< PreviousFrom top: Fereydoun Ave. Untitled. 2018. Mixed media on various cloth duffel. 186x327cm. Courtesy of the artist. Photography by Jalal Hamidi; Dana Awartani. I Went Away and Forgot You. A While Ago I Remembered. I Remembered I’d Forgotten You. I Was Dreaming.2017. Mixed media installation HBA_040_88-91_ThePreview_Miniature 2_11386111.indd 9001/10/2020 05:56:36 PM91 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 “Miniatures are a foreign area for Turkish contemporary art viewers,” Tüzüno lu and Özkara summarise. “Apart from the Jameel Prize, there are not many publications and wide-ranging exhibitions that focus on the miniature in contemporary art.” Tüzüno lu and Özkara, who is currently completing her PhD work on the contemporary miniature art as curatorial activism, approach the contemporary miniature as a uniquely “Eastern” medium, citing Homi K. Bhabha’s ‘closeness of difference’ as an underlying philosophical foundation, and as capable of conjoining ancient histories with the present, with each sustaining the other. In the exhibition, several works employ the fable, manipulating its pedagogical function and glorifi cation of historical events, such as in Halil Altındere’s Sultan’s Accession to the Throne Ceremony with Drone, which refers to the 1789 painting by Konstantin Kapıda lı. Similarly, Hayv Kahraman draws from the canonical 13th century texts by Maqamat al Hariri describing everyday life, and inserts her own narratives and female subjects. The curators also commissioned an installation called The Beauty and the Beast (The Lion and the Gazelle) by Turkish artist CANAN, depicting the WaqWaq Tree, a prominent feature of Indo-Persian mythology and folklore as a prophetic or carnivorous tree bearing humanoid fruit, which is found in numerous Arabic and Persian manuscripts. Tüzüno lu and Özkara also trace the legacy of Miniature Painting Department at the National College of Arts in Lahore and its integral role as a dynamic hub for the medium. Founded in the 1980s, featured artists Shahzia Sikander, Imran Qureshi, Saira Wasim and Noor Ali Chagani all alternately studied and sometimes, taught there. First shown at the 11th Sharjah Biennial, Sikander’s seminal work Parallax (2013), a three-channel installation made up of digital animations, explores confl ict and control in the post- colonial condition by examining the geostrategy of the Strait of Hormuz, through which forty per cent of Middle Eastern oil is shipped. Alternatively, younger cohort Saira Wasim’s paintings remain anchored in the dreamlike styling of 16th century traditional Iranian miniatures, while being ambivalently embedded with caricatures of right-wing symbols, violent iconography and a weary Madonna and child. peramuzesi.org.tr Miniature 2.0 is on show now at Pera Museum until 17 January 2021 “ T O D A Y , T H E M I N I AT U R E , AT L A RG E , R E M A IN S F R O Z E N IN B O T H T I ME A N D F U N C T I O N , S E R V I N G A S A N E M B L E M O F A P A S T , I N D E P E N D E N T E R A O F G L O R Y ” Clockwise from right: Cansu Çakar. Fictional map of Shatt al Arab . 2019. Gouache, watercolour, ink and gold on paper; Shahzia Sikander. Parallax. 2013. 3 channel HD video animation with 5.1 surround sound; Canan. The Beauty and the Beast (The Lion and the Gazelle). 2020. Mixed media; Hamra Abbas. Her Renk I Every Color. 2020. Ink and gouache on silk. 23.5x20cm. Courtesy of the artist and Pilot Gallery W ORD S B Y IMAN V AKIL IMA GES C OUR TES Y OF PERA MUSEUM AND THE AR TIS T S The PREVIEW HBA_040_88-91_ThePreview_Miniature 2_11386111.indd 9101/10/2020 05:56:42 PM92 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 Facing a second Covid-19 wave, Frieze’s 2020 physical editions were modified into a hybrid online and offline gallery presentation, writes Iman Vakil A work by Prafulla Mohanti. Possession section. Courtesy of the artist a hy brid affa ir The REVIEW HBA_040_92-93_The Review_Frieze_11388084.indd 9201/10/2020 05:57:14 PM93 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 IIn Eva Langret’s fi rst year as Frieze’s Artistic Director, more than 250 participating galleries, exhibitions and events are spread out across London’s parks, streets and screens, for both virtual and physical encounters with works from almost every era and medium. Going live from 9 to 16 October 2020, app and web-based platform Frieze Viewing Room, unveiled in May for the fair’s New York iteration, launches major new developments, including live chats and social media sharing, alongside the ‘sign the book’ and augmented reality features. Encompassing the Frieze Masters section, it thereby becomes the fi rst online fair for art from all ages, seeing antiquity and old master dealers embrace technology. Concurrently, Frieze Week offers a series of in-person programming across the city’s cultural institutes from 5 October onwards, with the fair’s beloved outdoor exhibition Frieze Sculpture returning to Regent’s Park. As perhaps one of the safest ways to view art, Frieze Sculpture is set to become more popular than ever, on view from 5 until 18 October 2020. Using its own virtual reality software for its Frieze presentation, gallery Hauser & Wirth is showing a diverse array of works from a variety of artists digitally, while dedicating its London spaces to present new works by American artist Rashid Johnson. Alternatively, White Cube is presenting a solo exhibition of the multidisciplinary artist Theaster Gates with a public installation at White Cube Bermondsey, on 10, 11 and 16 October. Malaysia- born, Chinese Palestinian artist Mandy El-Sayegh, based in the UK, is the star of Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac’s A Focus on Painting: Mandy El-Sayegh. Transforming the gallery’s interior space with an immersive installation, monumental paintings and newspaper-latex assemblages, El-Sayegh brings together found fragments layered with hand- painted gestures, advertisements and calligraphy to explore meaning and signifi ers in her larger practice, which centres on displacement. Curated by Clare Lilley, the 2020 edition of Frieze Sculpture sees new works by Patrick Goddard, Kalliopi Lemos and Arne Quinze and a recent commission by Lubaina Himid, exhibited for the fi rst time in the UK, among others. The works explore civil rights, our relationship to the natural world and the role of the artist as disruptor. Also of note is Rebecca Warren’s remarkable Aurelius, a three-metre painted bronze sculpture that is pale, twisting and thin. Resembling a crumbling stele, the work playfully subverts a visually coherent relationship between form and material. In Frieze’s new section Possessions, Curator Dr. Zoé Whitley charts the resurgence of spirituality in contemporary art with artists such as Vera Frenkel, Veronica Ryan and Jitish Kallat. Chief Curator of Beijing’s M WOODS museum, Victor Wang establishes an, “Institute of Melodic Healing” in the fair’s LIVE section, showcasing sound and performance art. Taking references from Stuart Hall’s notion of sonic culture, the theoretical institute, “Supports artistic experimental development without a defi ned outcome, to develop the community by thinking through sound and body,” states Wang. The aforementioned Mandy El-Sayegh, alongside Cécile B. Evans, Denzil Forrester, Anthea Hamilton, Haroon Mirza, Zadie Xa and Benito Mayor Vallejo are presenting live and online performances. The app and web-based platform for Frieze will be live from 9 to 16 of October 2020. frieze.com W ORD S B Y IMAN V AKIL IMA GES C OUR TES Y OF RESPECTIVE AR TIS T S AND GALLERIES From left: A work by Lorna Roberston; A work by Renate Bertlmann Above: A work by Wang Zhibo; Below: Rebecca Warren. Aurelius. 2017-2019. Frieze Sculpture. Hand-painted bronze. Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Max Hetzler Berlin | Paris | London. Photo by Andy Keate HBA_040_92-93_The Review_Frieze_11388084.indd 9301/10/2020 05:57:26 PM94 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 T H E FR AGMEN T AN D T H E WH O L E With 27 contemporary artists exploring the fluidity of constructed identities, LA-based Kohn Gallery presents a roster of international artists spanning four continents at the forefront of traditional media, writes Iman Vakil The REVIEW HBA_040_94-97_TheReview_Myselves exhibition_11386410.indd 9401/10/2020 05:58:55 PMRafa esparza. Guadalupe Macias Ybarra. Que? . 2018. Adobe, wood, chain link fence, acrylic paint HBA_040_94-97_TheReview_Myselves exhibition_11386410.indd 9501/10/2020 05:59:05 PM96 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 In ‘myselves,’ Kohn Gallery’s recently opened group show curated by Joshua Friedman, the artists of our polarising times are entitled to create deeply personal work that steers away from identity politics and examines the interior condition instead. Featuring critically acclaimed artists just shy of mega stardom such as Loie Hollowell, Erin M. Riley, Chiffon Thomas, Jarvis Boyland, Amoako Boafo, Heidi Hahn and Salman Toor, the exhibition offers an experimental assemblage of painting, embroidery, sculpture and drawing. Maintaining traditional mediums and methods of art-making that are still tied to individual subjectivity with traceable labour, the body is a reoccurring site of construction. “This show is essentially about the physicality of artwork during a time that has become so restricted from physical interaction with artwork,” Friedman summarises. But rather than propose sweeping and overarching theoretical models, the curator insisted on a more simple and intersectional approach, adding that he wanted to create a platform for a multitude of mediums and viewpoints on a deeply layered and complex topic. Sophia Narrett’s work acted as an initial reference point, with her thread sculpture beginning as one image, only to untangle into countless others. With all works traditional media, medium and meaning are in tandem, where the act of creating an artwork, requiring multiple layers, embodies the act of forming an identity. In the work Prenatal Plum Line in red-orange, green, and purple (2020) Loie Hollowell delves on the experience of her pregnancy. The American artist, who has recently gained momentous popularity, is known for her distinctive abstract painting and her command of an almost divine geometry which evokes bodily landscapes. Leaving handwritten annotations adorning the edges of the painting, a series of mathematically composed spherical forms overlap each other, holding various indications of volume. Mimicking the stages of the moon, the work brings to mind the various cyclical processes in nature, taking comfort in a clean-cut, categorical understanding of life. Alternatively, Erin Riley’s tapestry An installation view of the ‘myselves’ exhibition at Kohn Gallery, L.A Loie Hollowell. Prenatal Plumb Line in red-orange, green and purple. 2020. Soft pastel and graphite on paper The REVIEW HBA_040_94-97_TheReview_Myselves exhibition_11386410.indd 9601/10/2020 05:59:12 PM97 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 draws on the act of self-refl ection, as she depicts herself staring into an infi nite layering of screens and mirrors from her own intimate bed, probing at deep anxieties in the collapse of private and public identities and our current standards of hyper performativity. Other seminal works include Chiffon Thomas’ I’ll See For You If You Speak For me (2020), where the artist sews together patches of window mesh and curtain in fractured scene of dialogue as affi rmations of non-binary thinking, and Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo’s gestural and ephemeral portraits redefi ning Black masculinity. On view from 11 September to 31 October 2020 at LA-based Kohn Gallery, myselves ultimately provides multiple visual languages to talk about one’s self, from abstract and geometric paintings to playful utilisations of Baroque illusionism. kohngallery.com W ORD S B Y IMAN V AKIL IMA GES C OUR TES Y OF K OHN GALLER Y An installation view of the ‘myselves’ exhibition at Kohn Gallery, L.A featuring Jarvis Boyland. Bloom. 2020. Oil on canvas Left: Skye Volmar. Untitled. 2020. Coloured pencil and make-up on paper; This picture: Gerald Lovell. Sham. 2020. Oil on panel. Courtesy of the artists HBA_040_94-97_TheReview_Myselves exhibition_11386410.indd 9701/10/2020 05:59:21 PM98 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 Studio VISIT Art researcher Suzy Sikorski enters Samia Halaby’s ethereal studio in New York City’s Tribeca, brimming with colourful spirals and bold geometric shapes TRANSITIONS HBA_040_98-101_Studio Visit_Samia Halaby_11386728.indd 9801/10/2020 06:00:10 PM99 HarpersBazaarArabia.com/Culture/Art Autumn 2020 Facing page: Aritst Samia Halaby in her studio. This page: A view of the studio. Courtesy of the artist HBA_040_98-101_Studio Visit_Samia Halaby_11386728.indd 9901/10/2020 06:49:56 PMNext >