BL CK B X: Manon de Boer, LUX, London
Brussels-based artist Manon de Boer’s moving image works often explore performance, featuring collaborations with musicians and dancers in order to illustrate the ‘body in action’. This show includes three films, produced over a 10-year period, in which de Boer has observed the untutored and playful creativity of children and teenagers. The focal point of the exhibition is a new film, entitled Caco, João, Mava and Rebecca, which was developed at the Calouste Gubelkian Museum and is part of an ongoing trilogy which began with a film involving three young musicians. Also on show are two previous works, The Untroubled Mind, which explores a collection of images of constructions by the artists’ son filmed over three years, and Dissonant, which focuses on dancer Cynthia Loemij while she dances to Eugène Ysaÿe’s three sonatas for violin solo.
Until 3 August 2019. www.lux.org.uk
Putting Ourselves In The Picture, Fabrica, Brighton
At the heart of this experimental exhibition is the question, ‘Who gets to create art and whose work is selected and therefore validated for public view?’. Artists-in-residence Sara Dare, Annis Joslin and Jo Offer will lead an accessible artist studio that will help members of the public to make artwork, with space and materials for anyone to work alone or as part of the group. A small number of professional curators will then select artworks to be displayed as small exhibitions throughout July and August. The aim is to understand more about how access to creative spaces helps shape the artists in our society, while also demystifying how work is chosen for public display.
Until 26 August 2019. www.fabrica.org.uk
Real Work, FACT, Liverpool
This show features two new video installations by artists Liz Magic Laser and Candice Breitz that explore the lives of people whose work often goes unrecognised. Magic Laser’s In Real Life highlights the experiences of five freelancers who rely on work they find through online platforms and apps such as PeoplePerHour, Upwork and Fiverr. Meanwhile, Breitz’s Sweat features members of a community of Cape Town-based sex workers, who each offer a series of anecdotes and insights into their lives and labour. This hard hitting and immersive 10-channel video installation lays bare the gender-based and racist violence that sex workers face on a daily basis.
Until 6 October 2019. www.fact.co.uk
Candida Powell-Williams: Command Lines, Void, Derry
Artist Candida Powell-Williams’ work explores the consequences of retelling history and how we construct identity through objects and memory. This show is the culmination of research developed during her residency at London’s Warburg Institute that explored the ‘cultural heritage of tarot, archetypes and mutation of symbols’. It features an interactive installation of sculpture, performance and animation, with a variety of props and costumes placed in the centre of the space. Numerous other works are located in the adjoining galleries, with the results illustrating the apparent mundane materiality of objects. In addition, a ‘game’ answers viewers’ questions with a series of animations and an accompanying poetic voice.
Until 24 August 2019. www.derryvoid.com
Mike Nelson: The Asset Strippers, Tate Britain, London
The latest artist to create new artwork in response to the grand space of the Duveen Galleries at Tate Britain, Mike Nelson has carefully selected objects from the post-war Britain that framed his childhood to create a graveyard of previously functioning items. Various objects are strewn across the galleries, like monuments to the not-to-distant past, including enormous knitting machines, woodwork stripped from a former army barracks, graffitied steel awnings and doors from an NHS hospital. In a venue as grand as this it offers an unusual juxtaposition, but one that is strangely affecting.
Until 6 October 2019. www.tate.org.uk
Images:
1. Manon de Boer, Caco, João, Mava and Rebecca, 2019
2. ‘Putting Ourselves In The Picture’, Fabrica, Brighton, installation view
3. Liz Magic Laser, In Real Life, 2019. Installation view at FACT. Copyright: Rob Battersby.
4. Mike Nelson, ‘The Asset Strippers’ install view Tate Britain 2019. Photo: © Tate (Matt Greenwood)
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