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Contents
Interview
The Listener
Lawrence Abu Hamdan interviewed by Chris McCormack
The Beirut and Berlin-based artist engages with the politics of the silenced, with the testimony of ear witnesses whose evidence is excised from history.
Why I got involved was because none of the witnesses ever really saw anything of their space of capture. They were blindfolded when they arrived, they were forced to cover their eyes whenever the guards were in the room, they really only saw the four walls of their cells. Unless they directly experienced it on their bodies, their entire perception centred on what was heard.
Feature
Crowdthinking
Bob Dickinson on the political fallout from the rise of referendums
Was Joseph Beuys naive to believe in the power of the people? Some of today's politically engaged artists, such as Bojana Cvejic, Crack Rodriguez and Doris Salcedo, seem to be losing faith not only in political systems but also in the people.
Joseph Beuys and his generation were only too familiar with the use of referendums by dictatorial leaders like Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini to reinforce their control and bring in repressive legislation, which often targeted artists.Comment
Editorial
This Little Piggy …
The increasing commercialisation of the Venice Biennale is simply a return to the Biennale's commercial roots prompted in part by rivalry with the growth in importance of art fairs – but who ultimately benefits?
But whoever ultimately wins in the struggle between art fairs and biennales, artists – and art – will be the losers.
Letters
More on Incoming
Paul Carey-Kent continues to question Peter Suchin over the aestheticisation of war in art, and Suchin replies.
Artnotes
Manifesto Art
The political parties publish their manifestos, which include statements on the arts; the government's proposed exhibition tax relief falls foul of the election; Wysing Arts Centre hosts Safe Haven residencies for persecuted artists; the Migration Museum opens in a temporary London location; a Christopher Wool artwork is slashed in a seemingly motiveless attack; low-paid staff at Tate are disgruntled at the prospect of contributing towards a sailing boat for the outgoing director's leaving gift; plus the latest news on galleries, appointments, prizes and more.
Obituary
Vito Acconci 1940-2017
Exhibitions
Wagstaff's
Mostyn, Llandudno
Chris Fite-Wassilak
Lucy Beech and Edward Thomasson: Together
Tate Britain, London
Laura Allsop
Victoria Lucas: Lay of the Land (and other such myths)
AirSpace Gallery, Stoke-on-Trent
Bob Dickinson
Ipek Duben: They/Onlar
Fabrica, Brighton
Virginia Whiles
Patrick Goddard: Go Professional
Seventeen Gallery, London
Jamie Sutcliffe
Enter Stage Left: The craft of theatre in art
Lewis Glucksman Gallery, Cork
Fiona Gannon
Waltércio Caldas: An Intimate Horizon
Celia Brunson Projects, London
Gabriela Salgado
Akram Zaatari: Against Photography – An Annotated History of the Arab Image Foundation
Macba, Barcelona
Elisa Adami
Aleksandra Domanovic: Votives
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds
Tom Emery
Midlands Round-up
Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery • New Art Gallery Walsall • Ikon • Grand Union
Sara Jaspan
London Round-up
DRAF • Laure Genillard • Domobaal
Kathryn Lloyd
Gallery Weekend Berlin
various venues
Paul Carey-Kent
LA Round-up
CAAM • MOCA • Sprüth Magers
Lizzie Homersham
Reviews
Books
Public Servants – Art and the Crisis of the Common Good
John Douglas Millar
The book seems symptomatic rather than programmatic, the definite result of a curatorial cast of mind rather than, say, an activist perspective.
Martin Herbert: Tell Them I Said No
Chris Fite-Wassilak
What Martin Herbert gathers in Tell Them I Said No is a set of examples where artists consciously divorced themselves from their work and put themselves in the position where we can know about it. In the vast majority of other cases, of course, the artists are simply forgotten.
Life on Sirius – The Situationist International and the Exhibition After Art Gruppe Spur Manifeste/Manifestos
Michael Hampton
So-called 'faulty performances' were an important part of Spur's armoury.
Reviews
Film
Plastik Festival of Artists' Moving Image
Morgan Quaintance
By so cogently achieving its goal of viscerally affecting audiences, the festival foregrounded a lack of direction for that affect beyond its immediate emotional or physiological impact – a disconnection between the politics of moving image and the politics orienting much social, cultural and environmental activity in the world.
Report
Letter from Venice
On the Dock of the Bay
Patricia Bickers
In a city that gave the world the word 'ghetto', it seemed invidious to corral artists under the banner of the diaspora who all happen to be non-white.
Artlaw
Public Policy
Wash-up
Henry Lydiate
A week is a long time in politics: rapid and unforeseeable changes can transform the political and economic landscape. During one week in April 2017, UK politicians made significant changes affecting the financial prospects of the UK's public-facing museums and galleries: they scrapped Exhibition Tax Relief (ETR). |