#Myriam Ben Salah

[shreyaajmani]

What is François Ghebaly’s “Strong Winds Ahead” trying to tell us?

Finally, François Ghebaly himself says, “These exhibitions are important for the gallery. We try to host institutional group shows at least once a year, using the gallery as a platform to amplify the voice of young curators or artists (such are Myriam Ben Salah, Franklin Melendez or Kelly Akashi), and to articulate their vision of the world today through these shows. They often take root in Los Angeles, but not always. Each show has allowed us to build bridges across generations of artists and enhance our understanding of current voices in art. These shows take a lot of work and I am especially proud of them. They are not just group shows constructed to sell art; they are genuine attempts to build a commentary and an understanding of contemporary culture and art practices. They are an important part of the identity of the gallery, and I couldn’t be more pleased with Lekha’s curation for ‘Strong Winds Ahead’.”

Excerpt from Mash.

Text by Shreya Ajmani.

Photo by Eli Ping. Courtesy of François Ghebaly Gallery.

[madforfashiondude]

The ‘Future’ As Seen by Lawrence Abu Hamdan

The ‘Future’ As Seen by Lawrence Abu Hamdan

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Award Lawrence Abu Hamdan the Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media

The Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo announced that Lawrence Abu Hamdan has been awarded the 2022 Future Fields Commission in Time-Based Media. This is the third in an ongoing series of commissions offered jointly…

[djlitlife]

Myriam Ben Salah Longs for the Food of Tunisia

[freenewstoday]

New Post has been published on https://freenews.today/2021/04/20/the-huntington-gets-hip/

The Huntington Gets Hip

SAN MARINO, Calif. — The juxtaposition is striking. In one gallery, Thomas Gainsborough’s classic 18th-century oil painting, “The Blue Boy,” gazes out from the ornate walls, having just undergone an extensive restoration. In another gallery, an installation by the Los Angeles artist Monica Majoli explores Blueboy magazine, one of the earliest gay publications in the U.S., through sultry images of scantily dressed young men.

When did the Huntington get hip?

This is not the institution you thought you knew for its Beaux-Arts mansion, imposing research library and elegant botanical gardens, including one inspired by Suzhou, China. It’s now also a hub for cutting-edge contemporary art.

For the first time, the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Botanical Gardens has joined the Hammer Museum in presenting the biennial, “Made in L.A. 2020: a version,” which spotlights videos, films, sculptures, performances and paintings by 30 Los Angeles-based artists.

The show, which opened when its host museums were finally able to welcome back the public on April 17, is clearly a departure for the Huntington.

While the museum has presented living artists such as Alex Israel in 2015 and Celia Paul in 2019, “Made in L.A.” is its most ambitious exhibition of contemporary art to date. And the show represents an effort to reach new audiences, diversify its programming and feature more artists of color.

“It’s a shot across the bow,” said Christina Nielsen, who became the director of the Huntington Art Museum in 2018. She considers the exhibition, “an opportunity to engage with the broader contemporary art community here in L.A. It’s really opening the doors.”

Located just outside Los Angeles on a sprawling former ranch purchased in 1903 by the railroad and real-estate magnate Henry E. Huntington, the museum opened to the public in 1928 and still presents a formal, European environment. So even some of the participating artists in “Made in L.A.” were initially skeptical about showing their works there.

“I thought it was a strange choice — I was a little concerned,” Majoli said, adding that her experience proved to be positive. “It was almost like a rich soil to work with; the work was well set off.”

Majoli said she was impressed by the museum’s openness to her installation, given how directly she deals with themes of gay liberation and self-determination. She felt free to explore what she considers “the queer subtext of ‘Blue Boy,’” a painting originally inspired by the Flemish Baroque artist Anthony Van Dyck.

Other artists also created works that respond to the Huntington’s historic collection. Ann Greene Kelly’s fabric-draped chairs reflect the draped garments that adorn the Huntington’s 1859 marble sculpture of the 3rd-century queen of Palmyra, “Zenobia in Chains.”

“It became this great opportunity to stress context,” said Lauren Mackler, an independent curator who, with Myriam Ben Salah, organized “Made in L.A.”

The artist Jill Mulleady specifically requested that her four paintings be located near Zenobia in the Huntington’s American Art Galleries. They include a diptych, “Interior of a Forest,” that references a work with the same title by Paul Cézanne and also frames the Xenobia statue.

“It was interesting to work there,” Mulleady said, “not to change history, but to add layers.”

The artist Kehinde Wiley has talked about how his paintings of Black men in classical regal poses were informed by his early experience of the Huntington’s British portraits. “That was really impactful for me because of all the pomp and circumstance,” Wiley told WNYC in 2009, “particularly for me as a young Black kid.”

To some extent, the Huntington’s “Made in L.A.” show echoes a larger trend in the art world away from separate lanes for different types of art (as the Museum of Modern Art has done with the elimination of its discipline galleries) and toward situating historical art in contemporary spaces (as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and now the Frick Collection have done in the Breuer Building).

The Huntington has been increasing its contemporary art initiatives. In 2016, it started five yearlong collaborations with cultural organizations such as the Vincent Price Art Museum at East Los Angeles College in Monterey Park, Calif.

The Huntington, partnering with the Yale Center for British Arts, is presenting a trilogy of shows on female artists curated by Hilton Als, the New Yorker magazine critic. Starting with Celia Paul, the series will also feature Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and conclude with Njideka Akunyili Crosby in late 2022.

And while price may remain a barrier for Los Angeles’s museum-goers (admission is $25 for adults, $29 on weekends), Nielsen said the museum has occasional free days and made the point that “it is cheaper for a family of four to go to the Huntington than to go to Disneyland.”

Greater efforts are still needed to help the museum achieve more diversity in its audience, programming and hiring. (The Los Angeles Times art columnist Carolina Miranda recently questioned whether the Huntington, as “the benefactor of Gilded Age wealth” could “evolve into the post-George Floyd era”).

Nielsen said that she plans to fill three curatorial positions with people of color and that the museum has been acquiring more works by female artists and people of color. The entire Huntington institution, including its museum, library and gardens, has an annual operating budget of more than $5 million, with a hefty endowment of more than $550 million.

The Huntington recently completed a new gallery dedicated to Chinese art, located in its expanded Chinese Garden (there is also a Japanese garden). “We’re located in the San Gabriel Valley, one of the largest Asian populations and Asian-American populations in this country,” Nielsen said.

Meanwhile, longtime museum loyalists will have to get used to wandering from staple period rooms of Savonnerie carpets and Sévres porcelain into potentially unsettling installations like Sabrina Tarasoff’s haunted house in “Made in L.A.”

“I would never say we should turn our back on the historic collection,” Nielsen added. “But I am also deeply committed to showing how that historic collection resonates with contemporary issues.

“We need to rethink the past — that’s what the scholars here are continually doing,” she continued. “We’re a place where history is preserved and history is written. And it’s a place where history is preserved and rewritten.”

Source

[exo-gr]

KAI:

«Πώς σας φάνηκε η έκθεση; Η έκθεση Eterotopia καλύπτει πολλά θέματα, όπως την κατανόηση των άλλων και την εξερεύνηση της ταυτότητας των μειονοτήτων μέσα από την ματιά των καλλιτεχνών όσον αφορά την εθνικότητα, την κοινότητα, και την μετανάστευση. Η έκθεση αυτή, που μεταμόρφωσε το μουσείο σε μία πραγματική ουτοπία αμοιβαίας κατανόησης του διαφορετικού, αποτελείται από 15 εκθέματα και αντιπροσωπεύει την φιλοσοφία της Gucci, ότι ο καθένας μας αποτελεί μία ανεξάρτητη μονάδα, αλλά όλοι μαζί μπορούμε να συνυπάρχουμε στο ίδιο μέρος. Δηλαδή, δημιουργήθηκε μία Eterotopia. Η επιμελήτρια της έκθεσης, Myriam Ben Salah, με ριζοσπαστική άποψη στην αισθητική, είπε ότι μέσω αυτής της έκθεσης θα ήθελε να επαναπροσδιορίσει την έννοια του “μαζί¨. Ελπίζω να ήταν μια πολύτιμη ευκαιρία να σκεφτείτε πως είναι να είμαστε όλοι μαζί σαν ανεξάρτητες οντότητες και ποια είναι η δική σας “Eterotopia”. Ο σχολιασμός από το mobile guide κάπου εδώ τελειώνει. Ευχαριστώ που το ακούσατε. Ήμουν ο Kai.»

[itsalovelyprocess]

Introducing ‘No Space, Just a Place. Eterotopia’ a multi-layered project powered by #Gucci to support the cultural landscape and contemporary art scene in Seoul. Taking its cue from the complex history of independent and alternative art spaces in Seoul and Gucci’s Creative Director @alessandro_michele’s reflections on eterotopia, the exhibition proposes a new definition of what an “other space” might be: a place to build a different, desirable future with new ways for humans to relate to each other and to their surroundings. Curated by Myriam Ben Salah @myriambensalah, the exhibition is held at the @daelimmuseum in Seoul—a location part of the #GucciPlaces network—and features independent and alternative art spaces as well as international artists’ works including @oliviaerlanger’s ‘Ida, Ida, Ida!’ (image 1, 2 and 3) which transforms the space into a laundromat inhabited by mermaid tales and @meriembennani’s ‘Party on the CAPS’ (2018-2019): a video installation that follows the imaginary inhabitants of CAPS, an Island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where refugees and immigrants “illegally” traversing borders are interned. Set up by @archiviopersonale, ‘No Space, Just a Place’ will run until July 12, 2020.

[huttson-blog]

Gucci’s Seoul show considers radical perspectives on ‘otherness�� — Wallpaper*

Read more at Wallpaper*

— by Andy St. Louis: The fashion label sponsors ‘No Space, Just a Place, which invites guests to consider radical perspectives on ‘otherness’, led by Tunisian-born curator Myriam Ben Salah…

Image courtesy of Gucci/Daelim Gallery

[stubfeedart-blog]

Hammer Museum Names Myriam Ben Salah and L... Publication from artnews.com #art #stubfeed #stubfeedart - stubfeed.com/art https://ift.tt/2Swlowi

[huttson-blog]

See inside Gucci’s art utopia in Seoul Alessandro Michele is paying homage to South Korean culture with this new exhibition — i-D

Read more at i-D

— by Douglas Greenwood: The cavernous halls of art galleries are one of the things we miss the most, but thankfully, the world is transforming those familiar spaces into something accessible while we’re all on lockdown. In Seoul, Gucci, their artistic director Alessandro Michele and the Paris-based writer and curator Myriam Ben Salah have set out to formulate an homage to the art…