Living Sculpture, Turin, 1966. Courtesy Fondazione Merz.
As the daughter of this extraordinary woman, I can’t not mention Marisa Merz, both as an artist and also as a mother. I was guided and inspired by her quiet determination and her energy. Often going against what was rational, she lived by her own rules. These are qualities that, in addition to other things, I consider fundamental to be able to achieve one’s goals. Beatrice Merz, president, Fondazione Merz, Torino, Italy
Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers in 1997. Photo by Louis MONIER/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images.
The writing of Belgian philosopher Isabelle Stengers has been really influential in the thinking in my own work. I find her work provocative. It cuts through the illusions of our age to find alternative truths and gives me a sense of purposefulness. I think her concepts and writings are crucial for our time.
Look the girl in the eyes.
What do you see?
Is there boldness in them? Apprehension? Joy? Fear?
The more you meet the gaze of the girls and boys in Deborah Roberts compelling, challenging collages, the more you see. In these Black children you discover a multiplicity of feelings and attitudes, youth and age fused together, symbols at once seemingly innocuous and racist. In them you may see something about the child or something about how society views the child. Or you may see something about yourself.
This is all because of the care with which Roberts creates her works, how she positions each figure, the posture and demeanor telling one story; clothes each one, layering on color, print, and pattern (its own story); and, most dramatically, constructs each face of different photographs – say, one eye of a young girl, the other of a middle-aged man, the lips of a mature woman – the faces telling many stories, all of them complex.
Kehinde Wiley (Abdoulaye Ndao)
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Kehinde Wiley, the first black artist to paint an official portrait of a US president with his depiction of Barack Obama, will hold an exhibition at the National Gallery.
The US artist is known for “highlighting the absence or relegation of black figures within European art”.
A free exhibition of Wiley’s new work will go on show in Trafalgar Square this winter.
Instead of portraiture, he will look at artistic conventions in the European landscape tradition in the exhibition.
Top Ten Shows from the UK and Ireland
What to look forward to in February, from a new body of work by Harare-based painter Misheck Masamvu to a retrospective by Hong Kongese filmmaker Wong Kar Wai
Our February round-up of must-see shows and online projects tackles everything from the realities of living with a disability to what happens we invite our ancestors for dinner. Here are the exhibition highlights from across the UK and Ireland this month.
Misheck Masamvu,
Thoughts before the Rain, 2020, oil on canvas, 174 × 235 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Goodman Gallery, London/ Cape Town
What happens when we invite our ancestors for dinner, asks Misheck Masamvu in his first UK solo show, ‘Talk to Me while I’m Eating’. In a 2018 feature for
Lisa Brice: Smoke and Mirrors @ KM21, the Hague, Netherlands
KM21 // November 21, 2020 - April 05, 2021
February 01, 2021 | in Painting
Through April 5, 2021, KM21 presents Lisa Brice s first museum exhibition in the Netherlands. This follows the South African artist s major exhibition at Tate Britain, London in 2018 and her solo presentation at Stephen Friedman Gallery in 2019. Brice, who divides her time between London and Trinidad, paints and draws women, often naked and absorbed in everyday activities – lingering in front of the mirror, perhaps, or casually smoking a cigarette. Depicting them with sketchy faces and striking blue skin, Brice deliberately obfuscates their identity.
The tension between revealing and concealing is a common thread running through the show in The Hague. The women’s poses in the paintings often refer to compositions by famous artists like Manet, Degas and Picasso, though Brice is rarely explicit in this. She lifts figures from their origi