New York, Karma, “Promised Land”: Jane Dickson’s Cityscapes.. and More
USA_New York
Karma, “Promised Land”: Jane Dickson’s Cityscapes
Karma gallery New York presents “Promised Land,” a solo exhibition by American painter Jane Dickson (b. 1952), through October 28.
For the past 45 years, the artist has been painting cityscapes, demolition sites, strip clubs, circuses, suburban homes, and other social settings across the United States based on photographs she took by herself. In “Promised Land,” Dickson reappropriated, re-edited, and reframed her photographs as paintings and drawings.
A central focus of new works is on signages in public spaces and the texts that appear on them. According to the artist, urban texts reveal the collective unconscious from the city, “what Americans are thinking, what we want and why we want it.” Using a variety of materials such as oil sticks, acrylics, linen, and colored felt, Dickson’s works are characterized by their unique textures, strong graphics, and dreamy diffusion. The exhibition notes that her billboard paintings suggest that the American promises have an unavoidable, often invisible psychic price.
USA_Washington D.C.
In Washington D.C., the National Gallery of Art Presents “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans”
The National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C., is presenting the group exhibition “The Land Carries Our Ancestors: Contemporary Art by Native Americans” through January 15, 2024. The show brings together nearly 50 artists from multiple generations of Native Americans working across the United States.
The works on display are in a variety of media, including textiles, beads, sculpture, painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, performance, and video, and reveal thousands of years of Native cultures’ relationships with and understanding of nature. The exhibition reflects the diverse individual, regional, and cultural identities of Native Americans while emphasizing common issues of Native self-determination, survival, and self-representation.
The exhibition is curated by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (b. 1940). Smith, an artist from the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, is the first Native artist whose work got into the NGA’s collection and was recently the subject of a major retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This exhibition is the first time the NGA has commissioned an artist to be the curator of an exhibition, and Smith is the first to do so.
Brazil_ São Paulo
The 35th Bienal de São Paulo, “choreographies of the impossible” Has Opened
The São Paulo Biennale, one of the world’s three most recognized biennales, opened on September 6 for its 35th edition. The biennale is titled “choreographies of the impossible” and showcases artistic, cultural, and social practices that challenge the “impossible” in diverse and countless ways. The biennale is on view at Ibirapuera Park in central São Paulo until December 10, 2023.
The biennale focuses on the everyday body as a starting point for new possibilities in aesthetics and politics, and describes the various works and the entire exhibition as a “choreography.” The biennale addresses issues of total violence, the impossibility of life in complete freedom, and the limits of the idea of justice. It tries to break away from the traditional Western progressive and linear view of history and to ask radical and disobedient redefinitions and questions about time, governance, representation, and knowledge.
Curated by a horizontal, non-hierarchical curatorial team of four: former Reina Sofia Museum director Manuel Borja-Villel, independent curator Diane Lima, artist Grada Kilomba, and anthropologist Hélio Menezes, the biennale features 121 international artists.
