MY BEST OF 2016

MY BEST OF 2016

Art in London, Boston, and Berlin

I know, I know. The time to make this list was a full month ago, when the whole world was in a tizzy trying to encapsulate the previous 12 months and Best Of Lists took up every corner of the internet. The absolute deadline for these things was like January 3rd, probably. It’s 2017 now, and we’re ready to leave 2016 behind us, ready to venture into the brave new year with bright eyes and full hearts. 

But here I am, tardy. I’ve been tardy all January, to be honest. I only just managed to write a 2017 To Do list last week, and I’ve been so busy travelling here and there that it’s been hard to find very many moments of reflection. And so here I am, late to the party. 

To be upfront, I also feel a little wary calling this a ‘best of’ list. Maybe highlights would be a better word? I say this because I’m currently living in the great woods of New England and thus separated from the all notes I took in 2016. Yes, I did accidentally leave them behind. No, I don’t want to talk about it. With that in mind, I suppose the best we can say is that these are the museum exhibitions that I found ‘most memorable’ from 2016. 

No particular order, of course. That’d just be asking too much. 

1. Ragnar Kjartansson, 14 July 2016 - 4 September 2016, The Barbican Art Gallery
   

Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors

This was an exhibition I was eager to see from the second I heard that it found out it was coming at the start of 2016. I was in the back of my mind all year, and I impatiently waited, telling everyone who would listen how excited I was. I had seen his work once before at the ICA in Boston (and written about it on the blog here), and I still count it as once of my favourite ever art experiences. The thrill I felt at prospect of getting to see the whole of the Barbican Gallery filled with his beautiful art was just too much for me to contain. 

My very high expectations were met, of course. This exhibition had a little bit of everything. It of course had The Visitors, the piece I had fallen in love with at the ICA, and  the other piece of his I was familiar with, A Whole Lot of Sorrow. But it also had so much more, and it really gave me a perspective on his output that I hadn’t had before. I mean the first room was full of troubadours consistently singing ‘take me here by the dishwasher.’ What else could you want?

2. Abstract Expressionism, 24 September 2016 — 2 January 2017,  the Royal Academy

Pollock, Mural (1943) displayed with Smith's Tanktotem III 
(1953) at the Royal Academy

I’ve wrote about this exhibition in detail in a recent post, so I’ll keep it brief. In short, it made my list because of the stunning curation and the breathtaking selection of works. I’m still buzzing about Joan Mitchell painting in the last room. 

3. Conceptual Art in Britain, 12 April – 29 August 2016, Tate Britain 

Installation view, Conceptual Art in Britain 

Again, the art in this exhibition was so good! I’m sure it helped that I was in the middle of studying a lot of the artists in the exhibition as part of my MLitt, but I was thrilled to get the chance to see all of this work in person. I’m sure that I should probably write a bit more about the curatorial strategy and all that, but I just remember standing in front of pieces by Art & Language and feeling overjoyed. Keith Arnatt’s Invisible Hole Revealed by the Shadow of the Artist! Richard Long’s Turf Circle! Roelof Louw’s Pyramid of Oranges! The day I get sick of Louw’s oranges is the day the die. 

4. Leap Before You Look: Black Mountain College, 1933-1957, 10 October 2015 – 24 January 2016, ICA Boston

Anni Albers and Alexander Reed, Neck Piece, c. 1940.

This exhibition earned its place on this list for the attention that it gave to some of the lesser known figures of the Black Mountain College. The greats— Rauschenberg, John Cage, De Kooning— were all displayed to perfection, but right along side of them, in the limelight, the curators placed the artists who can often be forgotten and overlooked. As is the nature of Art History, these forgotten artists tend to be the women— Susan Weil and Anni Albers to name a few. It’s so refreshing to see them returned to their rightful places and to see them absolutely shine. 

I also need to note that this exhibition did an outstanding job incorporating unconventional materials. It managed to bring in dance, poetry, jewellery, furniture, and music along side painting and make it seem effortless. It was all there in the details. And even with this focus on the little details, the exhibition manages balances out minutia with a wide-lensed perspective, finding the room to subtly place the activities of the college into a global framework. It was a remarkable exhibition, and one that I won’t forget for a long time. 

5. “Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place, 1958–2010,” 5 May to 18 September 2016, Hamburger Bahnhof. 

Installation view 'Carl Andre: Sculpture as Place.'

This exhibition opened while I was visiting Berlin with my MLitt course, and it was always going to hold a special place in my heart for that reason alone. We all got to go to the opening night together and experience as a group, and there’s just nothing better than that. This exhibition probably also makes the list because of the exhibition space alone. It was the first time I had been to the Rieckhallen at the Hamburger Bahnhof and it’s truly something you have see to understand. The space began as storage and freight warehouses, and it’s truly enormous. Trekking down the long, straight corridors, going into room after room, the exhibition became a physical experience. 

That isn’t to say the art itself isn’t work mentioning as well, because it was remarkable in and of itself. The Hamburger Bahnhof managed to gather a truly impressive array of Andre’s work, and included art not often exhibited or considered— 150 poems, a selection of photographs, and his Dada Forgeries assemblages.

6. Julian Rosefeldt: Manifesto, 10 February - 6 November 2016, Hamburger Bahnhof

Stills, 'Manifesto.'

Yes, another one for the Hamburger Bahnhof from the same trip. It was a very good day in my life for art, what can I say! 

Before I walked into this exhibition, I remember having a conversation with a friend about the distinction between video art and film. Neither of us were really able to come to a satisfactory conclusion but the second we walked into this exhibition, we knew. It was one of the most immersive art experiences I can remember having. The piece involves multitude of screens, and on each, we see the actress Cate Blanchett embodying a different persona and reading from a different manifesto. The personas range from teacher to news presenter to a stock broker and the manifestos cover Dada, Futurism and Conceptualism. The screens were timed to a tee, and I had trouble tearing myself away when it was time to meet up with the rest of my course. 

7. Otherworlds: Visions of our Solar System, 22 January - 15 May 2016, Natural History Museum

Lastly, something a little different! Michael Benson, the photographer who's work was on show at the exhibition, was hugely important to the initial idea I had for my thesis, so this was another exhibition I was really excited to see. I went with a friend who studies astronomy, and that made it all the more special too. 

Still, even without the hype, his images aren’t something that you forget in a hurry, and seeing them in the flesh, thoughtfully curated, was breathtaking. It truly gave you a new appreciation for the beauty of the universe and made you wonder what it would be like to see those distant lands for yourself. The interview the Natural History Museum had with him at the end of the exhibition was delightful as well. You can trust that I well and truly swooned when he quoted T.S. Eliot. 

***

That’s it from me! Without my notes to look at, I’m more than certain that I missed something major (feel free to yell at me in the comment or on twitter). Even so, looking back, 2016 was a pretty great year for art.