Penny Goring Campoli Presti
Penny Goring, Disemboweled Doll, Courtesy of the artist, Campoli Presti, London / Paris and Arcadia Missa
Born in New Cross in London in the early 60’s, London-based artist and poet Penny Goring spent a number of years at various art schools, eventually graduating in 1994 with a First Class (Hons) Degree in Fine Art and Commendation for her dissertation on the artist Louise Bourgeois. In the same way that Louise Bourgeois used a variety of methods to release the emotional turmoil from the course of her life, Penny creates with words and whichever cheap and domestic materials she has on hand – salt dough instead of clay, food dye instead of ink, ballpoint pens and felt tips instead of pencils and paint, open office instead of word and ms paint instead of photoshop. Over the past 50 years, her unconventional use of shapes, colours and fabrics has evolved so that today, they distinctly form the visual language of Penny’s inimitable world.
Arthur Jafa Gavin Brown Enterprise
Arthur Jafa, La Scala, 2018. Courtesy the artist and Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York/Rome
Arthur Jafa is an African American video artist and cinematographer. As a child he assembled binders full of found images in collections he called the books which informed his artistic practice as an adult. Arthur studied film and architecture at Howard University before moving to Atlanta, Georgia. His first solo exhibition at Gavin Brown Enterprise took place in 2016. He was selected for the 2016 “Made in L.A.” Biennial at the Hammer Museum, and in 2015, he presented “APEX redacted”, a public video installation for Flux Night in Atlanta. His work was included in Kara Walker’s exhibition “Ruffneck Constructivists” at the ICA Philadelphia and he has shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2001); Media City, Seoul (2000); Black Box, CCAC Institute, Oakland (2000); and Artists Space, New York (1999).
Arthur Jafa has exhibited at the Hirshhorn, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the Julia Stoschek Collection, as well as many others. His role as a cinematographer with directors such as Julie Dash and Spike Lee has been notable, with his work on Daughters of the Dust (1991) winning the “Best Cinematography” Award at Sundance.
His seven-minute video essay Love Is the Message, The Message Is Death is in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the High Museum of Art. Set to Kanye West’s song “Ultralight Beam”, the work consists of a series of found images and video clips depicting a range of Black American experiences throughout history. Among many other clips exploring African American life and resiliency, the video essay juxtaposes recordings of police violence and footage from the Civil Rights Movement with clips of Black artistry, pop culture, celebration, and creativity.
Bertille Bak The Gallery Apart
Bertille Bak, Le Tour De Babel, 2019, The Gallery Aapart
Observing societies with an accurate analysis of a site, Bertille Bak delves into communities and the groups by becoming a member and examining their rituals, gestures, and objects, which she later uses in her projects. In collaboration with the individuals she meets, she constructs narratives between fiction and documentaries where poetry and utopias usurp the simple assessment of a situation.
Whether it concerns her own community in the mining areas of Northern France or groups that are unfamiliar to her, she never chooses to distance herself or look on from afar. On the contrary, it is all about sharing a passage of life, a struggle, a resistance. Understanding the organization between individuals, listing their personal and collective histories, traditions and folklores, their hobbies and revolts is central to the work of Bertille Bak. No matter what the project, Bertille Bak develops a work focused on the collective with mankind at its heart. Her work believes in the possibility of inventing together different ways of approaching and appreciating reality.
Takeo Hanazawa Side 2 Gallery
Takeo Hanazawa, Golden Age (Any Where Out of the World), 2018, Side 2 Gallery
From 13th century European pottery to 18th century Japanse composition to Funkadelic pop icons co-exists in his works as in Hanazawa’s real life. Characters from traditional Asian mythology (kappa river-sprites; Chinese taoist immortal sennin) as well as modern legends (Chewbacca; Kermit the Frog; Funkadelic pop icons) co-exists cleverly in his pieces. Takeo Hanazawa is a Japanese Asian Modern & Contemporary artist who was born in 1977. His subject always concernes his personal admiration and respect to the people from the past and the present. As a result, east/west, historical/contemporary are blended in the work. For Hanazawa, those terms are not opposites but something to look at carefully to see the similarities.
Takeo Hanazawa is haunted by mixing East and West, old and new, high art and pop culture. His painting The Golden Age on view at the Gallery Side 2 booth, is a great example of this mix. In 2014, the fashion label Alexander McQueen commissioned him to make a site-specific installation for its boutique in Tokyo: McQueen’s latest Tokyo flagship in Aoyama.
Yael Bartana Sommer
Yael Bartana is a video artist who explores the imagery of cultural identity. In her photographs, films and installations Bartana critically investigates her native country’s struggle for identity. She studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem, the School of Visual Arts, New York and the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam. Her early work documents collective rituals introducing alienation effects such as slow-motion and sound. In her recent work the artist stages situations and introduces fictive moments into real existing narratives.
In 2011 Yael Bartana represented Poland on the 54th edition of the Venice Biennial. Bartana’s work has been shown in numerous leading museums and biennials:Jewish Museum Berlin (2020, 2017), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2018, 2016), Golden Thread Gallery, Belfast, (2017), Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2017), The Banff Centre, Alberta (2016), Sommer Contemporary Art, Tel Aviv (2015), Petzel Gallery, New York (2015), Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2015), 31st Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo (2014), 19th Biennial of Sydney, Sydney (2013), PAMM, Miami, (2013), Walker Art Center, Pittsburgh (2013), Carnegie International (2013), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2012), Secession Vienna, Vienna (2012), 7th Berlin Biennale, Berlin (2012); 54th Venice Biennale, Venice (2011).
Her work is part of the collection of a.o.: van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, The Hague; Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Jewish Museum, New York; Kadist, Paris; Museum Boijmans van Beuningen, Rotterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam; Tate Modern, London; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.
