From Sadie Barnette’s homage to her father’s historic Black-owned gay bar in San Francisco to examining working-class photographers and their communities after the fall of communism in Europe, here is our pick of the world’s best new exhibitions
A tension is shimmering under the surface of this month’s show list. From feminist activism and protest at the South London Gallery to a touring exhibition by the Hayward Gallery examining working-class photographers and their communities after the fall of communism in Europe. Elsewhere, there’s a refusal to be defined by oppression, as we see in Languid Hand’s curated film programme from the Black diaspora or overlooked, such as Dulwich Picture Gallery’s Soulscapes, which aims to expand the genre of landscape art as we know it. And then there’s outright rage, as is such is Shirin Neshat’s Fury. Buckle up. It won’t be a comfortable journey, but it will be an important one. See you on the other side.
Photography Christopher GarciaYOU IS FOR UNITY, PHOTO BOOK CAFE, LONDON, UK
I’ve co-curated a group exhibition with Daphne Milner and Thursday’s Child which explores notions of unity from both micro and macro, personal and collective perspectives. From the documentation of large-scale events celebrating heritage and history to those that happen in smaller, more private spaces, like our bedrooms or bathrooms – with no less impact. The show titled You is for Unity brings together 36 artists across photography, film, and those working with digital tools – from 14 countries, all selected from the Thursday’s Child community. RSVP for the opening event (with free drinks!) here.
You is for Unity will open on Thursday, March 14, 6pm – late, and the exhibition will run until Sunday, March 17
TAMASHA, ABHISHEK KHEDEKAR, WEBBER GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Tamasha: a nomadic performance that meshes dance, music, and visual art, dates back to the 1800s. For her exhibition Tamasha, Indian artist Abhishek Khedekar presents a work of experimental docu-fiction that follows the 100-person travelling trouper of Dalit ‘families’ who perform Tamasha across Maharashtra. As India gained its independence, the tradition was stigmatised. Here, Khedekar uses imagery – from archival material, collage, documentary photography, performance, sound, and video – to bring Tamasha into the modern day.
From February 16 – April 15, 2024
THE MISSING O AND E, JOSHUA LEON, CHISENHALE GALLERY, LONDON
London-based poet, writer, and visual artist Joshua Leon often combines his own autobiography with historical research. In his solo show, The Missing O and E at London’s Chisenhale Gallery, Leon examines “a collapsing of memories and histories to offer a nuanced exploration of Jewish identity”. The new commission will be his most expansive site-sensitive installation thus far, including sculpture and sound, and will “explore the misnomers, erasures, and disquiet held in the building’s history, binding them with those of his own family.”
From February 23 – April 21, 2024
ACTS OF RESISTANCE: PHOTOGRAPHY, FEMINISMS AND PROTEST
Photography has been a tool for resistance since its invention. In this new show at South London Gallery, in collaboration with the V&A, works by international artists and collectives using their cameras as a feminist protest will be brought together. From the anti-rape protests in Bangladesh to the response to the #MetToo movement, the overturning of Roe v Wade, and the ongoing action against the Islamic Republic of Iran in the wake of Mahsa Amin’s murder in police custody. Artists include Carmen Winant, Wendy Red Star, Tabita Rezaire, Nan Goldin, and more.
From March 8 – June 9, 2024
REEL: AXIS, NOT POLES & DYKE HANDS, QUEER SHORTS
Reel: Axis, Not Poles is a month-long screening programme curated by Languid Hands featuring experimental moving image shorts by five Black artists from across the diaspora. Inspired by Teshome Gabriel’s writing in Thoughts On Nomadic Aesthetics And The Black Independent Cinema: Traces of a Journey (1988), “these artists create work that is not purely reactive to cultures of oppression, nor hindered by the burden of visual representation”. Instead, they use their own references and approaches to creating a “visual, sonic, and textural language”, that moves “towards a liberated culture of art-making”. The artists included are Che Applewhaite, Dita Hashi, Kondo Heller, S*an D. Henry-Smith, and Kadeem Oak.
On Wednesday, 23 March, from 7pm, Languid Hands presents a selection of shorts from Cinenova’s collection, which are either made by or centre Black, lesbian, and non-binary people. This selection, screened over one night, is inspired by S. Diane Bogus’ 1989 book of poems and essays, DYKE HANDS & SUTRAS EROTIC & LYRIC. Artists included will be Jamika Ajalon, L Franklin Gilliam, and Sonali Fernando.
Reel: Axis, Not Poles runs March 10 – April 2, 2024 (Thursday-Saturday, 11am-6pm). Dyke Hands, Queer Shorts runs on the March 23 from 7-9pm. More information here and here.
BIO-DATA FLOWS AND OTHER RHYTHMS – A LOCAL STORY
London-based visual artist, DJ, and music producer, Andrew Pierre Hart’s work examines the relationship between sound and painting. In this new commission, Hart’s site-specific mural, alongside a series of six new oil paintings, a bamboo sculpture, and a new sound composition, as well as a film shot in the area surrounding the gallery itself. These practices coincide with improvisation, spontaneity and ‘deep listening’, resulting in what he describes as ‘binaural and body-responsive sound and atmospherics’.
Until July 7, 2024
MARK OF CANE, KAT ANDERSON, THE NUNNERY GALLERY AT BOW ARTS
In Mark of Cane, Kat Anderson examines how sugarcane and its production has impacted the African-Caribbean diaspora through a legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and the Industrial Revolution. The centrepiece is a single-channel fictional short film titled Las, Fiya (‘Last, Fire’) that weaves the ‘origin story’ with historical methods of harvesting and producing sugarcane through the genre of horror, while exploring ancestral trauma, dispossession and the power in the return/retrieval. Alongside the film are Anderson’s paperworks which were hand-made from the extracted by-products of sugarcane during her residency at UCL East.
Until April 21, 2024
I CAN FIT MY FIST IN MY MOUTH, MATTHEW WAYNE PARKIN, CUBITT
Shout out to Cubitt for putting on the good shows (and screenings) this month, with its second appearance on this list. I can fit my fist in my mouth is a solo show by Leeds-based artist Matthew Wayne Parkin featuring moving images and sculptures looking at themes of withdrawal, censorship, violence, and memorial within intimate relationships, navigating the interplay between ethics and interpersonal dynamics. In a film of the same name, Parkin draws from personal footage to explore dialogues resembling sparring, traversing boundaries, moments of dialogue rupture, and violence in love through intimate gestures and movements Accompanying sculptures include a makeshift love seat and exhibition barriers adorned with love locks which interact with the gallery space itself. These motifs, from care to control, reflect support, safety, confinement, and submission in diverse contexts.
From March 23 – May 18, 2024
SOULSCAPES, DULWICH PICTURE GALLERY, LONDON, UK
Soulscapes at Dulwich Picture Gallery features over 30 contemporary works from artists working across painting, photography, film, tapestry, and collage, including Isaac Julien, Jermaine Francis, Alberta Whittle, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and more. It aims to “expand and redefine the genre” of landscape art through themes of belonging, memory, joy, and transformation.
From February 14 – June 2, 2024
AFTER THE END OF HISTORY: BRITISH WORKING CLASS PHOTOGRAPHY
Working-class photographers have long reflected and challenged the times. Now, the breadth and depth of such work will be exhibited in the Hayward Gallery’s latest touring exhibition at Herbert Art Gallery and Museum in Coventry, After the End of History: British Working Class Photography 1989 – 2024. ’The End of History’ was a declaration by economist Francis Fukuyama who used it to describe the end of communism in central and Eastern Europe 35 years ago and the ushering in of democracy. Working-class roots are often tangled up in the ideology of communism, this touring show seeks to ask what became of working-class culture after the ‘end of history’? And perhaps, most importantly, what’s next? Richard Billingham, Serena Brown, Eddie Otchere, Ewen Spencer, and Rene Matić are exhibiting.
From March 29 – June 16, 2024
ON THE OTHER SIDE, FACT, LIVERPOOL, UK
As citizens, we must navigate systems designed to monitor and influence our actions. But what are the repercussions of that? In On The Other Side, three artists, Melanie Crean, Katrina Palmer, and Pilvi Takala, explore what these could be: on system designers, administrators, and those subjected to enforcement.
New York-based Melanie Crean and London-based Katrina Palmer artists collaborated with participants from Liverpool, York, and Rochdale, focusing on justice system experiences. Given that public understanding of the UK justice system varies widely, these artworks, developed with participants as experts in their own experiences, shed light on individual and collective identities shaped by prison landscapes. Finnish artist Pilvi Takala's video installation, created with former security guard colleagues, examines power dynamics in private spaces like malls, prompting reflection on societal norms. Both works challenge us to question ingrained behaviours to envision alternative perspectives.
From March 1 – June 2, 2024
SIGNAL, MOHAMED BOUROUISSA, PALAIS DE TOKYO, PARIS, FRANCE
Mohamed Bourouissa’s first solo show in a national institution traces his journey from recent works to his origins, defying chronology and showcasing various geographies, from his hometown of Blida, Algeria, to the skies over Gaza. Bourouissa has also invited fellow artists to have their work included. In Signal, the personal and collective collide, traversing everything from “the imprisonment of bodies and the restriction of thought, the representation of identities, the determination and the control of language, forms of care based on plants, music and colour, informal economies, alienation and resistance,” through a “score made up of sounds, drawings, photographs, films, sculptures, watercolours, plants, experimental music and collective energies”.
Until June 30, 2024
THE FURY, SHIRIN NESHAT, FOTOGRAFISKA, NEW YORK CITY, USA
Fresh from its appearance at Fotografiska Stockholm, The Fury opens in New York City, an exploration of the sexual exploitation of female political detainees. With a career spanning decades, Neshat has consistently explored the complexities of the female form – a realm fraught with sin, and repression, but also resilience and resistance. The Fury features a double-channel video installation and black-and-white photographs adorned with calligraphy from poet Forough Farrokhzad. Through these powerful mediums, Neshat probes the female body’s role as both battleground and bastion of strength, challenging patriarchal power dynamics and shedding light on the plight of women subjected to torture and sexual assault.
From March 8 – June 9, 2024
FOAM TALENT, FOAM FOTOGRAFIE MUSEUM, AMSTERDAM
From 2,480 submissions from 106 countries, Foam Talent, Foam Fotografie’s annual open talent call, has whittled its 2024-2025 iteration to just 20 names. The throughline is the social issues of our times, from individual to collection, “as artists question themselves and the world”. Expect various mediums and techniques that range from photography to installation-based work.
From February 23 until May 22, 2024
THE NEW EAGLE CREEK, SADIE BARNETTE, WALKER ART CENTER, USA
Sadie Barnette's New Eagle Creek Saloon at the Walker Arts Center in Minneapolis pays homage to her father’s historic Black-owned gay bar in San Francisco with her iteration of the sanctuary for marginalised queer communities, which was open from 1990-93. Bathed in neon and glitter, it celebrates Black queer joy and community resilience. Every week, it will be host to events featuring local artists and cultural leaders, offering curated DJ sets, readings, and performances.
From March 7 – May 19, 2024