Top 10 Modern and Contemporary Art Exhibitions Worth Visiting In Spring/Summer 2016

Happy New Year! Another year beckons with fantastic chances to see and experience visual art and culture both near and far. Like many of you, I've had a very relaxing holiday season spent close to home this year, but I am looking forward in 2016 to some great opportunities to travel and visit out-of-town exhibitions. It has also become something of a tradition for me to spend New Year's Day searching out many of the world's great modern and contemporary art museums to plan fantasty itineraries-- not a bad way to set the tone for a new year-- and I hope too that some of these picks inspire your own travel plans. Wishing you all a wonderful 2016 filled with many new art adventures!

MashUp: Birth of Modern Culture

Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver: February 20- June 12, 2016

Starting close to home, I am thrilled that this unique and massive four floor survey of modern and contemporary art and culture opening next month at the Vancouver Art Gallery coincides with my regular offering of a contemporary art history course at KPU. As I have learned through my field school experiences, there is no better way to teach students about art and art history than having them experience works first-hand, and this particular opportunity will be a once in a lifetime chance for many Vancouverites to experience a virtual survey of recent contemporary art. 

MashUp at the Vancouver Art Gallery will also feature a comprehensive catalogue, one that I am looking forward to seeing. 

Open Plan: Andrea Fraser

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York: February 26- March 13, 2016

Visiting the brand new Whitney Museum in New York last summer was one of the highlights of our NYC/Venice Biennale field school, and I only wish I could go back and see how this particular exhibition will utilize the expansive spaces of the place. Andrea Fraser caught my eye immediately when I was scanning the Whitney's upcoming exhibitions-- she is one of my favourite performance artists, and her specific interest in institutional critique should produce a very engaging piece for the new jewel in New York's art museums crown. Her site-specific work titled Down The River involves audio recordings taken at a correctional facility and will no doubt challenge audiences to engage with the views and associated contexts beyond the Whitney's walls.

The fifth floor of the Whitney features over 18,000 square feet of open space and will be the home to Andrea Fraser's new site-specific work Down the River.

Moholy-Nagy: Future Present

Guggenheim Museum, New York: May- September 2016

I cannot believe that this will be the very first retrospective of László Moholy-Nagy to appear in North America in over 50 years! There are so few artists whose influence in the fields of new media, technology, and multimedia are as relevant, if not even more so, today than they were in the time they were first conceived (in this case, in the early twentieth century). Of all the exhibitions on this list, this would be my top pick, and not just because I share Moholy-Nagy's Hungarian heritage (although I have spent a great deal of time studying his life and work as part of my own research). This is an artist who was a true visionary of the technological age, and this show is long long overdue.

László Moholy-Nagy, B-10 Space Modulator (1942)

Robert Mapplethorpe: The Perfect Medium

LACMA and Getty Museum, Los Angeles: March 20- July 31, 2016

When I was a graduate student, I published a paper concerning the Robert Mapplethorpe exhibition A Perfect Moment-- a key event that became the center-point of controversy during the US culture wars of the 1980-90's. In the past several years, many art institutions have begun to revisit that difficult historical moment when censorship and other hot-button issues concerning art and culture threatened artistic freedoms in the US as never before. This exhibition of Mapplethorpe's drawings, collages, and photographic works will be accompanied by another exhibition titled Physical: Sex and the Body in the 1980s and promises to further help position the controversy surrounding this artist in a much wider social and political context. All of these examinations are also most welcome in the highly contentious US election environment set for 2016.

Robert Mapplethorpe, Self-Portrait (1980)

Big Bang Data

Somerset House, London: December 3, 2015- February 28, 2016

I am most excited to be traveling to London this February to attend and deliver a paper at a conference devoted to the critical examination of the Venice Biennale (more on that in a future post). I will also be meeting up with my dear friend Lara-- we did our PhDs together, so we share a very special bond-- who recently moved to the UK to pursue her art advising/appraising business in the new and exciting arena of the online world. What better exhibition for us to explore together than one curated on the theme of data explosion and "datafication" via the arts transforming our world. I cannot wait to get to London to check this out!

Watch the trailer for the Big Bang Data exhibition here

Vigée Le Brun: Woman Artist in Revolutionary France

Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: February 15- May 15, 2016

The canon of art history is not very inclusive of women, especially prior to the nineteenth century, so I am thrilled to see one of the most intriguing French artists of the period leading up the French Revolution being given a retrospective. Vigée Le Brun was one of the very few women admitted to the French Art Academy and became the personal painter of Marie Antoinette and the royal family. The exhibition will no doubt cast new light on this turbulent period of France's social and cultural history, especially as it was represented via artists such as Vigée Le Brun.

Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Self-portrait (1790) 

GRAPHIC MASTERS: DÜRER, REMBRANDT, GOYA, PICASSO, MATISSE, R. CRUMB

Seattle Art Museum, Seattle: June 9- August 28, 2016

I adore exhibitions that focus on one form of art production, and this expansive exhibition (located not too far from home in Seattle) will be devoted to the medium of printmaking. 500 years of history with 400 objects on view, from Durer, Rembrandt, Goya, Picasso, Matisse, and Crumb, all under one curatorial umbrella-- who wouldn't want to check this out?

Francisco Goya, Plate 43, "Los Caprichos": The sleep of reason produces monsters (1799)

Martin Scorsese Retrospective

The French Cinematheque, Paris: October 14, 2015- February 15, 2016

This spring at long last I will be teaching a special topics class on American New Wave cinema. Prominent among the filmmakers of that period of the late 1960's to 70's is of course Martin Scorsese, and if I could wave a magic wand, I would transport the entire class on Day 1 to visit this important exhibition currently on at the French Cinematheque museum in Paris. Imagine rooms filled with Scorsese's storyboards, scripts, outtakes, and personal photographs and memorabilia. Not to mention all of the special film screenings and archival information on hand. Scorsese is deeply respected in France, and with good reason. He is as close to a living cinema auteur as we have in North America today.

I pray this exhibition dedicated to Scorsese finds a way to travel over to North America!

Hito Steyerl: Factory of the Sun

Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles: February 21- September 12, 2016

Last summer at the Venice Biennale, it was very very hot, and I was fortunate enough to find the best air conditioning at the venue while visiting the basement of the German pavilion. At the time, I was not even interested in the art being shown-- cooling off was the priority-- but once I settled into one of the comfy lounge chairs and actually paid attention to the unusual video installation on the massive screen before my eyes (exactly as pictured in the picture), I was both mesmerized and drawn in. It is a very difficult piece to describe-- so do go see it if for yourself if you are in LA over the next few months-- but suffice to say that the uncanny and surreal elements of the work created by German filmmaker Hito Steyerl capture something both attractive and menacing about our current screen culture. 

Andy Warhol-- Ai Weiwei

National Gallery of Victoria, Australia: December 11, 2015- April 24, 2016

This exhibition had me at its title-- Andy Warhol and Ai Weiwei. Are you kidding me? Who wouldn't want to check out how the curators brought such seemingly unlikely artists together. A guaranteed success I am sure. Now I just have to work on that plane ticket to Australia.... 

Andy meets Weiwei.... I would want to be a fly on that wall.

Courses for Spring 2016: Topics in American New Wave Film, Contemporary Art, and Film Studies

As registration for Spring 2016 academic courses begins soon, I wanted to provide more information about courses I will begin teaching starting January, 2016. Please see detailed descriptions below. If you have any specific questions that are not answered here, you can contact me directly. I look forward to another rich and engaging semester with both new and familiar faces. **NOTE: New pre-requisites for ARTH 3100 and ARTH 2222 allow for more flexibility in registration for non-Fine Arts students**

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ARTH 3100: American New Wave Film 

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Thursdays 7:00-9:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: 6 credits of ARTH or 18 credits of 1100-level courses or higher, and ENGL 1100.

This course will examine how a new generation of young and creative North American filmmakers in the late 1960s to 1980s sought to revolutionize Hollywood cinema through the “Hollywood Renaissance” or the “American New Wave,” a cinematic movement that defied traditional Hollywood standards and practices of the studio-era in countless ways, creating a more innovative and artistic style of filmmaking that continues to influence today's global cinema. Influenced by the French New Wave and other international film and experimental cinema movements of the 1960’s, the directors, actors, screenwriters, and producers associated with the American New Wave took advantage of a moment in North America's social and cultural history when the advent and popularity of television, significant decrease in movie theater attendance, rising production costs, and changing tastes of American audiences, particularly in the younger generation, provided Hollywood a chance to revitalize the film industry and open pathways to experimentation and more creative control over the filmmaking process. 

Film directors such as Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Robert Altman, John Cassavetes, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Woody Allen, Stanley Kubrick, Clint Eastwood, Milos Forman, John Schlesinger, and many more will be studied alongside films such as Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969), A Clockwork Orange (1971), The Godfather (1972), American Graffiti (1973), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Taxi Driver (1976), Annie Hall (1977), Star Wars (1977),  Grease (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Airplane! (1980) and many others. Several full length film screenings included.

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ARTH 2222: Contemporary Art & Visual Culture, 1945-Present 

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Fridays 1:00-3:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: 6 credits of any 1100-level courses or higher.

Nam June Paik, V-yramid (1982), visited at the new Whitney Museum, New York during this past summer's NYC/Venice Biennale Field School. 

ARTH 2222 offers a critical examination of international visual art and culture focusing on the role of art in consumerist society and the emergence of postmodernism. The course concentrates on visual art from the mid-1940s to the present day, with particular regard for historical events, factors of patronage and institutions—as well as changing attitudes to making and approaching art—in modern and postmodern art. We will consider the traditional media of painting and sculpture but must also take into account the addition of innovative media to art practice in recent years.

From photography to video, collage to assemblage, installation to performance, such media have extended notions of what art could materially consist of, but have also affected the anticipation of audiences for that work, having social as well as aesthetic implications. Ultimately, our attention will be on the network where art is made, presented to and reacted to by different parties, and to the ways that portions of the art system―such as art history and cultural criticism―have conceived of and explained the workings of such a system and the society it exists within. 

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ARTH 1130: Introduction to Film Studies

Kwantlen Polytechnic University (Fridays 4:00-7:50pm, Surrey Campus Fir 128). Prerequisites: none

Films that have been popular in recent years will be put in perspective through the study of film history and film concepts dating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century right up to the present day.

Students will study the history and development of world cinema, and the comprehension and theory of film as a visual language and art-making practice from its inception in the late nineteenth century to the present. The goal of the course is to introduce students to the critical interpretation of the cinema and the various vocabularies and methods with which one can explore the aesthetic function, together with the social, political, and technological contexts and developments, of moving pictures. The format of this course (as a 4 hour block each class) will normally entail a one hour lecture, the screening of a full-length film, and a focused group discussion. Each film will serve as a starting point and gateway for discussion about the course’s daily theme. 

25 Street and Graffiti Artists (Besides Banksy) From Around the World to Follow Today

Street art, just like any other subversive visual arts form, has to contend with both the popularization of its practice and the changing styles and influences that shape the contours of its development both locally and globally. Teaching a special topics course on Urban, Street, and Graffiti Art this semester has provided a tremendous opportunity to further explore where the similarities exist between the aims and shared goals of the historical avant-garde (from the early to mid twentieth century) and the many groups of contemporary street artists located in major cities around the world.

Most recently, I asked the students in my class to complete a questionnaire to help me assign them a specific artist to follow and research for a larger term project in the course, and I was struck by both the incredible diversity and global reach that the final group of assigned artists represents in connection to my student’s own unique interests. I am sharing the assigned artists here with you  (and they can also be located on this dedicated Pinterest Board) in the hopes that I can spark further curiosity in an art form that attracts so much undeserved derision from many art historians and even from within the more mainstream art world (Jerry Saltz, I am looking at you!). Do people simply forget the story and legacy of Jean-Michel Basquiat? Perhaps that is only a further sign that this kind of art deserves even more serious attention. That said, I invite you to explore the following artists by clicking on the images below and following them on social media to see where their next projects take you.

In order from top to bottom, left to right: 

BTOY (Barcelona, Spain); ETAM KRU (Warsaw, Poland); ELLE (Brooklyn, USA); D*FACE (London, UK); WRKLESS (Vancouver, Canada); SWOON (New York, USA); LADY AIKO (Tokyo, Japan); Magda Sayeg (Houston, USA); FAITH47 (Cape Town, South Africa); Alec Monopoly (New York, USA); KEF (Aachen, Germany); INTI (Valparaíso Chile); ARTISTRASH (Barcelona, Spain); 281_ANTI-NUKE (Tokyo, Japan); Ron English (New York, USA); a1one (Tehran, Iran); SAMSAM (New Delhi, India); RETNA (Los Angeles, USA); Tatyana Fazlalizadeh (Brooklyn, USA); HANKSY (New York, USA); DALEAST (Beijing, China and Cape Town, South Africa); Shamsia Hassani (Kabul, Afghanistan); LIK ME (Bogota, Columbia); DAKU (New Delhi, India); AXEL VOID (Miami, Florida); I HEART (Vancouver, Canada)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Canadian Culinary Imaginations, A Symposium of Literary and Visual Fare

Next spring, I will be helping to coordinate and organize a conference with Dr. Shelley Boyd (co-creator of the Canadian Literary Fare project) dedicated to the interdisciplinary examination of how Canadian artists, writers, and other creative producers use food in their practice to articulate larger historical and social contexts. We invite proposals for 20 minute papers and/or presentations of creative projects from across the disciplines to be presented at Kwantlen Polytechnic University next February 19-20th. As part of the conference, we will also be featuring an exhibition of student art project collaborations between English and Fine Arts students. Please see all details and information below and share this link with interested colleagues, students, and artists. We look forward to your submissions! 

DEADLINE: NOVEMBER 12, 2015

CANADIAN CULINARY IMAGINATIONS: A SYMPOSIUM OF LITERARY AND VISUAL FARE

February 19 - 20, 2016
Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Vancouver B.C. Canada (Richmond Campus) 

In her 2014 book The Culinary Imagination: From Myth to Modernity, Sandra M. Gilbert observes that while the twenty-first century is “gastronomically obsessed,” the “lore and lure of food” have been present since antiquity and prehistory. Culinary imaginings are most certainly dynamic, Gilbert argues, with new modes of writing and visual representations evoking food’s ongoing cultural significance. Similar reflections on Canada’s early beginnings to the twenty- first century understandably lead to questions about the shifting contours of this nation’s “culinary imaginations.” How have innovations in form and content shaped this country’s food- related expressions?

The Canadian Culinary Imaginations symposium invites interdisciplinary examinations of how Canadian writers and/or visual artists use food to articulate larger historical and cultural contexts, as well as personal sensibilities. Who are the key or overlooked figures, and how have they broadened or challenged the meaning of food through their art? The symposium will coincide with the launch of the public art exhibition Artful Fare: Conversations about Food, featuring the collaborative art projects of KPU Fine Arts and English students as they engage in creative-critical dialogues about food in Canadian poetry. The symposium will take place on Kwantlen Polytechnic University’s Richmond campus, located near the Lansdowne Skytrain Station (on the Canada Line) with convenient access to Vancouver's International Airport.

In keeping with the interdisciplinary nature of the symposium, the organizers invite paper proposals that may engage with a range of topics within a Canadian or comparative context, including (but not restricted to) the following:

• Examinations of Canadian artists and/or writers who use food prominently in their works
• The relationship between food and form (drama, fiction, foodoir, landscape painting, oral traditions, poetry, portraiture, performance art, sculpture, still-life, film, photography, digital media, etc.)
• Food-related expressions in the context of literary or artistic movements (early Canadiana, modernism, feminism, post-colonialism, the avant-garde, etc.).
• Representations of scarcity and hunger
• Examinations of literary cookbooks and/or exhibition catalogues of visual fare
• Recipes, menus, and/or food policies in literature and/or the visual arts
• Representations of urban and rural foodways
• Local, regional, national, and/or global food politics in Canadian literature and the arts
• Expressions of First Nations foodways
• Food in iconic works of Canadian art and literature; or Canadian food/brands in art and  literature
• Comparisons of cross-cultural culinary imaginations that include Canada

Please email your proposal (as a Word attachment) with the subject line “Culinary Imaginations” to shelley.boyd@kpu.ca and dorothy.barenscott@kpu.ca by November 12, 2015.

Proposals should include the following:

1. Your name, contact information, and institutional affiliation.
2. The title of your paper, AND a proposal of 250 - 300 words, identifying the texts and/or visual works that will be your focus and outlining the argument to be presented in a paper of approximately 20 minutes in length.
3. A 50-word biographical statement. 

Vancouver International Film Festival 2015 Selections: PART 2

As promised, I have added another ten selections to PART ONE of my VIFF Selections blog post from last week. These are once again presented in no particular order, but this time I am bringing attention to selections that struck my curiosity and stood out for me when leafing through this year's guide. I know some of these will likely appear in later iterations on a screen near you, but several of them will be the kind of one-shot viewing experience that makes VIFF such a special festival. Happy viewing! 

NO MEN BEYOND THIS POINT directed by Mark Sawers (CANADA)

What happens in a world where men are no longer needed? That is the premise of this Canadian mockumentary (one of my favourite genres) that follows the youngest man still alive in a sea of women reproducing asexually. The film is set in West Vancouver, so how could you not be curious about how this will all look on the screen?

EXPERIMENTER directed by Michael Almereyda (USA)

As a Gen-Xer, I adore Winona Ryder (Reality Bites was one of my favourite films as an angst ridden undergrad), and I am curious how she is cast in this film set during the infamous “social-obedience experiments” at Yale during the 1960s. This is more of a mainstream commercial film pick for VIFF, but the subject matter is both intriguing and timely.

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS directed by Massimo Ali Mohammad (USA/ITALY)

When The Artist came to VIFF a few years ago and then shocked many by winning best film at the Academy Award the following year, I felt vindicated for advocating the significance and relevance of the silent cinema—movies after all are first and foremost a visually driven medium. This film also promises to be a tribute to silent movie making through the creation of a combination mockumentary and mock silent movie that tells the story of the film’s discovery.

PARADISE directed by Sina Ataeian Dena (IRAN/GERMANY)

Films from Iran are always a favourite at VIFF, and this year proves no exception with this selection shot clandestinely in Tehran. Following a mostly female cast through what is described as current-day existence in Iran, the movie promises to “reveal the role of women in contemporary Iranian society.”

SOUND + IMAGE SHORTS directed by various (CANADA)

This anthology of nine films showcases Canadian filmmaking talent at its most immediate and focused through the use of the short film format. Some of the most memorable films I have seen at VIFF over the years have been those under 10 minutes. Remember always, it is about quality not quantity in filmmaking as many other media forms.

PORT OF CALL directed by Philip Yung (HONG KONG)

The “Dragons and Tigers” section at VIFF showcasing films from East Asia grows exponentially every year, and I always eager to discover something new that I know I will not likely see again. This year, I was struck by the synopsis of a Hong Kong film that delves into the world of modern policing in Chinese society. With all of the social upheaval in Hong Kong in the last year, I am curious to see how this film tackles the subject.

A FLICKERING TRUTH directed by Pietra Brettkelly (AFGHANISTAN/NEW ZEALAND)

Some years ago, film director Pietra Brettkelly blew the lid off of the contemporary art world with a documentary examining and exposing the world of high stakes art making and selling at the Venice Biennale (if you haven’t seen The Art Star and the Sudanese Twins about Italian artist Vanessa Beecroft—most recently, art director to Kanye West—make sure to check it out). In this new documentary, Brettkelly travels to Afghanistan where she follows a group of Afghan cinephiles trying to preserve and protect their culture’s films from destruction by the Taliban regime.  

HOCKNEY directed by Randall Wright (UK/USA)

Although I am not a huge fan of artist psychobiography or this artist in particular, the film Hockney came recommended from a trusted colleague and promises not to be just a celebratory portrayal, but instead a documentary that delves more critically into the life and context of famed British artist David Hockney. We shall see….

DEATHGASM directed by Jason Lei Howden (NEW ZEALAND)

Many of my students accuse me of not having an open enough mind when it comes to the horror and gore-porn genres, so this selection is dedicated to them! The name of the film is intriguing enough to check out, and I will make sure to go see this movie on an empty stomach.

ORIGINAL COPY directed by Florian Heinzen-Ziob (GERMANY)

Following the lives of Bollywood film poster designers and painters, this film caught my eye right away for both the art form of the public movie poster (which as the film synopsis notes is today in the final stages of dying out) and the cultural context of the Indian film industry, within which this story plays out.