By Isobel Harbison
Gerard Byrne, A man and a woman make love, 2012, film still
Isobel Harbisonis a critic and curator based in London.
2013, in pictures:
– The British Library just consigned one million archive images as ‘free’ stock to Flickr (owned by Getty) but, ultimately, at what cost?
– Most highly paid photographer of 2013, Terry Richardson, or ‘Uncle Terry’ as he purportedly likes to be called by his young female subjects, frequently couches his lecherous photographs with highly contestable claims about ‘art’. Supermodel Rie Rasmussen went public about his exploitative behaviour in September. Brava.
– Singer to signer, Obama-mime-crime: from Beyoncé’s lip-synced anthem at the American president’s inauguration, to the South African sign-language interpreter, Thamsanqa Jantjie, mistranslating his speech at Mandela’s funeral, Obama must really be asking himself what the hell is going on. Why did these two extraordinarily confident performers choose to disregard the world’s gaze and legitimate expectations, and opt instead for mime-crime? Or were they hallucinating? This year politics was, quite literally, a charade and the charade, political. Thinking, The Truman Show yet, Obama?
– Too many front-page witch-hunts
– As impressive as Katniss Everdeen’s on-screen archery were Jennifer Lawrence’s quick-fire comebacks. See her riff with Jack Nicholson, post-Oscars 2013 (from 0:38):
– #SFbatkid. The best use of social media yet? (Obama, again.)
2013, in art:
I was impressed by a strong, well-timed retrospective of Gerard Byrne’s work at the Whitechapel Gallery in London; Anthony Huberman’s sensitively and intuitively curated group show ‘Detouched’ at Project Arts Centre, Dublin; Sophie Michael’s optical and cleverly made film Attica at Seventeen Gallery, London; Mark Leckey’s display-moxie in ‘The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things’ at Nottingham Contemporary (among other venues); Samara Scott’s unique sense of material inquisitiveness manifesting in deliciously eccentric sculpture at Rowing Gallery, London; in Venice, ‘Manet: Return to Venice’ at Palazzo Ducale, was so positively Venetian and, equally and opposite, the Lithuanian Pavilion seemed exquisitely lunar; Fergus Feehily’s carefulness in his solo show ‘Disappearance’ at mother’s tankstation, Dublin, was bewitching, as were the existential, theatrical and often funny sculptures of Michael Dean at Herald St, London; in London, the group show ‘The Slip’ at The Approach paired some fantastic and unexpectedly complimentary corporeal works; films from the ‘Centre for Visual Music’ mesmerized when projected at Tate Modern and Raven Row (in ‘Reflections For Damaged Life’); Aaron Angell’s ‘Model for Gallery Peacetime – Boat Burial’ was an aquarium attended by the creepiest four-legged-fish (or axolotls) I’ve ever seen, circulating around another of his fictional clay-scapes, a smart mise-en-abyme at the art fair Sunday; Clunie Reid’s piercing and unapologetic GIF-orgy, In Pursuit of the Liquid, incited and invigorated at MOT International; John Giorno’s poetry recital at Max Wigram was energetic, sharp and thoroughly entertaining; Rachel Reupke’s ‘Wine and Spirits’ at Cell Projects was suitably inebriating; Amalia Pica’s performance and installation at Herald St, A ∩ B ∩ C (Line), was a vivid example of her intellectually compelling and visually appealing forms; Reto Pulfer’s first solo show at Hollybush Gardens provided temporary escape, where, engulfed as we were in his lopsided linen tomb, confronted by his painterly apparitions, something changed.
Mike Kelley The Mobile Homestead in front of the abandoned Detroit Central Train Station, 2010; © Mike Kelley Estate, courtesy Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts; photograph: Corine Vermuelen
Outside of the gallery, Mike Kelley’s film Mobile Homestead (2010-11) was gratefully received in Hackney Picturehouse by this charmed local; and Lutz Bacher’s cloying question, ‘Do you Love me?’, redeemed itself through her inimitable and eponymous video at ICA’s cinema. Jordan Wolfson’s talk about the value of an artist’s intuition when composing and editing at the Chisenhale Gallery bowled me over with its brassiness.
Elsewhere, Open School East, a residency, school, artists’ studio, public programme [co-founded by associate director of frieze Sam Thorne], community centre and gallery, defied classification and I hope keeps going long into the future. I also appreciated the ambitious and energetic programming by various non-profit and/or curatorial enterprises, Akerman Daly, Arcadia Missa, Auto-Italia, Banner Repeater, Chewdays, Enclave, Flatness, and X Marks the Bökship, among others.
In 2014, I look forward to seeing Caroline Achaintre’s drawings at Arcade Gallery, Aaron Angell’s Troy Town Art Pottery at Open School East, David Robilliard’s ‘The Yes No Quality of Dreams’ at the ICA in April, Emily Wardill’s new film, When You Fall into a Trance? (premiering at the Sydney Biennial, and later touring the UK from the Collection Museum, Lincoln), LUX’s second Biennial of Moving Images, Ericka Beckman’s retrospective at Le Magasin, Grenoble, and Duncan Campbell’s first major solo exhibition at IMMA, Dublin.
And finally, a tribute to Ian White, the indelibly clever, creative, funny and wise man who this year, we lost forever. I am one of very many that will miss him.