Meryl McMaster: As Immense as the Sky, Ikon, Birmingham
One of a rising generation of indigenous artists in Canada, Meryl McMaster uses photography to explore identity and its distinct cultural landscapes. This show features new and recent work that draws on both her Siksika First Nation and Euro-Canadian heritage to examine broader questions of being in the world, with her performative self-portraits depicting the artist in elaborate, sculptural garments and props. Offering both an actual and imaginative journey into the realms of her ancestors, highlights include the recent series As Immense as the Sky which was captured across ancestral sites in Saskatchewan and early settlements in Ontario and Newfoundland. This work sees McMaster interpreting and re-staging patrimonial stories collected from relatives and community knowledge keepers.
Until 23 February 2020 (closed 23 December 2019- 1 January 2020) www.ikon-gallery.org
Animalesque / Art Across Species and Beings, BALTIC, Gateshead
This show brings together a wide variety of artworks including film, video, drawing, sculpture, installation and sound art. It asks visitors to rethink the human position in the world, our relationship to other life forms and also to the various complex ecologies that bond beings together. As the press release explains, it coincides with ‘a growing awareness of living in an environmentally fragile planet led many artists to reconsider the role of art and in responding to current challenges’. Artists include: Allora & Calzadilla, Pia Arke, Pierre Bismuth, Marcus Coates, Mary Beth Edelson, Simone Forti, Luca Frei, Pierre Huyghe, Carsten Höller, Joan Jonas, Annika Larsson, Louise Lawler, Britta Marakatt-Labba, Amalia Pica, Ho Tzu Nyen, Chris Watson and Paloma Varga Weisz.
Until 19 April 2020 (closed 25, 26 December 2019 and 1 January 2020) www.baltic.art
Anselm Kiefer: Superstrings, Runes, The Norns, Gordian Knot, White Cube Bermondsey, London
Spanning the whole of White Cube Bermondsey’s exhibition space, this show features a large-scale installation and paintings that bring together many of the interests that have characterised the German artist’s work for decades, including mythology, astronomy and history. His recent body of work draws on the scientific concept known as string theory, a mathematical model that attempts to articulate the known fundamental interactions of the universe and forms of matter. The centre piece of the show is a single installation made up of 30 vitrines, each 4 metres high, that are marked by hand-written phrases, equations relating to string theory and the names of the three chief Norns from Norse mythology: Urd, Verdandi, Skuld. Other highlights include a series of new paintings that feature barren scenes and rows of charred vegetation.
Until 26 January 2020 (closed 22 December 2019 – 5 January 2020) www.whitecube.com
Christina Quarles, The Hepworth, Wakefield
This exhibition is the first solo show in a European museum by American artist Christina Quarles. Her vibrantly coloured and textured paintings depict body parts in varying states of abstraction, framed by architectural devices that create ever-shifting spaces. The results reflect Quarles’ own experience of being misread or mis-represented, as a queer cis woman, born to a black father and white mother. The show features a range of recent paintings and drawings including a number of new works created specifically for this exhibition.
Until 19 January 2020 (closed 25-26 December 2019) www.hepworthwakefield.org
Bloomberg New Contemporaries, South London Gallery, London
The latest edition of Bloomberg New Contemporaries features work by 45 emerging artists presented across South London Gallery’s Main Gallery and Fire Station. Following an open-submission and 1,500 applications, a guest panel featuring artists Rana Begum, Sonia Boyce and Ben Rivers selected participants. This year also marks the 70th anniversary of New Contemporaries, which was first launched in 1949. Artists include: Jan Agha, Eleonora Agostini, Justin Apperley, Roei Greenberg, Elena Helfrecht, Mary Herbert, Laura Hindmarsh, Paul Jex, Louiza Ntourou, Ryan Orme and Marijn Ottenhof amongst others.
Until 23 February 2020 (check with gallery for seasonal opening times) www.southlondongallery.org
Mikhail Karikis: For Many Voices, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, Middlesbrough
It’s been a busy year for Mikhail Karikis, including being shortlisted for the Film London Jarman Award and being a guest selector for the Platform Graduate Award. This show is the first survey of his work and includes videos, sound pieces, performance, images and structures made across ten years, including two pieces commissioned by MIMA. Working closely with people and employing listening as a form of activism, Karikis ‘amplifies the voices of those who may be unheard or unseen’. His work has involved charting changes in labour and the structures in society, exploring the impact of industrial and ecological change.
Until 23 February 2020 (check with gallery for seasonal opening times) www.visitmima.com
Imran Qureshi, QUAD, Derby
This exhibition features an artwork made from over 25,000 pieces of paper forming a large scale ‘paper mountain’. It is the work of contemporary miniature painting pioneer, Imran Qureshi, an internationally renowned artist from Pakistan, and references those ‘who have been buried without their lives honoured or the circumstances of their deaths investigated’. The show also includes recent works on canvas and the UK premier of new video works that offer an insight into the world of contemporary miniature painting.
Until 9 February 2020 (closed 25 December 2019 and 1 January 2020) www.derbyquad.co.uk
Tate St Ives In Colour, Tate, St Ives
Perfect for the holiday season, this interactive and immersive light installation casts Tate St Ives in an ethereal glow. Created by Peter Hudson, this is the first Tate St Ives project to be funded by Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018 prize money. Visitors are invited to ‘take control of the colour and intensity of the light by playing with the sphere creating cycles of colour and pulses of light both inside and outside our iconic building’.
Until 5 January (closed 23 – 26 December 2019) www.tate.org.uk
Super Black, Firstsite, Colchester
Led by people from Essex’s black community, this exhibition presents artworks from the Arts Council Collection, alongside new work by Southend-based artist Elsa James, and objects from the Vanley Burke Archive. Framed around the question ‘What does it mean to be black in England today?’, artworks have been chosen that reflect the group’s discussions, consisting of pieces that they feel give an expression of black consciousness, and the representation of black artists in galleries across the UK.
Until 12 January 2020 (closed 25 December 2019 and 1 January 2020) www.firstsite.uk
Alexis Teplin: It’s My Pleasure to Participate, Bluecoat, Liverpool
US born artist Alexis Teplin’s first major UK exhibition to date features a mixture of newly commissioned painting, performance and videos. Stitched together from linens, canvas and decorative textiles, her new large scale paintings are freestanding and transform the gallery to create a new, encompassing architecture. Also part of the show are various performance and video works, in which actors appear in painted costumes, interacting with the other artworks on display and performing fragments of poetic text borrowed from film and literature.
Until 23 February 2020 (closed 25-26 December 2019) www.thebluecoat.org.uk
Images:
1. Meryl McMaster, Harbourage For A Song, giclée print, 2019. Courtesy: the artist and Stephen Bulger Gallery, Pierre-François Ouellette art contemporain and The Baldwin Gallery
2. Allora & Calzadilla, Hope Hippo, 2005. Courtesy: the artists; Photo: Rob
Harris © 2019 BALTIC
3. Anselm Kiefer, Superstrings, Runes, The Norns, Gordian Knot, installation of 30 painting vitrines, each mixed media in steel and glass frame, 2019.
4. Christina Quarles, Let Us In Too (Tha Light), acrylic on canvas, 182.9×152.4cm, 2018. Courtesy: the artist, Pilar Corrias Gallery, London and Regen Projects, Los Angeles
5. Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2019, installation view at the South London Gallery. Photo: Andy Stagg
6. Mikhail Karikis, No Ordinary Protest, 2018. Commissioned by Film and Video Umbrella, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art and Whitechapel Gallery, London. Supported by Arts Council England
7. Imran Qureshi, Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve La Sorbonne, installation view, 2014.
8. Peter Hudson, Tate St Ives in Colour, light installation. © Tate. Photo: Kirstin Prisk
9. Alexis Teplin, Drag, Push, HOOT, 2016.
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