In 2020 the devastation of the novel coronavirus caused an unavoidable wave of ‘reverse globalisation’. Isolation replaced interaction, and local protections replaced global visions. As people placed more value on life and health, they anxiously pressed the pause button on everything else, to make room for the crisis. The contemporary art industry, which has always valued interaction and a global perspective, fell into a state of shock.

Now, in this moment of global crisis, what is criticism? In English, the words ‘crisis’ and ‘critic’ come from similar roots, because ‘cris-’ or ‘crit-’ means ‘divide or differentiate’ and, by extension, ‘decide or judge’. In other words, criticism has always accompanied crisis, and our art criticism often shows its worth in moments of cultural crisis. Particularly now that the internet is available worldwide, we can break isolation with communication and use discernment and judgement to collectively build a global values system, which is something our times need. This is also the intention behind the International Awards for Art Criticism ( IAAC ). By exploring and persevering through the last six and current editions, we aim to use criticism to foster a deeper discussion of contemporary art, to bridge the conceptual fractures produced by artistic diversification, and to reshape the importance of criticism in contemporary artistic explorations.

In 2021 we have to confront directly the listlessness of the post-pandemic era, but we are also seeing a resurgence in art criticism with the current IAAC 7. I believe that, in this period of unease and reflection, art criticism will, as before, produce strong intellectual echoes, reflections of the thinking of our times. Through the critical power of words, IAAC continues to provide a guiding spark for art and even the world in which we live.

This year the committee received 253 submissions in Chinese and English from writers in 34 countries on 5 continents. The most submissions were received from China, the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany and Russia, making up 83 per cent of the total. There were 136 Chinese-language submissions from 18 provinces, municipalities and regions in China. There were 117 English-language submissions, most of which came from the United Kingdom, followed by the United States; together, submissions from those two nations made up 49 per cent of the English-language total. IAAC’s international influence has continued to expand; we were delighted to discover that we had received submissions from writers from five new countries this year: Afghanistan, Albania, Ecuador, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan. After two days of tense deliberations, Berlin-based Eugene Yiu Nam Cheung won First Prize, and New York-based Peter S. Brock and Shanghai-based Wang Kaimei and Zhang Hao were each awarded a Joint Second Prize.

I am very grateful to the five members of the international jury for this edition: Ding Ning, professor in the School of Arts at Peking University; Richard Dyer, editor-in-chief of the international academic publication Third Text; Ken Neil, dean of the School of Arts and Humanities at the Royal College of Art ( RCA ), London; Lisbeth Rebollo Gonçalves, president of the International Association of Art Critics ( AICA ); and Pauline J. Yao, lead curator of visual art at M+, Hong Kong. I would also like to thank Fei Dawei and Anthony Yung, who made up the preliminary Chinese-language jury, and Emily LaBarge, Henry Meyric Hughes and Jonathan P. Watts, who comprised the preliminary English-language jury. I am grateful to all of them for taking the time to carefully read all of the finalists’ submissions and for the erudite yet passionate discussion that took place during the judging process, once again truly representing the IAAC’s ideals of fairness, openness and diversity.

I would also like to thank all of the writers who submitted to the Awards, as well as our tireless IAAC co-organisers – the Royal College of Art ( RCA ) and the Edinburgh College of Art ( ECA ). I particularly want to thank the primary sponsors, China Minsheng Bank and Shanghai Minsheng Art Foundation, for continuing to support artistic ideals with us in such a tough year.

Finally, I would like to thank, once again, everyone who participated in this year’s International Awards for Art Criticism. Because of you, these Awards stand at the vanguard of contemporary art, defending the discipline that we all love.

Gan Zhiyi
Director, Shanghai Minsheng Art Museum
Joint Chair, IAAC Organising Committee

Exhibition Reviews Annual 7

A publication containing a selection of entries from the Seventh International Awards for Art Criticism ( IAAC 7 ), 2020 – 21

www.iaac-m21.com

Edited by Henry Meyric Hughes, with Gu Jia ( for the Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai ) and Anne Duffau and Karolina Lebek ( for the Royal College of Art, London )

Copyedited by Lise Connellan, Wang Conghui

Designed by Sun Shujie

Translations into Chinese by Liang Xiao, Gu Qianfan

Translations into English by Duncan Hewitt, Bridget Noetzel

Proofreading by Lise Connellan, Henry Meyric Hughes, Gu Jia, Karolina Lebek, Wang Xuan

A publication of the International Awards for Art Criticism Ltd ( IAAC ), in partnership with the Minsheng Art Museum, Shanghai, the Royal College of Art, London, and Edinburgh College of Art

With the support of the China Minsheng Bank ( CMBC ), the Shanghai Minsheng Art Foundation, China, and the International Association of Art Critics ( AICA ), Paris

The Board of the IAAC would like to thank Lise Connellan, Anne Duffau, Gu Jia, Karolina Lebek, Karen Lin, Wang Xuan

The Board would also like to express their deep appreciation to their following, for their help with the first round of selections:
Emily LaBarge, Henry Meyric Hughes and Jonathan P. Watts, in London
Fei Dawei, Ding Ning and Anthony Yung, in Shanghai

©️ 2021 the editors and authors. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher and the Board of the IAAC.

The Board of the IAAC have made every effort to trace copyright holders, but if any have been overlooked, they will be pleased to make the necessary accreditations at the first opportunity.

8th Beijing International Art Biennale 2019
National Art Museum of China
Beijing
第八届北京国际美术双年展
中国美术馆
北京
30.08.19 – 23.09.19

12th Taipei Biennial: You and I Don't Live on the Same Planet
Taipei Fine Arts Museum
Taipei
第十二届台北双年展：你我不住在同一星球上
台北国立美术馆
台北
21.11.20 – 24.03.21

XV Jogja Biennale
Jogja National Museum
Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta
第十五届日惹双年展
日惹国立博物馆
日惹特区
20.10.2019 – 30.11.2019

16th Istanbul Biennial: The Seventh Continent
Various venues
Istanbul
第十六届伊斯坦布尔双年展
伊斯坦布尔文化艺术基金会
土耳其
14.09.19 – 10.11.19

22nd Biennale of Sydney: NIRIN
Various venues
Sydney
边缘
悉尼双年展
悉尼
14.03.20 – 15.11.20

58th Venice Art Biennale: May You Live in Interesting Times
Various venues
Venice
愿你生活在有趣的时代
威尼斯双年展
威尼斯
11.05.19 – 24.11.19

Abbas Zahedi: How To Make A How From A Why?
South London Gallery
London
阿巴斯·扎赫迪：如何让“为什么”变成“怎么做”？
南伦敦画廊
伦敦
06.03.20 – 13.09.20

A Decade Apart/Together
Richard Koh Fine Art
Singapore
十年之隔/连接
理查德·戈画廊
新加坡
28.08.20 – 19.09.20

Amr Elkafrawy: The Ring Road
Gallery Misr
Cairo
环形公路
MISR画廊
开罗
27.09.20 – 21.10.20

Andy Warhol – From A to B and Back Again
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago
安迪·沃霍尔：从A到B，循环往复
惠特尼美国艺术博物馆，芝加哥艺术博物馆
芝加哥
20.10.19 – 26.01.20

Ane Graff: There Are Others Here With Me
OSL Contemporary
Oslo
阿内·格拉夫：还有他人与我同在
奥斯陆当代艺术空间
奥斯陆
28.08.20 – 17.10.20

Anticorps
Palais de Tokyo
Paris
抗体
东京宫
巴黎
23.10.20 – 03.01.21

Ascii Art
Ascii
Kabul
字元画艺术
Ascii
卡布尔
18.12.20 – 02.02.21

Bridget Chappell: No Comment
Blindside Gallery and other venues
Melbourne
布里奇特·沙佩尔：不予置评
盲点艺术空间X液态建筑 “声音系列“
墨尔本
18.03.20 – 04.04.20

Bruce Nauman
Tate Modern
London
布鲁斯·瑙曼
泰特现代美术馆
伦敦
07.10.20 – 21.02.21

Candelilla, Coatlicue, and the Breathing Machine
Ballroom Marfa
Marfa, TX
小烛树，大地女神和呼吸机
马尔法宴会厅艺术中心
厄尔巴索
05.04.19 – 20.10.19

Cao Fei: Blueprints
Serpentine Gallery
London
曹斐：蓝图
蛇形画廊
伦敦
04.08.20 – 13.09.20

Cecilia Dougherty: Time Before Memory
Microscope Gallery
New York
塞西莉亚·多尔蒂：在我们拥有记忆之前的时光
显微镜画廊
纽约
07.12.19 – 15.06.20

Chen Dongfan: Sanctuary
Yeh Art Gallery
New York
陈栋帆：庇护所
叶画廊
纽约
30.01.20 – 01.08.20

Chiharu Shiota: Navigating the Unknown
König London
London
盐田千春：在未知中航行
国王画廊（ 伦敦 ）
伦敦
09.10.20 – 19.12.20

Chris Musina: Paradise
One One One Gallery
Chapel Hill, NC
克里斯·穆西纳：天堂
One One One画廊
教堂山
29.03.19 – 01.06.19

Community of Feeling: Emotional Patterns in Art in Post-1949 China
Inside-Out Art Museum
Beijing
动情：1949 后变局中的情感与艺术观念
北京中间美术馆
北京
21.12.19 – 24.05.20

Critical Zones: Observatories for Earthly Politics
ZKM Center for Art and Media
Karlsruhe
临界区：地球政治的观测站
德国新媒体艺术中心
卡尔斯鲁厄
23.05.20 – 09.01.22

Cut and Paste: 400 Years of Collage
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art
Edinburgh
剪切和粘贴：拼贴画400年
苏格兰国立现代艺术美术馆
爱丁堡
29.06.19 – 27.10.19

Danh Vo: Chicxulub
White Cube Bermondsey
London
傅丹：希克苏鲁伯
白立方
伦敦
11.09.20 – 02.11.20

Diplopia
Arko Art Center
Seoul
复视
韩国文化艺术委员会美术馆
水原
24.09.20 – 29.11.20

Down to Earth
Gropius Bau
Berlin
脚踏实地
马丁·格罗皮乌斯博物馆
柏林
13.08.20 – 13.09.20

Dream: L'Arte incontra i Sogni
Chiostro del Bramante
Rome
梦境：艺入梦境
布拉曼特修道院迴廊
罗马
29.09.18 – 25.08.19

Ed Atkins: Old Food
Arsenale, 58th Venice Biennale
Venice
古老食物（ 埃德·阿特金斯在双年展上的一件作品 ）
威尼斯双年展展馆
威尼斯
11.05.19 – 24.11.19

Elizabeth Price: Slow Dans
Artangel
London
伊丽莎白·普利斯：慢浮标
艺术天使
伦敦
04.09.20 – 25.10.20

Everything Passes Except The Past
Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo
Turin
一切都会过去，除了过去
桑德雷托·雷博登戈基金会
都灵
17.09.20 – 18.10.20

Fabian Peake: Staring at the Silence
Chapel of the Madonna del Pozzo
Spoleto, Perugia
费边·皮克：凝望无声
波佐圣母堂
佩鲁贾
03.09.20 – 23.09.20

Felix Gonzalez-Torres: Untitled ( Fortune Cookie Corner )
Andrea Rosen Gallery and David Zwirner
New York
冈萨雷斯·托雷斯：无题（ 幸运饼干角落 ）
安德烈娅·罗森画廊，卓纳画廊
纽约
25.05.20 – 05.07.20

First International Biennial of Graphics: Mitrovica Print 2020
Cultural Center ‘Rexhep Mitrovica'
Mitrovica, Kosovo
第一届国际平面艺术双年展
雷切普·米特罗维察文化中心
科索沃
05.12.20 – 30.12.20

For a Dreamer of Houses
Dallas Museum of Art
Dallas, TX
梦想家的房子
达拉斯艺术博物馆
达拉斯
15.03.20 – 04.07.21

Fujiko Nakaya x Shiro Takatani: Chronotope in the City of Fog
Kitagawara Municipal Housing
Kyoto
中谷芙二子X高谷史郎：雾都的年轮
北河原市住宅
京都
05.12.20 – 20.12.20

Garden of Escaping Sonors
State Art Museum
Novosibirsk
逃逸之声的花园：声音建筑
莫斯科凯旋画廊&新西伯利亚国立美术馆
俄罗斯
13.11.20 – 17.01.21

Georgia Sagri: IASI, Stage of Recovery
de Appel
Amsterdam
乔治亚·萨格里：IASI，恢复阶段
阿姆斯特丹阿贝尔当代艺术中心
阿姆斯特丹
23.10.20 – 18.01.21

Gran Sur: Contemporary Art from Chile in the Engel Collection
Sala Alcalá 31
Madrid
伟大的南方：恩格尔收藏中的智利当代艺术
恩格尔基金会
马德里
25.02.20 – 26.07.20

Henrik Olesen
Galerie Buchholz
Köln
亨里克·奥尔森
布赫霍尔兹画廊
科隆
22.05.20 – 15.08.20

Henri Michaux & Mu Xin
Power Station of Art
Shanghai
米修与木心
上海当代艺术博物馆
上海
09.09.20 – 11.10.20

Hito Steyerl
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein
Berlin
黑特·史特耶尔
新柏林艺术协会
柏林
23.11.19 – 26.01.20

Il Ghirigoro
Pio Pico Gallery
Los Angeles
涂鸦
皮奥·皮科画廊
洛杉矶
13.02.20 – 14.03.20

Illusion
The Galaxy Museum of Contemporary Art
Chongqing
虚像
星汇当代美术馆
重庆
13.09.20 – 12.11.20

I Love You, Urgently ( 7th Edition of 21,39 Jeddah Arts )
Saudi Art Council, Jeddah Arts
Jeddah
第七届“21，39”艺术节：我爱你，刻不容缓
沙特阿拉伯艺术委员会
吉达
28.01.20 – 18.04.20

Invernomuto: Prima delle Sabbie
Connection Gallery, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
Rome
在沙洲形成之前
国立现代艺术美术馆
罗马
15.10.19 – 12.01.20

Jennifer and Kevin McCoy: Cleaner
Postmasters Gallery
New York
清洁工
邮局画廊
纽约
07.12.19 – 25.01.20

Jess Herrington: Jelly Vision 2020
Hervisions
London
她视界
果冻视界2020
伦敦
04.02.20 – 12.20 ( ongoing )

John Lasseter & Hayao Miyazaki: Study of Comparative Animation Film Style & Art Direction
University Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur
约翰·拉斯特和宫崎骏：比较动画电影风格和艺术指导的研究
吉隆坡大学
吉隆坡
23.03.21 – 24.03.21

June Lam: Squeeze
Ashley Berlin
Berlin
挤压
阿什利工作室
柏林
early 2021

Kai ( Kari ) Altmann: TTOA: Native Arrangement II
Final Hot Desert
Salt Lake City, UT
TTOA：与生俱来的安排II
Final Hot Desert游牧性当代艺术空间
盐湖城
01.07.20 – 31.07.20

Karl Russell Vickers: Publicly Funded Minerals
Assembly House
Leeds
卡尔·维克斯：众筹矿石
诺里奇大会堂
利兹
05.07.19 – 29.09.19

Katiuska Saavedra: El Hueco del Animal
Casa Viva
Mexico City
卡提斯`-萨维德拉：动物的洞穴
Casa Viva 画廊
墨西哥城
08.11.19 – 30.11.19

Landscape/Territory: Imaginaries of the Jungle in the Visual Arts ( Ecuador: 1907 – 2019 )
Museo Antropológico y de Arte Contemporáneo ( MAAC )
Guayaquil, Ecuador
景观/版图：丛林的想象力——1907年至2019年厄瓜多尔的视觉艺术
瓜亚基尔人类学与当代艺术博物馆
厄瓜多尔
29.08.19 – 24.11.19

Laure Prouvost: Here Is Where We Are
e-flux: Artist Cinemas
New York
这就是我们的所在之处
e-flux平台“艺术家影院”
纽约
24.10.20 – 05.12.20

Lawrence Abu Hamdan: ‘Rubber Coated Steel', ‘Walled Unwalled' and ‘Once Removed'
YouTube
劳伦斯·阿布·哈姆丹
油管
柏林
15.03.20 – ongoing

Listen to a Heart Beat
Galerie Thomas Schulte
Berlin
聆听心跳
托马斯·舒尔特画廊
柏林
23.05.20 – 11.07.20

Liu Chuang: Bitcoin Mining and Field Recordings of Ethnic Minorities
Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts
Nida, Lithuania
刘窗：比特币矿和少数民族田野录音档案
维尔纽斯艺术学院“尼达艺术聚落”
维尔纽斯
17.07.20 – 16.08.20

Lorena Wolffer: Diarias Global
Museo Universitario Arte Contemporáneo ( MUAC )
Mexico City
罗蕾娜·沃尔弗：全球女性日志
当代艺术大学博物馆
墨西哥城
25.11.20 – 31.03.21

Mark Ruwedel: Los Angeles
Large Glass
London
马克·鲁维德：洛杉矶
巨镜画廊
伦敦
11.12.20 – 19.02.21

Masculinities: Liberation Through Photography
Barbican Art Gallery
London
男子气概：摄影中的解放
巴比肯画廊
伦敦
13.07.20 – 23.08.20

Matt Kayem: Notes about the Times
Modzi Arts
Lusaka
时代的注脚
莫兹艺术空间
卢萨卡
16.05.20 – 25.07.20

Mike Kelley: Timeless Paintings
Hauser & Wirth
New York
迈克·凯利：永恒的绘画
豪瑟沃斯画廊
纽约
12.11.19 – 25.01.20

MMCA Hyundai Motor Series 2020: Haegue Yang – O₂ & H₂O
National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea
Gwacheon
现代汽车集团2020：梁慧圭-O₂ & H₂O
国立现代美术馆（ 首尔 ）
河南市
20.09.20 – 28.02.21

MMOMA 99/19: Thematic Display for the Museum's 20th Anniversary
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Moscow
博物馆二十周年专题展览：莫斯科现代艺术博物馆1999-2019
莫斯科现代艺术博物馆
莫斯科
19.12.19 – 13.09.20

Monira Al Qadiri: Holy Quarter
Haus der Kunst
Munich
莫妮拉·阿爾·卡迪里：神圣的四分之一
艺术之家
慕尼黑
31.01.20 – 30.08.20

My Body Holds Its Shape
Tai Kwun Contemporary
Hong Kong
承受着自身的姿态
大馆当代美术馆
香港
25.05.20 – 27.09.20

Nadezhda Fomicheva: Something
Golden Staircase Gallery
Saint Petersburg
某事（ 无名 ）
艺术博物馆
圣彼得堡
08.12.20 – 02.02.21

Olafur Eliasson: Symbiotic Seeing
Kunsthaus Zürich
Zürich
奥拉维尔• 埃利亚松：相栖相看
苏黎世美术馆
苏黎世
17.01.20 – 22.03.20

OPPO Art Jakarta Virtual 2020
Panggung Raya bagi Seniman Lokal
Jakarta
2020 OPPO雅加达虚拟艺术节
雅加达艺术博览会
雅加达
19.10.20 – 15.12.20

Paul Housley: The Poets Elbow
Belmacz
London
保罗·豪斯利：诗人之肘
贝尔马茨画廊
伦敦
13.03.20 – 08.05.20

Peter Schuyff
White Cube Mason's Yard
London
彼得·舒夫个展
白立方伦敦梅森苑空间
伦敦
13.03.20 – 08.08.20

Puppies Puppies ( Jade Kuriki Olivo ): Plague
Halle für Kunst Lüneburg
Lüneburg
疫病
吕讷堡艺术厅
吕讷堡
07.09.19 – 27.10.19

Po Po: Primeval Codes
Yavuz Gallery
Singapore
Po Po: 原始代码
新加坡雅维兹画廊
新加坡
24.07.20 – 09.09.20

Private Lives Public Spaces
Museum of Modern Art
New York
公共空间里的私生活
纽约现代艺术博物馆
纽约
21.10.19 – 23.05.21

Qiu Xiaofei: An artist's case-study exhibition
New Century Art Foundation
Beijing
艺术家个案研究展：仇晓飞
新世纪当代艺术基金会
北京
12.09.20 – 09.01.21

Radikale Passivität: Politiken des Fleisches
Neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst ( nGbK )
Berlin
激进的被动性：肉体的政治
德国柏林新视觉艺术协会
柏林
12.09.20 – 01.11.20

RCA × FutureLab 2020: ‘Sentence Transition'
West Bund Art Center
Shanghai
RCA×FutureLab 2020相变
西岸艺术中心
上海
05.12.20 – 13.12.20

Responsive Space
Modern Art Oxford
Oxford
回响空间
牛津现代艺术博物馆
牛津
02.10.20 – 17.01.21

Salman Toor: How Will I Know
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York
萨尔曼·图尔：我怎么知道
惠特尼美国艺术博物馆
纽约
13.11.20 – 04.04.21

Samuel Laurence Cunnane
Kerlin Gallery
Dublin
塞缪尔·劳伦斯·坎南
线上阅览室，克林画廊
都柏林
05.09.20 – 10.10.20

Sara Cwynar: Marilyn
The Approach
London
萨拉·茨纳：玛丽莲
阿普洛奇画廊
伦敦
27.02.20 – 30.04.20

saucysez: when everything has gone to shit
Outpost
Norwich
索西·赛兹，当所有事情变得一团乱糟
前哨画廊
诺维奇
16.10.20 – 20.12.20

Shiva Ahmadi: Labyrinths
Elaine L. Jacob Gallery
Detroit, MI
希瓦·艾哈迈迪：迷宫
伊莱恩·雅各布画廊
底特律
16.01.20 – 20.03.20

Simonida Rajčević: Fake Pain
Kulturni Centar Beograda
Belgrade
西蒙尼达·拉杰维奇：假装疼痛
贝尔格莱德学生文化中心
贝尔格莱德
06.08.20 – 27.08.20

Sohrab Hura: Spill
Experimenter
Kolkata
索拉伯·胡拉：溢
实验者画廊
加尔各答
07.11.20 – 02.01.21

Suzan Frecon: Oil Paintings
David Zwirner
New York
苏珊·弗雷孔油画新作展
卓纳画廊
纽约
10.09.20 – 17.10.20

Sven Sachsalber: Curon
Cubo Garutti, Il Piccolo Museion
Bolzano
库伦
迷你美术馆-加鲁蒂立方体
博尔扎诺
02.03.20 – 19.04.20

Takis
Tate Modern
London
塔基斯
伦敦泰特现代美术馆
伦敦
03.07.19 – 27.10.19

Tawan Wattuya: Money
Bangkok Art Biennale, Bangkok Art and Culture Centre
Bangkok
钱
曼谷艺术文化中心
曼谷
29.10.20 – 31.01.21

Teresa Mulet: Camp de Control
Centre d'Art Lo Pati
Amposta, Tarragona
控制营
洛帕蒂艺术中心
安波斯塔
09.11.19 – 19.01.20

Terry Adkins: Resounding
Pulitzer Arts Foundation
St. Louis, MO
特里·阿德金斯：回响
普利策艺术基金会
圣路易斯
13.03.20 – 07.02.21

Theater of Operations: The Gulf Wars 1991 – 2011
MoMA PS1
New York
行动剧场：海湾战争1991 – 2011
纽约现代艺术博物馆 PS1分馆
纽约
03.11.19 – 01.03.20

The Botanical Mind: Art, Mysticism and The Cosmic Tree
Camden Art Centre
London
植物思维：艺术、神秘主义和宇宙之树
卡姆登艺术中心
伦敦
24.09.20 – 28.02.21

The Extended Mind
Talbot Rice Gallery
Edinburgh
头脑的延展
爱丁堡大学塔尔伯特· 莱斯美术馆
爱丁堡
02.11.19 – 01.02.20

The Eye of the Storm
Blitz
Valletta
风暴之眼
瓦莱塔布利茨画廊
瓦莱塔
03.06.20 – 31.12.20

The Rock
Corner of Montrose and Manhattan Avenues in Williamsburg, Brooklyn
New York
那块石头
蒙特罗斯大道和曼哈顿大道的转角处，威廉斯堡，布鲁克林
纽约
01.05.20 – 01.11.20

The ‘Selfie' as a Popular Form of Self-Portrait on Social Media
https://www.instagram.com/selfie/
Instagram, Facebook, WeChat, Weibo
“自拍”作为当代社交平台自画像的新趋势
脸书，微博，Instagram，微信
18.06.20 – 18.06.20

They Do Not Understand Each Other
Tai Kwun Contemporary
Hong Kong
言语不通
大馆当代美术馆
香港
25.05.20 – 13.09.20

Trevor Paglen: From ‘Apple' to ‘Anomaly'
The Curve, Barbican Centre
London
特雷弗·帕格兰：从“苹果”到“异常”
巴比肯艺术中心
伦敦
26.09.19 – 16.02.20

Uncanny Valley: Being Human in the Age of AI
de Young Museum
San Francisco
恐怖谷：人工智能时代的人类
笛洋美术馆
旧金山
22.02.20 – 27.06.21

Values of Design: China in the Making
V&A Gallery at Design Society, at the Sea World Culture and Arts Center
Shenzhen
设计的价值在中国
V&A展馆，设计互联 | 海上世界文化中心
深圳
18.01.20 – 31.12.20

Viral Self-Portraits ( online exhibition )
MG+MSUM
Ljubljana
马扎·霍多森斯克：疫病大流行期间的自画像
斯洛文尼亚卢布尔雅那现代艺术博物馆
卢布尔雅那
15.04.20 – 31.12.20

Virgil Abloh: Figures of Speech
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
Chicago
维吉尔·阿布洛：修辞手法
芝加哥当代艺术博物馆
芝加哥
10.06.19 – 29.09.19

Weavings: Painting and Tapestry in Greece from 1960 to the Present
Benaki Museum
Athens
编织：1960年至今的希腊绘画与挂毯
贝纳基博物馆
雅典
22.11.19 – 01.03.20

We Did It
Bibliotheca, Dover Street Market Ginza
Tokyo
是我们干的
书库，银座
东京
20.11.20 – 02.12.20

We=Link: Sideways
Chronus Art Center
Shanghai
We=Link：辺
新时线媒体艺术中心
上海
21.11.20 – 23.05.21

Where Is My Sky
Central Exhibition Hall of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan
Tashkent
何处是我的天空
乌兹别克斯坦艺术学院中央展览馆
塔什干
25.11.20 – 10.01.21

Where is There – There is Here
Vincom Center for Contemporary Art
Hanoi
彼处在何处-此处即彼处
维肯当代艺术中心
河内
19.09.20 – 18.10.20

Whitney Biennial 2019
Whitney Museum of American Art
New York
2019惠特尼双年展
惠特尼美国艺术博物馆
纽约
17.05.19 – 27.10.19

Workshop 20'20: Homo Communicans
Moscow Museum of Modern Art
Moscow
工作坊20‘20：人人皆媒体
莫斯科现代艺术博物馆
莫斯科
10.10.20 – 15.11.20

Yazan Khalili: Medusa
Museum of Contemporary Art
Toronto
美杜莎
多伦多当代艺术博物馆
多伦多
03.09.20 – 29.11.20

Zarina: A Life in Nine Lines
Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
New Delhi
扎里纳·哈什米：九线人生
基兰·纳达尔艺术博物馆
新德里
30.01.20 – 10.04.21

Zhang Huan: In the Ashes of History
The State Hermitage Museum
Saint Petersburg
张洹：灰烬中的历史
艾尔米塔什博物馆（ 冬宫博物馆 ）
圣彼得堡
09.09.20 – 12.11.20

Breathing Life into: Plants, Archives
and People in Responsive Space

Responsive Space
Modern Art Oxford, Oxford
02.10.20 – 17.01.21

Spirited, spires; respire, aspire, transpire. Loose threads link the disparate elements of Modern Art Oxford’s Responsive Space, an assortment of community arts projects located both within a single gallery, and available online. The miscellaneous collection is framed by rectilinear collages mounted on opposing walls; the viewer, it seems, is invited to draw the red tape between the two. What results is a highly contemporary reflection on natural and virtual worlds, and how 2020 has compelled many of us to reorient our position within them.

The first project, Activating our Archives, is composed of a wall of photographs that explore image-making and collective work in lockdown, in addition to a monitor displaying a Zoom recording of the group’s activity. By contrast, at the far end of the gallery, Breathworks gathers critical and creative approaches to breathing, charted in text boxes and accompanying images. These two projects bookend the gallery, establishing a bricolage space akin to a digital display, with various ‘windows’ open. In the space between, we encounter the work of asylum seekers and refugees in Oxford, as well as the overspill from an exhibition on Mariana Castillo Deball. There is a kind of cut-and-paste aesthetic, a sense of the accelerated integration of virtual spaces into our lives over the past year, which directs my understanding of the layout. These assorted elements are the multifaceted possibilities – and effects – of lockdown.

The images that make up Activating our Archives are rediscovered, reclaimed, or else responsive to unprecedented times. Amanda Denny, for instance, recovered discarded photographs from a ‘Covid Clearout Skip’, investing them with new life. The photographs document not only her daily lockdown walk, but also how such excursions fostered fleeting and significant interactions with those whose paths she crossed. Among the archives, family photographs feature prominently. For many, nostalgia has proved a perennial feature of 2020; one such instance is visible in Francesco Pennacchio’s Unlike Flowers, She Won’t Come Back with Spring. In this deeply personal history, Pennacchio places his mother’s photograph – newly excavated from a lifelong hiding place – alongside a Polaroid of daffodils. Side by side, the images are not dissimilar, the dappled light of the daffodils resembling the mother’s smile. Here, photographs are like pressed flowers, a thing preserved after the life is gone. As we put our lives on pause, perhaps, we were borne back into the past.

Etain O’Carroll also contributes a family portrait, a black and white snapshot depicting three young children and their parents gathered on a mattress, the uneven light blending the figures together. In this piece, O’Carroll considers whether photographs allow us to remember things as they are, to what extent any photo is candid or contrived. There’s a light experiment I have always been fascinated by, in which the light behaves differently when recorded. O’Carroll ponders on something similar, when she asks: How is a moment transformed by being immortalised? How does the moment change, if we already conceive of it in terms of how it will be remembered?

As many of us have revisited our photographic archives in isolation and spent increasing periods of time viewing ourselves through computer cameras, O’Carroll’s work asks pressing questions. How do we think of the present? What is the nature of an ‘event’? How do we perform for the camera? The work’s title, Thrown Together, might describe the exhibition as a whole. Contemporary life has become increasingly uncontrollable. Overseen by the Zoom room, Activating our Archives presents a kind of drag-and-drop spontaneity to the newly virtual community space.

Before moving to Breathworks, I lingered on Bharat Patel’s Bridge of Sighs by the River, which engages most directly with electronic culture. Patel Photoshops the skyway over Oxford’s New College Lane into new surroundings, which feature snow and a number of trees, as well as a body of water in which a cyclist is suspended. Oxford is famously a kind of dreamscape, an almost surreal overlap of old and new in the ‘city of dreaming spires’, which spawned Lewis Carroll’s wonderland. Patel’s distortion of such an iconic landmark speaks to a new unsettling of our relationship to both digital and material spaces. The outside world has become alien, perhaps, a landscape garnering a different attention on our one hour of daily exercise; we are learning to recognise ourselves in less tangible spaces.

Breathworks is an entirely different computer window. Displaying extracts and visuals related to religious practices, spiritual healing, medical science and pollution, this portion of Responsive Space meditates on the meaning of breath and air. It is utterly arbitrary that, in my encounter with the space, the Breathworks digital project provided the immediate follow-up to Patel’s augmented reality. That Patel’s ‘bridge’ bridged the gap only attests to the logic of overflow that governs the space; the sound of breathing plays rhythmically through speakers around the gallery, audible as the viewer ponders Patel’s ‘sighs’.

Inspire, aspire, conspire: to breathe life into, to pant with anticipation, to breathe together. Ideas of breath are built into the most fundamental and most imaginative forms of human life. Breath asks us to question the nature of humanity: as we inhale and exhale, we test the capacity of our bodies, the limits of the human. But in the gallery, space breathes, and communities breathe together, unsettling the perceived wholeness of the body. The Breathworks project predates the pandemic, but in the light of recent events, it has certainly taken on a new significance.

As one Breathworks extract has it, oxygen is ‘bacterial excrement’; in another, ‘marine microbes form the lungs of the earth’, and indeed ‘our worlds will only become liveable once we learn how to conspire with plants’. Where some corners of the Breathworks mind map insist on breath as our assertion of self-presence, an absolute certainty and centredness in our own bodies, here, breath is somehow post-human. Breath is the non-existence of self, the confirmation of our symbiosis with microbial life forms. In breathing we are reminded that our bodies offer a soup of microorganisms, not distinct from, but entangled with, the world. Breathworks bleeds over into the wider space, its extracts like units working for the whole; we are composed of smaller parts, and we make up a larger body.

From masks to airless rooms, suffocation in the murder of George Floyd, breathlessness has taken on particular resonance this year. More than ever, we are aware of breath as contagion, as biochemical warfare. But as the exhibition highlights, minority communities have long been cognisant of air quality as politically charged. As an extract from Jane Macnaughton’s text summarises, ‘Breathless people are among the most marginalised in Western societies and one reason for this is that breathlessness disproportionately affects the most disadvantaged communities.’ Women, people of colour and poor people are most vulnerable to respiratory afflictions, and breath has been understood in terms of colonial and patriarchal oppression, as well as environmental violence. In Breathworks, buzzwords, infographics and soundbites map out a stream of information, challenging us to do our research.

Like Activating our Archives, Breathworks also incorporates a screen. Here, a projection exhibits creative responses to breath. It is from this film that visceral sounds emanate – groans, pants, snores, words. On the screen, elemental forces meet with artificial technologies. Depictions of trees and of people blowing into plant life contrast with a head obscured by masks and headphones, and the flash of an iPhone camera. Electronic gasps and virtually rendered faces ask us how expansive our lung capacity might be – how far we might share breath with others, machinic or otherwise.

And then there’s the activity table. Bordered by sand in sedimentary layers, the table asks what pasts – and indeed what presents – we can unearth, and how the viewer participates in meaning-making. Those visiting Modern Art Oxford will navigate by the one-way system and come to Responsive Space via the Deball exhibition, thus newly equipped with Deball’s decolonising ideals. Following on from Deball, who emphasises the significance of museum curation in shaping public knowledge, Responsive Space embraces intersection, encounter and combination as ways of knowing. These collectives rethink ‘human’ and ‘life’, and what it means to record, distort or rethink these fundamentals of self.

Responsive Space captures both the digital expansions and existential challenges which have characterised the past year. Loss, atemporality, contingency and the polluting potential of the body are articulated via an aesthetic reminiscent of internet culture, and the hold of digital interfaces on our imagination. Viewers can ( quite literally ) only approach the work as the current health crisis permits, online or through the adjoining gallery, and here we engage with the unique consequences of an unprecedented year. Seeking out signs of life in unusual places, Responsive Space considers the diverse possibilities for community in 2020.