January diary: where to go and what to see

Date
9 January 2017

2017 is well underway and 12 months of inspiring and entertaining exhibitions and events lie ahead. The It’s Nice That team has selected the shows and gatherings that are occurring throughout January that we think stand out from the crowd. There’s something for everyone with our top picks covering everything from art and design to some very rude photography. Go on, fill yer boots.

Above

Hellen van Meene, Untitled (79), (2000), detail,National Museum of Women in the Arts, Gift of Heather and Tony Podesta Collection, Washington, D.C. © Hellen van Meene and Yancey Richardson Gallery. Photo: Lee Stalsworth.

Terrains of the Body
18 January – 16 April 2017, Whitechapel Gallery, London

2016 brought with it an integration into the “female gaze”. This photography exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery continues that work, with images by Marina Abramović, Rineke Dijkstra, Anna Gaskell, Nan Goldin, Charlotte Gyllenhammar, Candida Höfer, Icelandic Love Corporation, Mwangi Hutter, Kirsten Justesen, Justine Kurland, Nikki S. Lee, Hellen van Meene, Shirin Neshat, Daniela Rossell, Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation, Janaina Tschäpe and Adriana Varejão. "By turning their camera to women, including themselves, these artists embrace the female body as a vital medium for storytelling, expressing identity and reflecting individual and collective experience,” the gallery says.

Above

Girls Dressed as Witches Demonstrate, Chicago Sun-Times, 25 September 1969. Courtesy Rik Garrett.

Witchy Methodologies
13 January, ICA, London

Artist Anna Bunting-Branch curates an evening around the concept of “witchy methodologies”, inviting other artists Travis Alabanza & Linda Stupart, Candice Lin & Patrick Staff, Georgia Horgan, Izabella Scott and Holly Pester, to consider how the witch "resonates in both queer feminist histories and contemporary research-based practices”.

Ren Hang
27 January – 12 March, Foam, Amsterdam 

Photographer and provocateur Ren Hang’s photographs may have raised eyebrows in his native China, but elsewhere his erotic, boundary-pushing nudes been so celebrated that they’ve landed him an exhibition at Amsterdam’s excellent Foam museum. 

Above

Teiji Furuhashi (Japanese, 1960–1995). Lovers. 1994. Computer controlled, five-channel laser disc/sound installation with five projectors, two sound systems, two slide projectors, and slides (color, sound). Overall 32′ 10″ × 32′ 10″ (1000 × 1000 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Canon Inc., 1998. © 2016

Teiji Furuhashi: Lovers
Until April 16, MoMA, New York

This multimedia installation by Japanese artist Teiji Furuhashi spans an entire room in its first presentation since the artwork’s inaugural 1995 exhibition. Projections of the artist and Kyoto collective Dumb Type in life size ghost-like flit across the walls in looped sequences. Made a year before Furuhashi died of an AIDS-related illness, Lovers considers “the theme of contemporary love in an ultra-romantic way.” 

Above

Figure Studies, 1943
Pencil, wax crayon, coloured crayon and watercolour wash on paper © The Henry Moore Foundation Courtesy Henry Moore Family Collection and Hauser & Wirth

Henry Moore Family Collection: Myths & Poetry
20 January – 11 March, Hauser & Wirth, Zürich

This exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Zürich, focuses on Henry Moore’s early drawings and etchings inspired by poetry and myth. With poetry magazine covers and poems created for specific poems among other things, the show explores the more graphic side of Moore’s practice. It’s been curated by his daughter, Mary Moore. 

Above

© John Baldessari. Courtesy of Marian Goodman Gallery London.

John Baldessari: Miro and Life in General
10 January – 25 February, Marian Goodman Gallery, London

American conceptual artist John Baldessari is known for his appropriation of found photography and image. In this show at Marian Goodman, John has paired a series of Hollywood films with a painting by Spanish surrealist artist Joan Miró. 

Alex Webb
Until 25 February, Robert Koch Gallery, San Fransisco

The Robert Koch Gallery presents Magnum photographer Alex Webb’s La Calle, which coincides with the recent release of the monograph La Calle: Photographs from Mexico. Webb says, “We come from a culture that in its roots comes out of Protestantism, capitalism and individualism… Mexico’s roots lie in Spanish Catholicism, the indigenous world and a communal culture. Mexican culture seems to embrace mystery.” This body of work saw the photograph short from monochrome to lush and deeply colour-saturated street photography and presents the unique cultural and social history of Mexico from the artist’s perspective.

Gee Vaucher Workshop
Until 19 February, Firstsite, Colchester, Essex

As part of the Gee Vaucher exhibition at First Site Colchester, the gallery is providing a drop-in, self-led workshop everyday for the duration of the exhibition. All materials will be provided. 

Tess Redburn: Layout, Location, Function
16 January – 16 March, The Hoxton, London

The exhibition features a series of ten paintings exploring the sculptural qualities of modern architecture, from the iconic “desert modernism” of Palm Springs, to the appearance of architecture in film and London Brutalism.

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