Arts news

• Trust and risk: why Documenta and Münster are the artists’ favourite shows

  04-06-2017 23:00
  
  Once every decade, Documenta in Kassel and Skulptur Projekte Mnster coincide. The former takes place every five years, the latter every ten, and both possess a level of integrity and critical authority that few other cyclical exhibitions share. While the Venice Biennale also has a powerful influence, the art worlds commercial engines are more palpably and loudly firing there than they are in the two German cities. The lengthier gaps between the editions of the German shows prompt a different se
  
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• Museums in the US and Canada show their Pride in June

  04-06-2017 23:00
  
  June is already here, and with it, LGBTQ Pride month. Cultural institutions around the US and Canada are celebrating with a colourful array of events and exhibitions. Here is a small sample of the many ways for culture vultures to show their pride.The Brooklyn Museum has a series of events planned for Pride Month, including a special Teen Night: a Night Among the Gods on 9 June planned by, and for, LGBTQ teens and their allies. The evening includes music, workshops and a look at exhibitions dea
  
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• Greece is the word: what curators made of Documenta 14 in Athens

  04-06-2017 23:00
  
  Katharine Stout Deputy director, Institute of Contemporary Arts, LondonAs befitting the title, Learning from Athens, this part of Documenta 14 is a considered response to the city, not only in physical and geographical terms but also to its social, political and economical context. This worked particularly well in the way the selection of artists and works responded to the locations. For example, at the music school, the Athens Conservatoire, there was a clear thread running through about e
  
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• Getting around Documenta in Athens

  04-06-2017 23:00
  
  Documenta 14 in Athens is a sprawling, unnavigable, city-wide exhibitionbut dont get lost among the ruins of the Acropolis: to help you spend more time looking at art and less time on Google, we have produced this map to guide you through this maze.  MAIN VENUES1 Athens Conservatoire (Odeion) Vasileos Georgiou B1719, 10675
  2 Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA) Pireos 256, 18233
  3 Benaki Museum Pireos Street 138, 11854
  4 EMSTNational Museum of Contemporary Art Kallirrois and Amvosriou Frantzi
  
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• All about Adam: a profile of Documenta’s activist director

  04-06-2017 23:00
  
  Adam Szymczyk, the Polish curator who is Documenta 14s artistic director, introduced this years edition with a powerful statement: We aim to question the supremacist, white and male, nationalist, colonialist way of being and thinking that continues to construct and dominate the world order. The inequalities in the art world have been centuries in the making, but in the past ten years the signs of a rebalance have become more visible. Documenta has long been at the vanguard of the expansion of t
  
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• China is building a Titanic replica—but will it be a catastrophe?

  04-06-2017 18:48
  
  Chinas full scale Titanic replicacurrently under construction next to the Qi River in Sichuan Provinceis navigating iceberg after iceberg of controversy. According to China National Radio, the 269-metre vessel, due to open in 2020 in the Romandisea resort, has drawn criticism from Kan Ruliang, a professor at the Three Gorges University who called it a fake foreign antique. Building a Titanic is copying a relic, and if its just for a tourism complex, it will be difficult to im
  
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• Memo to Trump: contemporary Iranian art show is Texas bound

  04-06-2017 18:25
  
  An exhibition offering an antidote to President Trumps view of Iran will tour to Texas later this year. Rebel, Jester, Mystic, Poet: Contemporary Persians, which opened at the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto earlier this year, is due to open at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston this summer (1 July-24 September). The show, which includes the work of 23 artists, is drawn from the collection of the Iranian-born financier Mohammed Afkhami, who says he wants to present an alternative, softer vision of
  
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• 'Blackness can be empowering' … meet the American artist adjusting to Somerset village life

  04-06-2017 16:00
  
  Rashid Johnson uses tribal masks, houseplants and Shea butter to explore issues of roots, race and identity in black America. What’s he doing in rural England?
  For the duration of his artistic residency in the tiny village of Bruton in Somerset, Rashid Johnson will be sending his five-year-old son to the local school. “We did have some concerns,” says the artist. “You know, sending him to a school where there were likely to be no children of colour. I hope it’s OK.
  
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• 'Blackness can be empowering' … meet the American artist adjusting to Somerset life

  04-06-2017 16:00
  
  Rashid Johnson uses tribal masks, houseplants and Shea butter to explore issues of roots, race and identity in black America. What’s he doing in rural England?
  For the duration of his artistic residency in the small town of Bruton in Somerset, Rashid Johnson will be sending his five-year-old son to the local school. “We did have some concerns,” says the artist. “You know, sending him to a school where there were likely to be no children of colour. I hope it’s OK. I
  
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• Wayne Thiebaud: 1962 to 2017; Milton Avery review – Americana with a cherry on top

  04-06-2017 09:00
  
  White Cube Mason’s Yard; Victoria Miro Mayfair, London
  The precise, joyous cakes and landscapes of Wayne Thiebaud, 96, are a quiet revelation in this rare UK showIt would be hard to think of an American painter more stinted over here than the Californian master Wayne Thiebaud, poet of the milkshake, ice-cream cone and cherried sundae, of the still life with pie and damn fine cup of coffee. Thiebaud, born in 1920, has been making these radiant paintings for almost seven decades. But in this
  
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• National Gallery of Ireland review – Dublin’s treasures breathe at last

  04-06-2017 09:00
  
  Passing decades left this temple of culture heavily congested. Now a €30m revamp has let in some air and light…I keep hearing about the plant rooms. The director of the National Gallery of Ireland, Sean Rainbird, is particularly keen for me to view these concrete vaults, never to be seen by the general public, containing the ducts and machinery that will keep the galleries at the right temperature and humidity to preserve the treasures on show.There’s a reason for his enthusias
  
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