOUR OWN GRAVE

MoMA, New York, USA
14 December 2008 – 16 February 2009
Exhibition travelling from MOCA, Los Angeles, USA

This exhibition is the first of its scale to be mounted in the United States and includes approximately seventy paintings and thirty-five drawings, providing a comprehensive examination of the work of one of the most thought-provoking and fascinating artists working today. The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

TACITA DEAN: IN MY MANOR

Villa Oppenheim, Berlin, Germany
28 November 2008 – 15 February 2009

This exhibition focuses on work made between 2005 to 2008 and will included films, and photographic works which have been influenced by her life in Germany.

Tacita Dean has also been awarded the Kurt Schwitters prize for 2008.

FIONA TAN: PROSPECT 1, NEW ORLEANS BIENNIAL

1 November 2008 – 18 January 2009

Prospect.1 New Orleans [P.1] will be the largest biennial of international contemporary art ever organized in the United States. Fiona Tan’s contribution Island explores issues such as how different layers of time and place can converge in the present and in one’s memory – how one can be present in one place and, at the same time, in one’s memory, be present in another place. What images of him- or herself does the viewer encounter in the film and in the mirrors? Fiona Tan describes this work as a retreat slightly away from everyday life.

DAYANITA SINGH RECEIVES 2008 PRINCE CLAUS AWARD

Dayanita Singh is one of eleven recipients of this year’s award which focused on the theme of the human Body. Singh was awarded for the outstanding quality of her images, for providing a complex and well-articulated view of contemporary India, and for introducing a new aesthetic into Indian photography.

Singh’s work will also be included in Indian Highway, a group exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery, 10 December 2008 – 22 February 2009. Exhibition travelling to Astrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo, Norway.

DOROTHY CROSS: RIDERS TO THE SEA

Set design project for the English National Opera
27 – 30 November 2008

English National Opera marks the 50th anniversary of the death of one of England’s best-loved composers, Ralph Vaughan Williams, with a major new production conducted by British music specialist Richard hickox and directed by the acclaimed actress Fiona Shaw. Riders to the Sea is set in the Aran Islands and is his most moving and compelling opera. The piece’s visual concept has been jointly devised by Irish multi-media artist Dorothy Cross and set designer Tom Pye

Jaki Irvine

THE SQUARE ROOT OF MINUS ONE IS PLUS OR MINUS i
Published by Charta Art Books.

This new publication brings all of Jaki Irvine’s moving image work together for the first time, providing a unique opportunity for readers to experience the full depth and strength of her practice.

GIUSEPPE PENONE

MAMbo – Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, Italy
25 September – 8 December 2008

This exhibition was entirely conceived in relation to the spaces of the The Museum of Modern Art, Bologna. It presents a wide selection of works belonging to important series in the artist’s career and includes a major new piece made of bronze and leather entitled “Scrigno”.

Dorothy Cross: Exquisite Corpse

Group exhibition at IMMA, Dublin, Ireland
9 September 2008 – 29 March 2009

Exquisite Corpse is an exhibition of 17 works from the IMMA Collection that seeks to reveal a variety of perspectives on the Collection. The title of the exhibition is drawn from the game ‘Exquisite Corpse’ which was invented by the Surrealists in 1925 where a collection of words or images are collectively assembled. In this case the game’s structure is used to tap into the eclectic character of IMMA’s Collection.

FIONA TAN: PROVENANCE

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
27 August – 19 October 2008

Artist Fiona Tan (b. 1966) was born in Indonesia and grew up in Australia. She has lived and worked in Amsterdam since 1988. For the Rijksmuseum she made the installation Provenance.

“For this commission I looked at the 17th-century portraits in the Rijksmuseum collection. I find the most interesting paintings of this period are portraits in which the subjects are painted in a completely ordinary, honest and plain way. I immersed myself in their history, and what I noticed was how tangible the past is in a city like Amsterdam: the buildings, the street names, even the names and appearance of friends.

Annelies Strba

Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth
1 August – 31 October 2008
Exhibition touring to The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin

Strba also has work included in the group exhibition In voller Blüte at Museum Villa Rot, Burgrieden – Rot, Germany, 20 April – 6 July 2008

Dayanita Singh

Manifesta 7
19 July – 2 November 2008

Manifesta 7, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art will be hosted by the Trentino – South Tyrol Region. For the first time it will take place in Italy and will stretch across an entire regional territory – one hundred and fifty kilometres of crossroads of different cultures and intersecting traditions, rich in historical monuments and in sites of industrial archeology. It involves four cities which together create a single connecting route along the Brenner axis between the north and south of Europe: Fortezza (Bressanone), ex-Alumix factory in Bolzano, the Palazzo delle Poste in Trento, Manifattura Tabacchi and ex-Peterlini factory in Rovereto.

Singh also takes part in Wedded Bliss, The Marriage of Art and Ceremony, a group exhibition at the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts, USA, 26 April – 14 September 2008

Chantal Akerman

Camden Arts Centre, London
11 July – 14 September 2008

For her first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman presents a number of film works in varying formats. Beginning her career in the 1970’s Akerman has become known as one of the most important European directors of her generation.

MARLENE DUMAS: Measuring Your Own Grave

MOCA, LA
22 June – 22 Sept 2008
Exhibition travelling to MoMA, NYC (14 December 2008 – 16 February 2009)

This mid-career survey of the work of the acclaimed painter Marlene Dumas, the first of its scale to be mounted in the United States, is organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in association with The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The exhibition will include approximately 60 paintings and 35 drawings, including several large series of works on paper, and will provide a comprehensive examination of the work of one of the most thought-provoking and fascinating artists working today.

CORNELIA PARKER

Sydney Biennale
18 June – 7 September 2008

For the 16th Sydney Biennale, entitled Revolutions – Forms That Turn, Cornelia Parker presents her filmed interview with renowned writer and theorist Noam Chomsky who addresses the failings of government, corporations and the media to take responsibility for the ecology of our planet. He urges us to change our lifestyles and bring about socio-economic change. Though Parker fears that the planet may not be able to sustain human life by the end of this century, her work prompts reflection on our collective responsibilities and possible solutions.

Dorothy Cross: Stage

Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery
14 June – 26 July 2008

This work has been specially commissioned to mark the launch of the Shrewsbury Darwin200 celebrations commemorating the 200th anniversary of the Birth of Charles Darwin.

‘Stage’ was made in the Galapagos Islands which Cross visited with the actor Fiona Shaw (a childhood friend and occasional collaborator) together they explore the current conditions on the Islands and reflect, in that context, on the evolution of art itself and the role for artists within a world facing increasing environmental and cultural changes.

TACITA DEAN

Folkestone Triennial
14 June – 14 September 2008

Dean’s new film Amadeus is a specially commissioned work which sees the artist returning to Kent – the county of her childhood.

“Folkestone is all about its relationship to France and the water in between – the Martello towers, The Royal Military Canal, the acoustic mirrors, the deserted ferry terminal and Channel Tunnel rail link. For centuries, we have been barricading ourselves in or trying to reach across. The Channel is our local history: we have fished it, reclaimed land from it, smuggled across it, tried to keep it out or traversed it to lands beyond. We are an island people who have become too content with looking in and have let our seaport citadels rot. I have left England and to return is to return by sea. I might have set myself up badly as a prodigal, choosing a choppy inhospitable sea to cross, which incapacitated my nauseas crew into a Gustav Doré tableau, but I did as all Kentish people should do I, suffered the sea to get home”
Tacita Dean

ANNA BARRIBALL

Anna Barriball’s typographic artwork About 60 miles of beautiful views is the latest commission by Art on the Underground to go on display on the Tube network. Barriball will display a collection of evocative phrases taken from the back of found photographs.

Printed in London Underground’s classic New Johnston font, the texts will be displayed on posters in advertising spaces across the network. Travellers will encounter unexpected phrases like ‘About 60 miles of beautiful views.’ or ‘On way to birthday party.’ or ‘Looking back the way we had come.’ These cryptic texts are loaded with personal memory, yet connect with individual reasons for travel and the millions of private thoughts we carry on our journeys.

Daphne Wright: Mirror of Secret Desires

Group exhibition at The Hamburger Kunsthalle
6 June – 5 October 2008

The Hamburger Kunsthalle presents its major summer exhibition The Mirror of Secret Desires, which includes more than 150 works from five centuries. The exhibition is formed by over fifty sensuous and opulent still-life paintings from the Baroque period which enter into a dialogue with sculptures and installations by contemporary artists.

ANNA BARRIBALL: More and More - performance of reduction

Camden Arts Centre, London
3 – 11 June 2008

Last chance to see Anna Barriball’s new site specific work created for the Artists’ Studio program at Camden Arts Centre.

More and More takes the concept of using reduced means and imposed rules as a facilitator for artistic production.

Open late Wednesday 11 June until 9pm.

John Riddy: Utopia

Groups exhibition at Museu Berardo, Lisbon
30 May – 27 July 2008

The works in this exhibition of photography ‘UTOPIA’ focuse on a common point, the architecture of the 50s and 60s. In those decades several architects spread over the four corners of the world envisaged buildings constructed for a visionary utopia.

Tacita Dean

Dia:Beacon, NY, USA
17 May – 1 September 2008

This installation consists of six distinct films depicting legendary choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham performing Stillness, his singular choreography to John Cage’s radical 1952 composition, 4’ 33”. In each film, the fixed camera remains focused on Cunningham, who sits in a chair and assumes a variety of attitudes. This static scene is broken twice, when Trevor Carlson, director of the Cunningham Dance Company, marks the three parts with a simple gesture. Subtly different, each performance has been filmed from a different camera angle. Each is presented on a screen whose dimensions are calibrated to render the image of Cunningham life-size.

Tacita Dean will also take part in the Folkestone Triennial
14 June – 14 September 2008

Juan Uslé: Switch on/Switch off

Centro Cultural Fundación Bancaja, Valencia, Spain
8 April – 8 June 2008

This exhibition presents 65 works by leading Spanish artist Juan Uslé. The paintings presented can be divided into two broad groups: the first being a series of large black paintings entitled Soñé que revelabas (I Dreamed that You Revealed); and the second, a series of several smaller and more colourful paintings. The exhibition is traveling from Centro de Arte Contemporáneo de Málaga, Spain.

Fiona Banner: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph

Group exhibition at Kunsthaus Graz, Austria
6 March – 26 October 2008

The exhibition Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph connects the structural (and symbolic) endlessness of the architecture of the Kunsthaus Graz with an attempt to navigate (mentally) the temporal and spatial levels of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection.

CORNELIA PARKER: Chomskian Abstract

Whitechapel Laboratory, London, UK
13 February – 30 March 2008

Whitechapel Laboratory presents Cornelia Parker’s filmed interview with renowned writer and theorist Noam Chomsky who addresses the failings of government, corporations and the media to take responsibility for the ecology of our planet. He urges us to change our lifestyles and bring about socio-economic change. Though Parker fears that the planet may not be able to sustain human life by the end of this century, her work prompts reflection on our collective responsibilities and possible solutions.

MASSIMO BARTOLINI: MAXXI: DIALOGUES WITH THE CITY

MAXXI, Rome, Italy
12 February – 30 March 2008

MAXXI, the National Museum of 21st Century Art, has been designed by Anglo-Iraqi architect Zaha Hadid and is the first museum in Italy dedicated to contemporary art and architecture. In the first in a series of events and projects prior to the museum’s opening in Spring 2009 Massimo Bartolini has created a light installation for the building’s façade. The opened was marked by groups of lamps rumbling, falling and hanging from the building revealing in the remaining lights the words, Anche oggi niente (Nothing today too).

Bartolini’s work always has strong links with its location. His work transforms our way of thinking, stimulating our imagination and making us see our surroundings in a completely new way. Here he articulates the museum space within the city of Rome itself.

MARLENE DUMAS: INTIMATE RELATIONS

Standard Bank Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (Travelling from Iziko South African National Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa)
6 February – 29 March 2008

Curated by the artist herself and Emma Bedford from South Africa, this exhibition and its related publication are conceived as a homecoming, giving audiences in Dumas’ native land in-depth insights into her extraordinary oeuvre through a broad selection of work, ranging from early conceptual pieces to very recent paintings and drawings dealing with contemporary global issues.

Polly Apfelbaum: Flower Power: A Subversive Botanical

Group exhibition at New Mexico Museum of Art, USA
1 February – 11 May 2008

Flower Power: A Subversive Botanical will examine anti-war sentiments, anti-establishment demands, class realignments, gender divisions, and utopian desires associated with the single petal, daisy flower that was an icon of the 1960s.

THOMAS SCHÜTTE: EARLY WORKS

Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (Travelling from the Henry Moore Institute, Leeds, UK)
1 February – 20 April 2008

This exhibition focuses on Schütte’s lesser-known early work. The artist himself has designated the space of time from 1975 to 1980 as a particular research period in his career during which, as a student in Gerhard Richter’s painting class, he gradually found his way to sculpture.

Schütte’s research is characterised by a number of features, including self-depiction, clear rules and regulations, order patterns and permutations, and by a conceptual approach regarding the spatial context in which the work is presented, the contest between illusion and function, the disparity between inside and outside, and the interest in the mise-en-scène.

CRAIGIE HORSFIELD: Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art

Group exhibition at the International Center of Photography, NYC, USA
18 January – 4 May 2008

Organized by renowned scholar and ICP Adjunct Curator Okwui Enwezor, Archive Fever: Uses of the Document in Contemporary Art will present works by leading contemporary artists who use archival documents to rethink the meaning of identity, history, memory, and loss.

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News from 2008