AAP Monthly Picks: October–November 2019

Installation view of *NAM JUNE PAIK*’s _Sistine Chapel_, 1993, video projectors, metal, wood, custom video switchers and four-channel video with color and sound, dimensions variable, at Tate Modern, London, 2019. Photo by Andrew Dunkley. Courtesy the Estate of Nam June Paik.

Oct 17–Feb 9, 2020

Video art pioneer Nam June Paik’s major retrospective at the Tate Modern, co-organized with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, consists of more than 200 works from the artist’s five-decade-long career, showcasing his technical ingenuity and visionary conceptions of global communication. Paik’s renowned large-scale installations of CCTV cameras and CRT televisions—including Sistine Chapel (1993), awarded the Golden Lion at the 45th Venice Biennale—bring explosions of color and discordant sound into the gallery. The exhibition also highlights Paik’s cross-disciplinary collaborations with notable figures in the avant-garde electronic arts movement, such as Fluxus artist Joseph Beuys, composer John Cage, cellist Charlotte Moorman, and dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham.

Installation view of *ANISH KAPOOR*’s _Symphony for a Beloved Sun_, 2013, stainless steel, wax, conveyor belts, dimensions variable, at “Kapoor in Berlin,” Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2013. Photo by Dave Morgan. Copyright and courtesy the artist.

Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) Art Museum (Oct 25–Jan 1, 2020)

Taimiao Art Museum of the Imperial Ancestral Temple (Nov 10–Dec 28, 2019)

Beijing, China

Anish Kapoor’s first solo show in China, staged at the CAFA Art Museum and Taimiao Art Museum of the Imperial Ancestral Temple, showcases some of the sculptor’s most notable works over the past 35 years, probing the ways his unique visual language—which draws on elements of Indian philosophy, Eastern spirituality, and Western psychoanalytical traditions—achieves universal resonance. At CAFA Art Museum, large-scale installations, such as the wax-forming machine Symphony for a Beloved Sun (2013), are displayed alongside architectural scale models from his past projects. Geometrical sculptures, including Kapoor’s famed mirrored-steel sculptures, and a series of pigment sculptures will be on view at the Taimiao Art Museum from November.

*AFIFA ALEIBY*, _Gulf War_, 1991, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 cm. Courtesy the artist.

Nov 3–March 1, 2020

MoMA PS1, New York, United States

MoMA PS1 will feature an extensive group exhibition examining the cultural impact of American military involvement in Iraq, from the 1991 Gulf War through to the official end of the Iraq War (2003–11). Co-curated by Peter Eleey and Ruba Katrib, the show will consider the effects of these military engagements on artists in Iraq and its diasporas, as well as reactions to the conflicts from Western artists, viewed in the context of televised warfare, xenophobia, petrodependency, and neoimperialism. The presentation will comprise more than 250 works by 75 artists, including Iraqi painter and sculptor Dia al-Azzawi, Kuwaiti artists Thuraya al-Baqsami and Tarek Al-Ghoussein, New York-based multimedia artist Paul Chan, and German filmmaker Harun Farocki, among others.

Installation view of *CORNELIA PARKER*’s _Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View_, 1991, blown up garden shed and contents, wire, light bulb, dimensions variable, at The Whitworth, University of Manchester, 2015. Photo by David Levene. Courtesy the artist, The Whitworth, University of Manchester and Frith Street Gallery, London.

Nov 8–Feb 16, 2020

Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, Sydney, Australia

British artist Cornelia Parker—known for her ability to transform mundane objects into elements within evocative and immersive scenes—is the subject of an upcoming retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia. More than 40 video works, large-scale installations, sculptures, embroideries, and works on paper from the past three dacdes will go on display. A highlight will be Parker’s monumental Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View (1991), an array of suspended pieces from an exploded shed, seemingly frozen in time immediately after its destruction by the British Army at the artist’s request. Referred to by Parker as “cartoon violence,” this theme of reanimating destroyed objects runs throughout her ouevre.

*VINCENT FOURNIER*, _The Man Machine_, 2009–17, still image from film: 2 min 10 sec. Courtesy the artist.

Nov 19–Mar 29, 2020

Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan

A thematic exhibition encompassing a wide range of artists and projects at the Mori Art Museum, co-organized by Japan’s national broadcasting company NHK, will imagine how human existence will change in the near future as artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, biotechnology, and life-extending mechanisms become ever more sophisticated. The show will bring together over 100 works spread across five sections exploring the transformation of cities, architecture, lifestyle, biohacking, and human society. The exhibition will include Japanese Singapore-based architecture practice WOHA’s sustainable building designs, and Diemut Strebe’s bioart installation Sugababe (2014– ), which constructs a stand-in for Vincent van Gogh’s cut-off ear using cells from a male descendant.

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