Art Fair
Art Basel Unlimited 2022
Rachel Whiteread
June 16–19, 2022, hall 1, U32
Messe Basel
artbasel.com
Art Basel Unlimited 2022 features Rachel Whiteread’s sculpture Untitled (Upstairs) (2001). Launched in 2000, Unlimited is an exhibition platform for exciting large-scale projects that transcend the limits of the standard booth.
Untitled (Upstairs) is one of three casts of domestic staircases that Whiteread made in her then-new home and studio in Bethnal Green, London, in response to a commission from the Guggenheim Museum. The casting process has transformed the familiar structure into an uncanny abstraction—a strange, ghostly simulacrum that evokes the experience of loss and the operation of memory. It also recalls and draws on Whiteread’s Turner Prize–winning public sculpture House (1993; destroyed 1994), for which she cast the entire interior of a Victorian terraced house. By focusing on the spaces inside and around objects and architectural features, Whiteread renders negative space as sculptural form; the void beneath the staircase in Untitled (Upstairs) has been rendered impenetrable, while the edifice has been rotated on its axis, seeming to defy gravity. The result is a characteristically personal meditation on absence and presence, the human body, and the architecture we produce and negotiate.
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Art Fair
Art Basel Unlimited 2022
Jim Shaw
June 16–19, 2022, Hall 1, booth U42
Messe Basel
artbasel.com
Art Basel Unlimited 2022 will feature Jim Shaw’s installation Not Since Superman Died (2014). The work takes the form of a sequence of large suspended banners depicting Superman in moments of peril and distress. The costumed hero’s dramatic postures, painted in graphic black-and-white against a soft, faux-theatrical backdrop depicting Central Park, are rendered in the style of Wayne Boring, primary artist for DC’s Superman comics of the 1950s and early ’60s.
Jim Shaw, Not Since Superman Died, 2014, installation view, Art Basel Unlimited 2022 © Jim Shaw. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
In Conversation
Rachel Whiteread
Tim Marlow
Wednesday, January 24, 2024, 7:30pm
Sarabande Foundation, London
sarabandefoundation.org
Rachel Whiteread will be in conversation with Tim Marlow, director of the Design Museum, London, for the next installment in the series of INSPIRED talks organized by the Sarabande Foundation. The pair will discuss Whiteread’s recent and current projects and delve into the twists and turns of her creative career to date—from concept to form, and everything in between. Using industrial materials such as plaster, concrete, resin, rubber, and metal to cast everyday objects and architectural elements, Whiteread’s sculptural works are instantly recognizable as evocative interrogations of negative space, from the domestic to the monumental.
This event was originally scheduled for Wednesday, December 6, 2023.
Rachel Whiteread, Untitled (Azure Blue), 2021–22 © Rachel Whiteread. Photo: Thomas Lannes
Visit
Rachel Whiteread
The Connaught Christmas Tree
November 16, 2023–January 7, 2024
The Connaught, London
www.the-connaught.co.uk
Encouraging passersby to celebrate a feeling of togetherness, Rachel Whiteread has used 102 white neon hoops to decorate the Connaught hotel’s 31-foot (9.4-meter) Nordmann’s fir. Whiteread regularly uses circular motifs within her practice and here they illuminate the streets of Mayfair, acting as a symbol of hope and unity this festive season.
Rachel Whiteread’s 2023 Connaught Christmas tree, London. Artwork © Rachel Whiteread
Francesca Woodman
Ahead of the first exhibition of Francesca Woodman’s photographs at Gagosian, director Putri Tan speaks with historian and curator Corey Keller about new insights into the artist’s work. The two unravel themes of the body, space, architecture, and ambiguity.
Now available
Gagosian Quarterly Spring 2024
The Spring 2024 issue of Gagosian Quarterly is now available with a fresh cover design featuring Jean-Michel Basquiat’s Lead Plate with Hole (1984).
Sofia Coppola: Archive
MACK recently published Sofia Coppola: Archive 1999–2023, the first publication to chronicle Coppola’s entire body of work in cinema. Comprised of the filmmaker’s personal photographs, developmental materials, drafted and annotated scripts, collages, and unseen behind-the-scenes photography from all of her films, the monograph offers readers an intimate look into the process behind these films.
Adaptability
Adam Dalva looks at recent films born from short stories by the Japanese writer Haruki Murakami and asks, What makes a great adaptation? He considers how the beloved surrealist’s prose particularly lends itself to cinematic interpretation.
Not Running, Just Going
Robert M. Rubin’s Vanishing Point Forever (RideWithBob/Film Desk Books, 2024) explores the production, reception, and lasting influence of Richard Sarafian’s 1971 film. In this excerpt, Rubin discusses the pseudonymous screenwriter Guillermo Cain (Guillermo Cabrera Infante), the famous Kowalski car, and how a nude hippie biker chick became the Lady Godiva of the internal combustion engine.
On Frederick Wiseman
Carlos Valladares writes on the life and work of the legendary American filmmaker and documentarian.
You Don’t Buy Poetry at the Airport: John Klacsmann and Raymond Foye
Since 2012, John Klacsmann has held the role of archivist at Anthology Film Archives, where he oversees the preservation and restoration of experimental films. Here he speaks with Raymond Foye about the technical necessities, the threats to the craft, and the soul of analogue film.
Whit Stillman
In celebration of the monograph Whit Stillman: Not So Long Ago (Fireflies Press, 2023), Carlos Valladares chats with the filmmaker about his early life and influences.
Lisa Lyon
Fiona Duncan pays homage to the unprecedented, and underappreciated, life and work of Lisa Lyon.
Jamian Juliano-Villani and Jordan Wolfson
Ahead of her forthcoming exhibition in New York, Jamian Juliano-Villani speaks with Jordan Wolfson about her approach to painting and what she has learned from running her own gallery, O’Flaherty’s.
Stanley Whitney: Vibrations of the Day
Stanley Whitney invited professor and musician-biographer John Szwed to his studio on Long Island, New York, as he prepared for an upcoming survey at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum to discuss the resonances between painting and jazz.
Game Changer: Alexey Brodovitch
Gerry Badger reflects on the persistent influence of the graphic designer and photographer Alexey Brodovitch, the subject of an upcoming exhibition at the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia.