What we’re seeing

OPENING

Modigliani: A Unique Artistic Voice
15 April — 28 June
Estorick Collection, London
 

A number of novels, plays, documentaries and feature films have been made about the troubled and too brief life of Amedeo Modigliani, but away from the drama and biography, there is much more to know about this modern master. While he worked at the centre of the Parisian avant-garde between 1906 and 1920, he retained a unique vision and approach. Focusing on works on paper, this exhibition includes some 30 drawings — many from the collection of close friend Paul Alexandre, the artist’s only patron in the early years — together revealing the influences that helped shape Modigliani’s development, including Etruscan, Roman, African and Buddhist art.

Amedeo Modigliani, L’Amazone, 1909. Courtesy: Richard Nathanson, London

 

Yang Fudong — The Coloured Sky: New Women II
18 April — 30 May
Marian Goodman, Paris
 

Shanghai-based Yang Fudong works predominantly with video, film, video installation and photography. The Coloured Sky: New Women II is a multi-screen video installation displayed alongside two new series of photographs, and follows on from 2013’s New Women, a black-and-white film depicting women in the style of 1930’s Chinese cinema. Rejecting narrative in favour of form, colour and feeling, and verging on the impressionistic, this new multi-screen work creates an enveloping and timeless atmosphere for the viewer.

Yang Fudong, The Coloured Sky: New Women II, 5, 2014. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery © Yang Fudong

 

Gonzalo Fuenmayor: Tropical Mythologies
18 April — 13 September
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
 

Columbian-born Gonzalo Fuenmayor’s banana chandeliers were a big hit when they went on display at Art Basel Miami Beach in 2014. Originally photographed in tropical landscapes, the Victorian chandeliers and banana branches clash together, evoking the legacy of colonialism, cultural hybridity and transnational identity. As Fuenmayor has said, ‘I am interested in how ornamentation, with its grace and excess, has the capacity to camouflage and overshadow questionable circumstances of all kinds.’ A 2004 graduate of the School of the Museum of Fine Arts MFA programme, this is Fuenmayor’s first solo exhibition at the Museum.

Gonzalo Fuenmayor, Genesis I, 2013 © Gonzalo Fuenmayor. Photo: © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

 

Berlinde De Bruyckere: The Embalmer
18 April — 5 July
Kunsthaus Bregenz
 

In an exhibition that spans Kunsthaus Bregenz and Kunstraum Dornbirn, Belgian artist Berlinde De Bruyckere, presents two displays that draw on the history of painting and sculptural traditions, and on Christian and mythological subjects. Included at Bregenz is Kreupelhout/Cripplewood, which debuted at the Belgian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale of 2013, and on the floor above, a new group of works of stacked animal hides made from wax, polyester and iron, following the artist’s observations in a Brussels slaughterhouse.

Berlinde De Bruyckere, Kreupelhout/Cripplewood, 2012–13. Installation view at S.M.A.K., Ghent, Belgium. Photo: Dirk Pauwels. © Berlinde De Bruyckere

 

CLOSING

 

Nástio Mosquito: Daily Lovemaking
Until 19 April
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham
 

Tipped for future stardom, Angolan artist Nástio Mosquito’s show at Ikon Gallery has been a revelation. In his first solo show, the 2014 winner of the Future Generation Art Prize revealed a practice that resists traditional genre categorisation, spanning film and music, theatrical performance, video and installation, and showing awareness of everything from pop culture to African politics, sexual politics, and issues surrounding consumerism and globalisation. Charismatic and witty, Mosquito’s background in broadcasting shines through in work that exudes energy and intelligence.

Nástio Mosquito, Acts, 2012. Image courtesy the artist and Ikon Gallery

 

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