Art (Re)Opened: 15 Art Exhibitions To Visit This Winter

Dare we say it? Exhibition schedules around the globe are almost back to normal. Although certain restrictions and hygiene measures remain in place, art lovers in most parts of the world can ring out 2021 with a wealth of events, exhibitions and museum (re)openings. Here are our top picks. Simply mask up, keep your distance, and enjoy!

M+, Hong Kong’s long-awaited museum of visual culture, finally opened in November. The collection encompasses visual art, film, design and architecture, with a special focus on the artistic culture of Hong Kong. Opening exhibitions include ‘M+ Sigg Collection: From Revolution to Globalisation’ (surveying contemporary Chinese art from the 1970s to the 2000s), ‘Things, Spaces, Interactions’ (a summary of 70 years of architecture and design), and ‘Here and Beyond’ (on the development of the city‘s visual culture since the 1960s). If you can’t currently make it to Hong Kong, you can also explore more than 6,000+ objects from the collection online.

 

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UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing is currently hosting China’s first solo exhibition of the works of Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan. If all you know about the contemporary multimedia prankster is his penchant for duct-taping bananas to walls, this collection of almost 30 works will certainly offer an educational yet entertaining experience.

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Taipei is housed in a red brick building that was once constructed as a primary school and later turned into a city hall office building. After being declared a historic site, it became home to MOCA Taipei, inaugurated in 2001. Now the museum is celebrating its 20^th anniversary with two special exhibitions: ‘The Weight of Multiple Universes’ is “a participatory exhibition presenting different views of the universe”, and ‘Traveling backwards – to the stories we left behind’ explores “the evolution of time and society”.

[Jeffrey Smart, Wallaroo, 1951, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, purchased 1959, © The Estate of Jeffrey Smart]

Locked-down Australia has had a lot of time for navel-gazing. Now that the country is slowly reopening, museums and all, there are plenty of new exhibitions to choose from. Those who want to continue looking inward will find a retrospective of works by Australian artist Jeffrey Smart at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) in Canberra. Timed to coincide with the centenary of the artist’s birth, the paintings on show demonstrate strong ties with his native Australia, as well as his chosen home Italy.

Elsewhere in Australia – Tasmania, to be exact – MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) Hobart is re-opening with two new exhibitions by international artists. French artist Jean-Luc Moulène has created four new artworks from Australian materials, while English sculptor James Capper has made “sculptures that walk across landscapes” and filmed them in action in Australian mining town Broken Hill. In January, the museum’s annual summer festival, FOMA (Festival Of Music and Art), also makes a return.

South African artist Tracey Rose has made a career of subverting Western cultural practices, questioning the classical art canon and tackling the challenges facing post-colonial societies. Throughout her career, she has done this through a variety of media, including film, sculpture, photography, performance, print and painting. The body and performativity are often central to her works, including in ‘Shooting Down Babylon (The Art of War)’, which gives the upcoming retrospective at Zeitz MOCAA its title.

Three years after the opening of Jameel Arts Centre made a splash in Dubai, Saudi Arabian art organisation Art Jameel is launching another new space, this time closer to home in Jeddah. Hayy Jameel, “a dynamic, creative, community hub”, houses an art museum, educational spaces, an audio-visual centre, a multi-purpose community space and offers room for a variety of “residents”, ranging from an art gallery and design studio to a comedy club and bakery.

 

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Fundación Jumex Arte Contemporáneo started as a collection of contemporary Mexican art, funded by the fortune of a fruit juice company. Museo Jumex, which displays the foundation’s collection in Mexico City, is currently showing two exhibitions concerned with temperature. ‘Sofía Táboas: Thermal Range’ displays sculptures and paintings by the Mexican artist that examine “the temperature of colour” in natural and man-made spaces. The same artist also curated ‘Ambient Temperature’, 35 works from the collection that explore the same topics.

Social distancing may not quite be a thing of the past, but the return of Art Basel Miami Beach certainly means that rubbing shoulders with everyone who is anyone in the art world has once again become possible. The fair already opened on 30 November with a VIP day and closes on 4 December. Visitors will get a chance to visit booths by more than 250 galleries, but those who can’t travel can also catch a peek through the digital programme.

Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen, which opened to the public in November, is a world first. Located next to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam’s Museumpark, it allows visitors to see almost all of its collection at any time, regardless of whether objects are currently on display as part of an exhibition or not. The depot houses more than 151,000 objects in storage compartments, as well as the various administration and preservation departments tasked with managing the collection (whose work can also be observed by visitors).

There’s nothing quite like an extremely niche exhibition topic to open up new perspectives on old works and allow a different view of history. ‘Miss Clara and the Celebrity Beast in Art’ at the Barber Institute of Fine Arts in Birmingham, explores such a topic. It takes its name from A Rhinoceros, Called Miss Clara, a bronze sculpture of a real-life rhino famous throughout Europe thanks to an extended tour of the continent in the 16th century. The sculpture is presented in this historical context, accompanied by other depictions of the celebrity beast as well as artwork depicting a range of pachyderms.

[Still from Prelude, 2021, © Kehinde Wiley. Courtesy of Stephen Friedman Gallery, London, and Galerie Templon, Paris]

Kehinde Wiley is best known for his monumental portraits of Black Americans, painted in the style of the Old Masters and citing the tropes accompanying classical depictions of powerful people in art. Now the National Gallery in London will be showing new works inspired by another Western tradition: landscape painting. ‘The Prelude’ shows European romantic landscapes inspired by the likes of William Turner, Caspar David Friedrich and Horace Vernet, populated by people of colour.

Playing house, art-aficionado-style. If that sounds like something you might enjoy, then check out ‘Masterpieces in Miniature: The 2021 Model Art Gallery’. London’s Pallant House has shrunk more than 80 original works of art and put them on display in three model art galleries. Artists featured include Augustus John, Vanessa Bell, Paul Nash, Sir Peter Blake, Damien Hirst, Tacita Dean and Lubaina Himid. Here, their work is just as great, even if it’s a lot smaller.

Never have we needed art as an escape from reality more than after the year that was. ‘LUX: New Wave of Contemporary Art’, which opened at 180 The Strand in London this October, provides just that. Korean curators SUUM have put together computer-generated installations, resulting in a series of immersive video exhibits. The 12 featured artists include Es Devlin, Hito Steyerl and Julian Knxx, among them new commissions and even a UK premiere.

Visitor numbers in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall are strictly limited these days, and entry is with a timed ticket only. However, thanks to conceptual artist Anicka Yi’s current installation, the soaring hall is filled with life – but not as we know it. The Korean-born, New York-based artist has populated the space with machines she calls aerobes, based on ocean life forms and mushrooms, floating mid-air.