The Bronx Museum is reportedly in talks with the organizers of next year’s Havana Biennial in Cuba to plan a possible exhibition during the event, which would make it the first major show by a US museum in the country.  The talks are also centered around a possible show of Cuban artists at the New York Museum. (more…)

Last July, the Tate Modern opened its doors for a special exhibition that went beyond the set norms and techniques of exhibition planning. Meschac Gaba’s Museum of Contemporary African Art was a special project expanding twenty years of work across two continents, accumulated and exhibited in the rooms of the London museum. Composed of twelve different spaces, the large-scale exhibition was an outcome of Gaba’s investigation of the arts in African countries while questioning the often problematic affair between African art and the decision makers of the art dynamic and markets of the West.

Continuing some of these thematics, Gaba is currently presenting his latest body of work at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery. As the title Exchange Market suggests, the content of the exhibition is distinguishably opinionated  regarding the global economic structures and the imbalance of labor against income for the vast majority of societies around the world. Hailing from Benin, Gaba has lived and worked in The Netherlands, and seizes on the issues surrounding the unfair distribution of wealth and the exploitation of the less privileged from a Non-Western point of view. This duality also ties to other oppositions such as First World versus Third World or Developed versus Underdeveloped, suggesting a breakdown of the separation between the powerful and the weak.

Downstairs at Bonakdar, Ten marketplace stands showcasing a wide range of symbolic objects  (hand tools, cotton balls, cacao beans, outdated or currently popular mobile phones) and banknotes from different countries attached onto umbrellas. Titled Bureau d’Exchange (Exchange Office), the ten-table installation presents devalued or still in use African currencies printed with multiple zeros, as well as certain Western banknotes with many fewer zeros. Reduced to sheets of paper hanging from the salvaged umbrellas, these banknotes make visually potent statements on the problematic connection between labor and income while discussing the disadvantaged political and economical structures around the globe, given no shade under these bare umbrellas.

Also on display on the first floor is a group of coin banks hung on the gallery walls. With their shapes inspired by famous bank logos or culturally potent figures, these banks do not serve for the common purpose of collecting money for charity or personal use; however they stand out as the silent emblems of a collectively desired utopian reality, ideally stemming from individual contributions.

The argument on collectiveness and global unity continues on the second floor where viewers are presented with four foosball tables, each made in Benin. Visually recalling the original Western pastime, the tables differ with their uncommon arrangements regarding the execution of the game. The soccer tables Gaba presents include players dressed in uniforms of different nations and players of markedly different races as opposed to generic and neutral players.

As components of a unitary operation, all connected to each other, players on these soccer tables stand out as the embodiments of current economical and social structures planned according to different goals and strategies. In one, for instance, a smiling, American flag-clad team is pitted against one bearing a uniform of pan-African identity.  The oppositions are striking.  From a more optimistic point of view, these players emphasize the artist’s statement on a utopian collective agenda that is solely accessible through a global awakening and realization.

Meschac Gaba: Exchange Market is on view at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery through June 7th, 2014.

— O.C. Yerebakan

Related Links:
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery [Exhibition Page]
Tate Modern [Exhibition Page]

One of two paintings exchanged by artist Jackson Pollock for the convertible he ultimately crashed and died in will be on sale at Christie’s later this year, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Pollock reportedly exchanged his work Number 5 (Elegant Lady) for art dealer Martha Jackson’s Green Oldsmobile, which he crashed two years later.  The work is valued between $15 million and $20 million.   (more…)

A noble attempt at transnational harmony between France and Germany at the Venice Biennale has hit a stumbling block, the Wall Street Journal reports.  Exchanging exhibition pavilions in honor of the 1963 Franco-German reconciliation treaty, the two parties have complained of issues with their respective spaces and environments.  The awkward nature of Germany’s Nazi-commissioned pavilion has made for some gaffes in presentation, while Germany has complained of insufficient storage for some of its works.  “I’m looking forward to the next edition of the Biennale,” said Giulia de Manincor, a staff member at the French pavilion. “Hopefully France will be France again, and Germany Germany.” (more…)

The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation is leading a push to bring the Marfa Dialogues, a series of discussions and art events combining the arts and sciences in the small Texas arts community, to New York City, with the help of Cooper Union, the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Columbia University.  The first edition of Marfa Dialogues/NY will focus on climate change and the environment.  “When a number of different organizations align on a topic, it elevates the visibility,” says director of the Rauschenberg Foundation Christy MacLear. (more…)

Lost in LA (Installation View) All photos by Art Observed unless otherwise noted

Los Angeles’ Municipal Art Gallery recently exhibited Lost in LA, a group show featuring artists of both American and French origin working in a collaborative dialogue. The immensely popular television show “LOST,” which throughout the last decade acted as both a source of inspiration and speculation for these artists, serves as the backdrop to the themes presented in the exhibition. (more…)