Original title: 28 exhibitions worth visiting in 2020 Author: Editor: yijie.zhang Time: January 26, 2020
From important solo exhibitions by women artists – including Marina Abramović, Yayoi Kusama, Betye Saar and Alice Neel – to explorations of modern masculinity, photographic retrospectives, biennials and triennials, here are the global exhibitions we recommend for the new year.
For years, we've been calling for more of the work of women artists to be exhibited; in 2020, museums are starting to catch up. From Yayoi Kusama to Alice Neel, from Zanele Muholi to Artemisia Gentileschi, from Cao Fei to Marina Abramović, the idea of traveling the world around the world in the new year is not too bad. These exhibitions were supposed to take place decades ago, some centuries ago.
Manifestations of modern masculinity are on display in London and Berlin, while the Guggenheim Museum in New York raises pressing questions about man-made and natural environments.
New galleries to open in 2020 include Moscow's grand GES-2, designed by Renzo Piano, and the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, designed by Tadao Ando. This year, the clock hands of the International Biennale stopped at Sydney, São Paulo, Helsinki and Marseille (not to be confused, Yokohama and New Orleans are triennials). At the same time, Marrakech, as Africa's first cultural capital, will witness the beginning of a new tradition.
Here is our final list of very worthwhile exhibitions to visit in 2020:
1. Betye Saar
Bettye Sal said: "I can no longer divide my work – say this is about the supernatural, this is about shamanism, this is about so-and-so... They are together, they are all my work. The artist, now in her 90s, made her debut during the American civil rights movement. Her combination of imagery conjures up images of magic and supernatural powers, but she is also sometimes straightforward: in The Liberty of Aunt Jemima (1972), she pairs comic book characters with rifles and grenades.
As of January 4, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York, USA
As of April 5, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Los Angeles, USA
22 April – 26 July, Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany
December 1 – March 14, 2021, ICA Miami, Miami, USA
2. Janvan Eyck years
In fact, Van Ike's glorious year was 1432, when he and his brother Hubert launched Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. It is a beautiful work of 24 panels that was revolutionary in that era. This masterpiece of European art has been damaged, burned, split, resold, looted, and scrambled many times. Both Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goering wanted to get their hands on it; as a result, during World War II, the painting was hidden in a salt mine for a long time. Since 2012, it has been restored piece by piece and will be exhibited for the first time (and only) as part of the Van Eyck exhibition, after which it will return to St. Bavo Cathedral in Ghent. Several places in Ghent celebrate by displaying works of art from the late Middle Ages.
Van Eyck: An OpticalRevolution, February 1–April 30, Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent, Belgium
3. African Capital of Culture, Marrakesh, Morocco
Starting in February, several venues in this thousand-year-old city will host art exhibitions and events, which will run concurrently with the 1-54 Contemporary African Arts Festival. Highlights include the environmentally themed exhibition "Did You See the Horizon Recently?" at the Almaden Museum of African Contemporary Art (MACAAL). (Have You Seen A HorizonLately?), and a project led by the African photography platform Black Shade Projects.
1-54 Contemporary African Art Festival, La Mamounia, IS A VIP preview from February 20 to 21 and officially opens from February 22 to 23
"Have you seen the horizon lately?" , Almaden Museum of African Contemporary Art, opens on 25 February
Black Shade Projects, open in February
4. Masculinity: Liberation through photography
The complexity of modern masculinity from the 1960s to today is showcased through the exhibition's extremely rich collection of films and photographs. Exploring topics such as unconventional identity, the black human body, power and patriarchy, men in the eyes of women, harmful masculinity, fatherhood and family, the exhibition includes 300 works by 50 artists, including Richard Avedon, Peter Hujar, Isaac Julien, RotimiFani-Kayode, and Robert Mapleplethorpe, Catherine Opie.
20 February – 17 May, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK
October 16 – January 10, 2021, Gropius Bau, Berlin, Germany
5. The countryside, the future
Rem Koolhaas and his firm of architects and philosophers, OMA, set their sights on the unoccupied parts of the earth's surface that are 98% of the earth's surface and ask the question: What will the countryside of the future look like? Or what will we be like in the future? Research departments in the United States, China, the Netherlands, and Kenya have all contributed their own projects to this lively discussion about society and the environment.
From February 20 to August 14, Solomon M. Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA
6. Cao Fei
Cao Fei is an observer of social change, using film, photography and the online world to recreate the changes taking place in China. In Haze and Fog, she reconstructs a zombie film to express a critique of society; RMBCity, a virtual art community in the online world of Second Life, led by her online avatar China Tracy; and in Rumba II: Nomad, she puts a robot vacuum cleaner on a Construction Site in Beijing. All works raise pressing questions about technology and modern life.
March 4–May 17, Serpentine Gallery, London, UK
September 26 – December 27, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA), Beijing, China
7. Aubrey Beardsley
The English illustrator died at the age of 25, but his black-and-white illustrations in his short life had a clear and unambiguous style: vibrant, charming, curved and decorative. They are exemplary of the decadent style of the late 19th century.
March 4 – May 25, TateBritain, London, UK
15 June – 13 September, Muséed'Orsay, Paris, France
8. Carl Craig: After the party/party
The legendary high-tech dance DJ spent 5 years working with the Hudson River Museum in New York to create a modern sculptural installation in the basement of an industrial building that evokes both carnival and loneliness.
March 6 –September 7, Dia: Beacon Museum, New York, USA
9. The glory days of Cecil Beaton
The whole fantasy and charm of London society in the 1920s and 1930s was documented by photographer Cecil Beaton. Beaton himself was the darling of society, constructing an illusion of beautiful people who seemed to have infinite disguises: a picture that influences Vogue's photographers to this day.
March 12 – June 7, National Portrait Gallery, London, UK
Studio 54: Night Magic
By 1977, New York needed a party — the city was nearly bankrupt — and Studio54 came into being. The goal of this nightclub from the beginning was to create a legend: what is the origin of the famous photo of Bianca Jagger riding a horse? It was Halston's party for her at Studio54. Andy Warhol put it this way: "The key to Studio54's success is that it has a dictatorship at the door and democracy on the dance floor." The tax authorities later shut it down, and Studio54 held a successful party when it closed in 1980 called "The End of Modern-Day Gomorrah."
March 13 – July 5, Brooklyn Museum , New York, USA
11. NIRIN: 22nd Sydney Biennale
Nirin, who means "edge" in the Wradjuri Aboriginal language, is a relative of Australian artist Brook Andrew, who is artistic director of the 22nd Sydney Biennale. He is at the helm of a "Artist and First Nations-led" project that explores past anxieties and believes that "artists and creatives have the ability to solve, save, deconstruct and imagine a changing future that will put the world back on track." The 98 participating artists are a mixture of diverse political views, including Anna Boghiguian, Mohamed Bourouissa, Lawrence Abu Hamdan and Arthur Jafa.
March 14 - June 8, Sydney, Australia
12. Huguette Caland
The late Hugh Gert Kalander was a painter who focused on sensory stimulation, creating intimate close-up compositions of body parts and reddened flesh that extended to ornate costumes and fashion designs. After his death in September, the Mathaf Arabb Museum of Modern Art in Doha commemorated the Lebanese artist's solo exhibition.
March 24-26, Museum of Modern Arab Art, Doha, Qatar
13. Nikide Saint Phalle
In revenge for the machismo in the art world, Nikki Sanfaler shoots at canvases and sculptures tied with balloons, which are filled with paint so that they "bleed" after shooting. Her later sculpture, Nana, is a group of joyful images of pregnant women— the largest of which allows people to walk through the vagina to the body and drink milk from a milk bar located in one breast.
April 5-September 7, PS1, Museum of Modern Art, New York, USA
14. Artemisia Gentileschi
Artemisia Gentileschi, the most famous female artist of the 17th century, was born in Rome and studied painting with her artist father, Orazio. She was the first woman to be accepted by the Accademia delle Arti del Disegno in Florence. She overcame prejudice and achieved career success. This was the first major exhibition of her work in England after the National Gallery purchased her exquisite SelfPortrait as Saint Catherine of Alexandria (1615–17) in the National Gallery.
6 April – 26 July, National Gallery, London, UK
15. Zanele Muhalli
Zanele Muhalli has been portraying characters from South Africa's particular sexual groups for many years. Because the focus is on beautiful individuals, sometimes their precarious and often violent characteristics seem to be forgotten. Later, in her powerful self-portrait series, Somnyama Ngonyama: Hail the Dark Lioness, she wore conceived decorations reminiscent of the complex multiple identities of black Women in South Africa. Muhalli said: "I want to use my face to make people always remember how important our black faces are when we meet them." Because this black face is recognized as a rational thinking in itself. ”
29 April – 18 October, Tate Modern, London, UK
4 November – 14 February 2021, Maison Européenne de laPhotographie, Paris, France
March-July 2021, Gropius Museum, Berlin, Germany
October 2021 - March 2022, Bildmuseet, Umeå, Sweden
16. MunchMuseum, Oslo, Norway
This is one of the largest museums with a single artist's work, and Edvard Munch's 28,000 works will be on display at the new Munch Museum. It is a sloping building designed by Estudio Herreros with a porous aluminium façade and over 13 floors, leaving plenty of room for guest artists. The first to appear is Munch's huge fan Tracey Emin, who will appear in the makeshift pavilion when the museum opens, and then later this year she will confront Oslo's expressionist artists at london's Royal Academy.
Opens in May
17. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
The British painter used his imagination to create contagious works that often look like portraits, capturing moments of black encounters, contemplation or intimacy, in which figures often reappear as if they were meeting again at different times in their lives. The Tate Exhibition is her largest to date, featuring 80 paintings from 2003 to the present day.
May 19 – August 31, Tate, UK, London, UK
18. 13th European Manifesto (Manifesta 13)
This Edition of The European Mobile Biennale draws inspiration from the complex sense of identity that football star Zinedine Zidane and his city of birth have given him: "Every day I wonder where I am, and I am still proud of who I am: first from La Castellane as a Kabir, then from Marseille, then as a Frenchman. "At multiple venues in this fascinating historic port city, a number of top artists are expected to present themes of identity and solidarity.
June 7 – November 1, Marseille, France
19. Alice Neil
In her home studio in Harlem, Alice Neil depicts life around her in the mid-20th century: children knocking on her door, intellectuals, writers, dancers, little hooligans, social activists, pregnant women. She shows a distinct tenderness and humor in all of her work: her portraits not only capture place and time, but also Neil's own desire to build rapport with everyone in the circle of life.
10 June – 24 August, Pompidou Centre, Paris, France
20. Helsinki Biennale 2020, Finland
Director Maija Tanninen-Mattila said: "What makes the Helsinki Biennale unique is its charming location , Barrier Island, which is not far from the city by boat. The island's military history and beautiful flora and fauna provide a very special environment for art. By bringing the two elements together – nature and urban heritage – we want to put our exhibitions in a way that brings people closer not only to art, but also to nature. Tanninen-Mattila values quality over quantity: the final list of participants includes Katharina Grosse, Hanna Tuulikki, Pavel Althamer. Wait to witness the magic of art.
June 12-September 27
21. Stock Exchange: Pinault Collection, Paris, France
François Pinault once said: "I hope that the stock exchange will become a place to showcase today's art." As founder of Kering, Pino's personal collection contains around 5,000 works of art, and his desire to house them in Paris has endured two decades of ups and downs. Japanese architect Tadao Ando accepted the task of transforming this 19th-century circular building into a temple of 21st-century art.
Open in mid-June
22. Afterglow: Yokohama Triennial
Residual light: Like the vanishing white dots on old TV screens, or sparks from static electricity, phosphorescence from the deep sea, or the glow of poisonous smoke after an explosion – the Yokohama Triennale is curated by the Raqs Media Group, a group of artists founded in New Delhi in 1992. Tokyo, a few miles north here, will host the Olympics, and the intellectual race here is expected to be as intense as the Olympics.
July 3 – October 11, Yokohama Museum of Art, Yokohama, Japan
23. GES-2, Moscow, Russia
Teresa Iarocci Mavica, head and co-founder of the V-A-C Foundation dedicated to contemporary art (another founder is Leonid Mikhelson), said: "The idea of opening up GES-2 has been haunting me for two years. "GES-2 is the foundation's new home, originally an abandoned power station on The Island of Pachun in central Moscow." To me, it's a bit wrong to say that we're going to 'open a building' one day; it seems too outdated, too private. When people are invited into a space, it becomes a public space; in a public space, you should be able to express your emotions. From this point of view, we should not be the first to occupy that space, but should give it to an artist who will turn it into his own space. So they invited the Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson— whom Mavica called "the most Russian among non-Russian artists"— to complete an architectural-scale project that he called "true Tolstoy scale." Let's look forward to the strong emotions that will be displayed.
Open in September
24. Yayoi Kusama
The Japanese artist's largest exhibition to date will begin touring this fall, starting in Berlin: early sculptures from Kusama's New York avant-garde period and mirrored spaces, huge "net" paintings and a large number of dots are expected.
4 September – 17 January, Gropius Museum, Berlin, Germany
From April 2021, Ludwig Museum, Cologne, Germany
Fondation Beyeler, Switzerland, october 2021
25. I sing despite the darkness: the 34th São Paulo Biennale
Curator Jacopo Crivelli Visconti explains: "This biennale started out as a series of exhibitions and events to showcase part of the themes that will be expressed in depth in the main exhibition that begins in September. Starting in February, the Biennale Pavilion, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, will feature solo exhibitions and performances, highlighting artists from Brazil and Latin America, as well as from large African diaspora communities. "Overall, the 34th Biennale wants to present works that deserve more attention, such as contemporary indigenous art [from Brazil and elsewhere in the world] or the Caribbean," said Krivili Wisconti. He called the spirit of the biennale an alternative to "the rough confrontations that have been common in politics and society in recent years."
The expansion project starts in February, and the main project is from September 5 to December 6
26. Marina Abramovich
Marina Abramovich said: "The public is my mirror and I am also the mirror of my public. Everyone has trauma, everyone has loneliness, everyone has a fear of death, everyone has pain. In other words: she will feel how you feel. Some of Abramovich's best-known works will be re-presented by her disciples, including The House With The Ocean View (2002), in which she lives for 12 days on a platform raised in an art gallery, without eating or speaking; and Imponderabilia (1977), in which she and her partner Ulay live. Nude stands at the entrance of the museum.
26 September – 8 December, Royal Academy, London, UK
27. 5th Outlook: Yesterday you said wait until today
The festival takes its name from New Orleans-born jazz musician Christian Scott's 2010 album: "YesterdayYou Said Tomorrow." Although the artists come from the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and the United States, it is a triennial with a unique Louisiana flair that focuses on "haunting history," said Artistic Director Naima A. Thompson. Naima JKeith and Diana Nawi say so. Projects are carried out throughout the city, with a large part in public spaces.
October 24 - January 24, New Orleans, USA
28. DiversityUnited
Mystical Protest (2011), a work by the Slavsand Tatars art group, says: "It is extremely important that we repeat our mistakes, thus reminding future generations of how stupid we are." "75 years after the end of World War II, and 30 years after social upheavals such as German reunification and the collapse of the Soviet Union, this grand touring exhibition features works on pro-EU themes after the iron curtain disappeared. Many outstanding artists will be exhibiting.
November 11 – February 21, 2021, Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow, Russia; plans to tour Berlin and Paris in 2021
(Image from vogue)