LOUISE LAWLER'S CURRENT EXHIBITIONS

SOUND ART?
Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona - through february 23, 2020

The Sound Art? exhibition offers a critical interrogation of this category in art and presents an overview of the sonorisation of the art object from the late nineteenth century until today. The show examines how, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many visual artists worked references to sound and music into their pieces using a variety of strategies. In turn, it also addresses the influence of visual arts on contemporary musical practices, and considers how several composers and visual artists turned the music score into a space for experimentation and performativity. The exhibition at the Fundació Joan Miró addresses the presence of sound in art and explains how the introduction of sound enables art objects to state their presence in a radically different, augmented way.
A sound piece by Louise Lawler installed in the Olive Tree Patio are some of the works included in the selection.

more at Fundació Joan Miró's website


THEATRE OF OPERATIONS: THE GULF WARS 1991-2011 
MoMA PS1, New York - through march 1, 2020

American-led military engagement in Iraq over the last 30 years has had an indelible impact on contemporary culture and the work of artists around the world. This large-scale group exhibition examines the legacies of these conflicts beginning with the Gulf War in 1991, featuring over 300 works by more than 80 artists based in Iraq and its diasporas, as well as those responding to the war from the West. 
The artists in Theater of Operations were also impacted by significant cultural change during this period—including the advent of the 24-hour news cycle, the Internet, and new media and military technologies. The wide range of perspectives included in this exhibition attests to the rich artistic traditions of contemporary Iraq, with artists working under conditions of war, embargo, and occupation placed in conversation with those responding to these wars from afar.

Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991–2011 is organized by Peter Eleey, Chief Curator, and Ruba Katrib, Curator, MoMA PS1; with Jocelyn Miller, Assistant Curator; Josephine Graf, Curatorial Assistant; and Oliver Shultz, former Curatorial Associate.

more at MoMA's website


ANDY IN CHICAGO
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago - through march 6, 2020

For Louise Lawler's works now on view in Griffin Court, the artist returned to her 2004 photograph Andy in L. A., which shows an Andy Warhol self-portrait in a private collection in Los Angeles. She then rendered the image “adjusted to fit” and “distorted for the times.” Having stretched it to the format of the distinctive segmented walls of this space, and twisted and warped it to various extremes, she destabilizes our comprehension of the image, aligning her work with our present moment. In her titles and accompanying texts, Lawler unexpectedly draws attention to systems within and beyond the art world—in this case the political distortion of gerrymandering—making her work porous to wider interpretation, and further articulating its moment of reception by a viewer.

more at Art Institute of Chicago's website


ANIMALESQUE
BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art, Gateshead - through april 19, 2020

Animalesque / Art Across Species and Beings brings together an outstanding selection of artworks - film and video, drawing and sculpture, installation and sound art - that invite visitors to rethink the human position in the world, its relationship to all other life forms and to the various complex ecologies that bond beings together. 

Animalesque has been produced by Bildmuseet, Umeå and is curated by London-based writer Filipa Ramos. Assisting curator: Anders Jansson, Bildmuseet.

more at BALTIC Center for Contemporary Art's website


FOREVER YOUNG: 10 YEARS MUSEUM BRANDHORST
Museum Brandhorst, Zurich - through july 19, 2020

The exhibition includes some 250 works by 44 artists and has three main themes: The first is Pop art, and especially its often overlooked political dimension. The second strand is dedicated to the thorny topic of subjectivity in the present day—and therefore also the question of how late capitalism influences identities. The third section turns to one of the Museum Brandhorst’s key strengths: Contemporary painting and the issue of how this traditional artistic genre renews itself time and again.

more at Museum Brandhorst's website