With the arrival of the new year, we open the doors to the 7 highlights with artistic novelties that will illuminate the month of January.
La Pedrera holds the first retrospective in Barcelona for the artist Antonio López, while Maison Européenne de la Photographie dedicates it to Viviane Sassen. The art of Mark Rothko is on view at the Louis Vuitton Foundation. The Thyssen Museum presents the exhibition Love Me Fast on the occasion of the gender perspective. On the other hand, the FIT Museum in New York kicks off 2024 with an exhibition that looks at the potential of sleeves in fashion. Tate Modern is dressing up with the monumental sculptural installation Behind the Red Moon, and Centre Pompidou is preparing to unite fashion and art. Let’s discover the 7 art highlights for January that will mark the beginning of 2024.
Vivianne Sassen and her visual odyssey through three decades of art
The Maison Européenne de la Photographie, presents the first retrospective in France of Dutch artist Viviane Sassen with the exhibition Phosphor: Art & Fashion 1990-2023. The exhibition includes over 200 works and reveals more than thirty years of multifaceted creativity spanning photography, collage, painting and video. For the first time, Sassen’s iconic works such as Umbra, Lexicon and Flamboya are presented , along with previously unpublished material, multimedia works and a fusion of photography, painting, video and fashion editorial production.
‘Luxaflex’, from the series ‘Of Mud and Lotus’ (2017).
The exhibition focuses on two main themes: the importance of intimacy in the works and the search for new photographic forms. It also reflects Viviane Sassen’s complex relationship with the image, playing with interiors and exteriors or the ambiguity of representing reality. For the artist, photography is a completely open world in which she can explore her own fears and dreams, and throughout the exhibition we see themes to which she is attracted. Among them we find interconnected death, sexuality, desire and connection with other humans. In terms of tonality, saturated colours invade the space, as does the play between light and shadow.
When does it take place? From 18 October 2023 to 11 February 2024.
Where: 5/7 Rue de Fourcy, Paris, France.
Opening hours: Wednesday to Sunday from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
Mark Rothko’s creative journey at the Louis Vuitton Foundation
The Louis Vuitton Foundation has opened its doors to a retrospective of the artist Mark Rothko, bringing together 115 works from private collections, including the family collection. The exhibition travels chronologically through Rothko’s career, from his figurative paintings to his more abstract works. The exhibition begins with close-up scenes and metropolis landscapes in the 1930s. After the Second World War, his paintings change direction and turn to abstract expressionism. This initial phase of Multiforms suspended on canvas evolves into rectangular shapes, embracing vivid colours, ranging from red, orange or blue tones.
Throughout the exhibition we can also discover the different commissions he received from 1960 onwards. Among them we can highlight the set of mural paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant, the John and Dominique de Menil Chapel in Houston. The latter was inaugurated in 1971 and named the Rothko Chapel. It is also part of the first permanent exhibition that the Phillips Collection created with him in 1960, and how, a year later, the Museum of Modern Art in New York held its first retrospective that travelled to various cities in Europe.
When will the exhibition take place? From 18 October 2023 to 2 April 2024.
Where: 8 Av. du Mahatma Gandhi, Paris, France.
Opening hours: Wednesday to Friday from 11.00 am to 8.00 pm. Saturday and Sunday from 10.00h to 20.00h.
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
Anatsui fuses art and history at Tate Modern
The Tate Modern ‘s Turbine Hall is dressed up with El Anatsui‘s monumental sculptural installation Behind the Red Moon. The work is composed of thousands of metal bottle caps and crumpled, flattened and stitched fragments, composing abstract fields of colour, form and line. Sourced from Nigeria, the liquor caps are not only transformed into an artistic expression, but also reference the histories of migration during the transatlantic slave trade. The staging of the installation resembles a play in three acts, and invites visitors to immerse themselves in a journey of movement and interaction through the hangings.
El Anatsui Installation: Behind the Red Moon, Photo: ©Tate (Joe Humphrys)
The dance between bodies and sculptures reveals a landscape of symbols that are revealed from a distance, including the moon, the sail, the wave and the earth. The large golden candle symbolises the richesbrought by trade between continents at the time, while human forms hang in the central area of the installation. But if you stop at a specific place, these bodies are transformed into the planet Earth. In this way, the artist has wanted to unite present and past, showing stories of oppression and survival, situations that are still being suffered, and we should not let them go unnoticed.
When will the exhibition take place? From 10 October 2023 to 14 April 2024.
Where: Bankside, London, UK
Hours: Monday to Sunday from 10.00 am to 6.00 pm
Art and fashion come together in a new exhibition at the Centre Pompidou
At the end of January, the Centre Pompidou opens the exhibition La traversée des apparences. Following the success of Yves Saint Laurent at the Museums in 2022, curator Laurence Benaïm returns to lead an exhibition where fashion and art connect. The exhibition will explore the connection between the body and clothing through 17 models. Connecting profiles of great designers such as Christian Dior, Azzedine Alaïa or Jean-Paul Gaultier, and works from the collection of the Musée National d’Art Moderne, the connections between them will be explored.
Kevin Germanier, Alien Embroidery. A unique piece created exclusively for the exhibition. Photo: Laurent Delhourme.
Throughout the exhibition we will be able to see the hobbies that the renowned designers shared, highlighting details that, perhaps, at first glance go unnoticed, but which coincided when it came to creating them. On the other hand, this 2024 we will have to enjoy the Centre Pompidou completely, as they have already warned that in 2025 the building will close its doors for five years due to the reforms that need to be carried out, and to be able to offer visitors good facilities.
When will it be open? From 24 January to 22 April 2024.
Where will it be located? Place Georges-Pompidou, Paris, France
Opening hours: Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 11.00 am to 9.00 pm. Thursday from 11.00h to 23.00h.
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
Noemí Iglesias questions love at the Thyssen-Bornemisza
Every year the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza presents an exhibition from a gender perspective, and for this year 2024 they have chosen the artist Noemí Iglesias Barrios, and the exhibition Love Me Fast. Some twenty works by the Asturian artist will connect with paintings in the museum dealing with romantic love captured by social networks. Noemí Iglesias aims to immerse us in the digital world and make us discover how screens take us away from reality. In the first space of the exhibition, Simon Vouet ‘s Europe and The Swing by Fragonard and Lancret converge with the modernity of The Myth of Europe (2023), a floral garland that pays tribute to the European Community.
Love Profussion 2023
On the other hand, Bulk Love (2023), an illustration on tile, dialogues with Monet and the stained glass Love Over (2023) reinterpreting Demuth. Pop art also has its place with works such as Rosenquist’s Smoked Glass, 1962. Throughout her career, the artist has placed ceramics and porcelain as protagonists, and through them she has wanted to play to reflect on the connection between love and the new digital era. In this way, and based on her own experiences, Noemí reveals what is involved in the love that arises in the digital world.
When? From 29 January to 28 April 2024.
Where? Paseo del Prado, 8, Madrid.
Opening hours: Mondays from 12.00h to 16.00h. Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00h to 19.00h.
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
Seven decades of Antonio López’s art at La Pedrera
The artist Antonio López has seen his first monographic retrospective in Barcelona through La Pedrera. The exhibition highlights the seven decades of the La Mancha-born artist’s artistic production, offering more than one hundred works, including paintings, sculptures and drawings.
The exhibition features his earliest works, such as Niño con tirador ( 1953), through to his most recent productions, revealing the meticulousness of Antonio López’s art. The exhibition is structured in thematic blocks, and reflects the evolution of certain motifs throughout his career. Through it we see everything fromdomestic interiors to urban landscapes of Madrid, still lifes and the representation of the human figure.
The interior with one of the figures of Antonio López.
In the 1960s he arrived in Madrid, where he painted his first landscape. From then on, the city became the protagonist in his landscape works, studying the light at different times of the day to reveal a different Madrid. In the 1980s and 1990s nature is presented through oil painting; fruit, vegetables and flowers, as in his retrospective tribute at the Reina Sofía Museum. In addition, he begins his painting Madrid from the Vallecas fire tower, which took him 16 years to complete.
When does it run? From 22 September 2023 to 14 January 2024.
Where? Pg. de Gràcia, 92, Barcelona.
Opening times: Monday to Sunday, from 10.00h to 19.30h.
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
The elegance of sleeves in the fashion world
To finish the 7 art highlights for January, the FIT museum in New York presents the exhibition Statement Sleeves, an exhibition that reviews the value that sleeves have contributed and continue to contribute to the world of fashion. The exhibition features more than 80 fashion pieces by renowned designers such as Balenciaga, Tom Ford and Vivienne Westwood. Each detail designed for the outfits has its own meaning and motif, and throughout the exhibition you will see how the different sleeves indicate different trends and periods.
De izquierda a derecha: Rudi Gernreich. Vestido de lana negro y crema, ca. 1967. Regalo de Ruth Ford. Madame Grès, 1980. Christian Dior (Marc Bohan), 1968.
The exhibition opens with the basic and classic shapes of sleeves, such as the bell sleeve or the Reglan, and then observes their evolution and trend in the 1980s. From large sleeves in haute couture fabrics, embroidered with sequins, transparent chiffon or the combination of ruffles. In this way, the FIT museum begins in 2024 with the aim of discovering the potential and role of sleeves.
When will it take place? From 24 January to 25 August 2024.
Where: 227 West 27 Street, New York, United States.
Hours: Wednesday to Friday from noon to 8pm. Saturday and Sunday from 10.00h to 17.00h.
Tickets: You can buy your ticket here
Images courtesy of the brands mentioned.
