Q1: Hello 2024
Across our clients, former lives of spaces are birthing new narratives. At The Clerk’s House, in London, Scott & Co supported the recent launch of the second space by gallery Emalin, led by directors Angelina Volk and Leopold Thun. Located at 118½ Shoreditch High Street, “on the precipice of a church ground and the secular world, its number has an in-betweenness about it and the works on show build on that” Volk told Melanie Gerlis at the Financial Times while discussing the building’s intriguing past as a lookout for graveyard body-snatchers. The Grade II listed Clerk’s House was inaugurated this month with a group exhibition titled 118½, including artists such as Alvaro Barrington, Adriano Costa and Marina Xenofontos, and a celebration with food by Imogen Kwok.
Continuing this theme, we see new spaces emerging in interesting places around the world from Kengo Kuma’s re-imagining of the Centro de Arte Moderna Lisbon within the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum campus later this year to a subterranean performance space at the site of historic Weimar-era river baths in Berlin, created by new hospitality collective Slowness. More to come…
The Digest People, Places & Ideas
“I’m against empty space,’ said Camilla Cole, the founder of Hypha Studios, a London-based non-profit that persuades commercial landlords to let artists work and exhibit for free in unoccupied stores and offices.” (The New York Times)
“Was this a nightclub made of dried grass? A land art piece? It was both and more: The Reethaus, as the building is called, is a new cultural venue that its co-founder Claus Sendlinger, 60, describes as a ‘modern temple’ for sound-based performances and rituals.” (The New York Times Style Magazine)
Slowness plans, to “build and nourish locally rooted places that offer a deeper, more conscious form of hospitality.” “Arnesse, in the Uckermark region, will be its first hotel, an imposing 15-bedroom manor house designed in the early 1840s by August Stüler, a student of the great Prussian architect and designer Karl Friedrich Schinkel, to evoke ‘a version of Arcadia’. (Financial Times)
Counterspace Founder Sumayya Vally, who was named emerging architect of the year at Dezeen Awards 2023, says “I would love to see architecture made in the image of diverse experiences and perspectives, architecture that listens deeply to its contexts. (Dezeen)
Cultural historian Dr. Diarmiud Hester retraces the footsteps of some of the twentieth century’s most remarkable queer writers and artists in Nothing Ever Just Disappears, advocating that “a queer sense of place is central to any history of the twentieth century.” (Penguin)
To the landscape architect Walter Hood, “place” is a nebulous concept made meaningful through the intersection of social justice and landscape architecture. “Hood discusses the intersection of time and place, and how ‘minority landscapes,’ have been infringed upon or often even entirely erased over the past century.” (Time Sensitive)
Ivy Haoying Huang on German-born Uruguayan conceptual artist Luis Camnitzer whose project ‘A to Cosmopolite’ talks about how Google Maps has changed our relationship with space. (Burlington Contemporary)
And we’re keeping our fingers crossed for a fiery season of The Real Housewives of Tate Modern. (The Society for London Arts Gays)
Agenda Spring Dates for your Diary
18 January, Jeffrey Gibson at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
20–21 January, Condo Preview Weekend, London
21 January, The Reethaus: An Open Haus with the Gyuto Monks of Tibet, Berlin
25 January, Shuvinai Ashoona: When I Draw, The Perimeter, London
7–11 February, ZONAMACO, Citibanamex Center, Mexico City
10 February, Gabriel Orcozo at kurimanzutto, Mexico City
29 February – 3 March, Frieze Los Angeles, Santa Monica Airport, California
1–3 March, Art Dubai 17th Edition, Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai
5 March, Stephanie Comilang: Search for life, a TBA21 exhibition at Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
6–10 March, ARCOmadrid, IFEMA MADRID, Madrid
7 March, Woody De Othello at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London and John Giorno at kurimanzutto, New York
23 March, Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania, a TBA21–Academy exhibition curated by Taloi Havini at Ocean Space, Venice
25 March, Maggi Hambling at Pearl Lam Galleries, Hong Kong
26–30 March, Art Basel Hong Kong, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center
11–14 April, EXPO Chicago, Navy Pier’s Festival Hall, Chicago
17–19 April, La Biennale di Venezia: Vernissage Week, Venice
30 April, The Roof Garden Commission: Petrit Halilaj, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
1–5 May, Frieze New York, The Shed, New York
Ciao, Venezia!
Kicking off the week in Venice, last night Scott & Co supported Adriano Pedrosa and Pamela J. Joyner with Fred Giuffrida to host a historic and joyful dinner bringing together almost 100 of the artists participating in La Biennale di Venezia’s 60th International Art Exhibition Stranieri Ovunque- Foriegners Everywhere. Artist guests included: Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, Gabrielle Goliath, Louis Fratino, Mataaho Collective, Leilah Babirye, MAHKU, Lauren Halsey among many others, who were almost all first-time participants in the biennale. Artist Mark Bradford, an old friend of Adriano’s and Biennale veteran, made a moving, surprise speech in tribute.
Later this week, First Lady of Ukraine Olena Zelenska will make a video address at the Ukraine pavilion reflecting on how conflict can make people a stranger to their pre-war selves. We also look forward to multiple invocations of the Stranieri Ovunque—Foreigners Everywhere theme across the floating city: ‘postcolonial hybrid’ points of view such as Yinka Shonibare CBE RA, indigenous and queer visionaries such as Jeffrey Gibson and Leilah Babirye, Manauara Clandestina and Bárbara Sánchez-Kane, as well as broader perspectives from the Global South including Wiliam Kentridge, Jota Mombaca, Gülsün Karamustafa, Ana Segovia, Dalton Paula, Kapwani Kiwanga, Kudzanai Chiurai, Gabrielle Goliath and Kiluanji Kia Henda. The foreign has never felt more familiar.
The Digest People, Places & Ideas
Charlotte Higgins writes about Ukrainians’ desires and needs as seen in a recent Lviv exhibition, featuring works by Katya Buchatska whose work is on show at the Ukraine Pavilion. (The Guardian)
Ahead of the Vernissage week, Adriano Pedrosa speaks to Zachary Small about his career and the challenges of his role. (The New York Times)
Dare Turner talks to Jeffrey Gibson, Archie Moore and Inuuteq Storch about working within the settler colonial framework and indigenous voices. (Frieze)
The definition of ‘Global South’ is a historically shifting one. First coined during the late 1960s, it maps out an anticolonial history as much as a geography. (ArtReview examines the history behind ‘Global South’).
PLASTER magazine published a helpful guide of where to eat, drink and stay in the Floating City. (PLASTER)
ARTnews breaks down the numbers of countries and artists at La Biennale di Venezia, highlighting Adriano Pedrosa’s focus on the Global South. (ARTnews)
Photographer Eric Scaggiante curates a playlist in celebration of La Biennale di Venezia. (Frieze)
Scott & Co has also prepared a playlist inspired by our projects, to guide you this week on the ground. (Spotify)
“Indigenous peoples, societies and the marginalised groups in general, we are small and often don’t have much power,” she says. “But when we are allies to each other, we get more power and we can also learn a lot from each other.” (Outi Pieski discusses growing recognition for Inuit and Sámi art in The Art Newspaper)
John Akomfrah, who represents the British Pavilion, discusses the transformative role of sound. (Art21)
“It’s about mutual respect. It’s about respecting people’s heritage and treating them equally. And there are other implications, about how you value people as human beings. Do you think that they have equal rights, as you have? Do they have rights to their own history? Do they have the right to control their own narrative, as you do?”. (Nancy Durrant interviews Yinka Shonibare for Evening Standard)
Agenda Venice Dates for your Diary
Ukraine Pavilion at Arsenale, La Biennale di Venezia, 20 April — 24 November 2024
The Ukraine Pavilion will present Net Making: a group exhibition co-curated by Viktoria Bavykina and Max Gorbatskyi.
17 April, 11am. Panel Talk: Sailing Through Storms: Art’s Response to Crisis (at Ocean Space)
18 April, 4:45pm. Ukraine Pavilion Inauguration at Arsenale
TBA-21 Ocean Space: Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania, March 23rd — October 13th
Re-Stor(y)ing Oceania brings together two new commissions by indigenous artists Latai Taumoepeau and Elisapeta Hinemoa Heta to explore how indigenous communities in the Pacific Islands are on the frontline of major environmental concerns.
17 April, 3pm: THIS IS NOT A DRILL, a performance by Latai Taumoepeau.
The Spirits of Maritime Crossing, presented by Bangkok Art Biennale, 20 April – 24 November
The Spirits of Maritime Crossing is a collateral exhibition that brings to light the underrepresented voices of 15 artists from Southeast Asia.
18 April, 2:30pm- 5:30pm: Opening Ceremony featuring ArtReview Talks, a performance by Thai dancer Pichet Klunchun and Cocktail Reception with Canapés
Gülsün Karamustafa at the Türkiye Pavilion, Sale d’Armi, Arsenale at La Biennale di Venezia, 20 April — 24 November 2024
Hollow and Broken: The State of the World is a site-specific installation by Gülsün Karamustafa, one of the most celebrated and outspoken artists from the country, exploring a feeling of emptiness in today’s world amid religious conflicts, forced migration, and post-war, earthquake, and nuclear peril.
17 April, 1:15am: Türkiye Pavilion Inauguration at Arsenale
Fondazione Berengo presents Osman Yousefzada: Welcome! A Palazzo for Immigrants at Palazzo Cavalli-Franchetti, 17 April – 7 October 2024
Curated by Nadja Romain and Amin Jaffer, the intervention across the Palazzo is a continuation of a body of work that explores themes of unity, movement and migration in modern society.
Object & Thing and F Taylor Colantonio, Frutti di Mare, 15 April – 23 June 2024, Salizzada Malipero, (Thursday – Sunday from 11 am – 1 pm and 2 – 7pm)
Colantonio’s captivating new body of work features eleven sculptures delving into otherworldly geologies, from the cosmos to realms of mythology.