Mark Westall founder & editorial director of FAD Magazine picks five exhibitions to see as you jet around the world. Featuring Bregenz, Marseille, Sant Miquel de Balansat, Gstaad & London the places and exhibitions to see for the jet-set this Summer.
1. Anne Imhof, Wish You Were Gay
Bregenz is an Austrian city at the eastern end of Lake Constance (Bodensee). It is the capital of the state of Vorarlberg. Its a great place for Opera if that’s your thing but its also the home of Kunsthaus Bregenz which is an amazing building designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor who won the Mies van der Rohe Award for European Architecture in 1998 for the Kunsthaus. In 2009, he was honored with the Pritzker Prize. Anne Imhof is a FAD favourite and this exhibition is super cool spanning all four floors of KUB, it is simultaneously a personal survey and an all-new body of work that reflects on and further develops a number of core elements that have constituted Imhof’s repertoire of artistic expression. Featuring bas-reliefs, large-scale oil paintings, sculptures, stage elements and stadium lighting, as well as new video works made of archival footage from her origins as an artist coming of age in underground subcultures.
Anne Imhof, Wish You Were Gay, 8th June – 22nd September 2024, Kunsthaus Bregenz (KUB)
2. Ora-ïto, Grammatology Part II
This is part II of Ora ïto’s exhibition Grammatology and its at his own gallery which is on top of Unité d’Habitation a modernist residential housing typology developed by Le Corbusier, with the collaboration of painter-architect Nadir Afonso – if you haven’t been the building itself is worth a visit.
The exhibition is the first proper contemporary art exhibition by Ora Ïto who is one of Europe’s best and most sought after designers.
Ora-ïto, Grammatology Part II, 18th July to 24th August, Kolektiv Cité Radieuse gallery
3. Stefan Brüggemann and Bruce Nauman Painting Not Painting
This exhibition is in Gathering’s new Ibizan outpost and features two artists Stefan Brüggemann and Bruce Nauman who both are interested in the interplay between text and image and meaning.
Stefan Brüggemann and Bruce Nauman, Painting Not Painting, 28th June – 1st September, Gathering Sant Miquel de Balansat
4. Roe Ethridge, Happy Birthday Louise Parker II
Happy Birthday Louise Parker II follows Ethridge’s recent exhibition Happy Birthday Louise Parker at 10 Corso Como, Milan, and is named for a model with whom he collaborated on several fashion editorials beginning in 2010. Plotting a zone between commercial, editorial, and studio photography, Ethridge explores the potential of the image in ways that transcend the categorical restrictions of conventional artistic production.
ROE ETHRIDGE, Happy Birthday Louise Parker II, 11th July–8th September, 2024 Gagosian, Gstaad
5. Mitch Vowles Miami Trip 3
One of the most interesting things to happen in London during & since lockdown has been the growth of super new young galleries and at the centre of this growth has been art historian, curator and writer Hector Campbell. Now with his own gallery SOUP he has a programme really worth a visit and if you can the current show from artist Mitch Vowles is really worth popping into but be quick as its closing on the 20th of this month.
MITCH VOWLES, Miami Trip 3, 13th June – 20th July, 2024 Soup
6. Al Held: About Space
The final gallery in our list and the complete opposite of Soup in terms of scale and age we have White Cube particularly its Bermondsey space which is very big giving it the ability to show very big and interesting work. They are currently showing Al Held and About Space a major survey of the trailblazing work of this late-American abstract painter. The exhibition includes key works being shown publicly for the first time, including colossal canvases measuring over 4m x 9m, and marks the first European presentation of paintings from late in the artist’s career. With roots in Abstract Expressionism and an abiding passion for the Italian Renaissance, Held explored space through a combination of hard-edged geometry, perspective, and spontaneous gestural expression.
Al Held: About Space, 27th June – 1st September 2024, White Cube Bermondsey
