15 of 2018’s must-see exhibitions
The blockbuster art displays and hotly anticipated shows around the globe you won’t want to miss. By GEORGIA SIMMONDS
Azzedine Alaïa: The Couturier
Before his death in November 2017, the legendary master of couture had been collaborating with the London Design Museum’s guest curator Mark Wilson to handpick works from his archive for a unique exhibition, which will go ahead this spring. More than 60 of Alaïa’s couture pieces will be displayed, showcasing his commitment to the figure-sculpting craft of cutting and tailoring. In Naomi Campbell’s words: “He captured the essence of femininity.” May 10–Oct 7; designmuseum.org
Zoe Leonard: Survey
New Yorker Zoe Leonard is celebrated in a new show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in her hometown. Known for her ’90s installation Strange Fruit (for David), which was made in response to personal loss during the AIDS epidemic (featuring saved fruit skins hand-sewn back together with wire and string), Leonard has been exhibiting her politically charged photography and sculpture since the late ’80s. This major exhibition highlights the key themes of her work: gender, migration, urban landscape, loss and mourning. March 2–June 10; whitney.org
Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination
This spring, the Met’s sprawling, comprehensive ode to fashion’s relationship with Catholicism is staged across three locations in Manhattan. Papal robes and accessories from the Sistine Chapel sacristy (many of which have never been seen outside The Vatican) take over the Anna Wintour Costume Center, while The Met’s Cloisters and the Medieval and Byzantine galleries will host modern creations, including those of Cristóbal Balenciaga, Donatella Versace, Coco Chanel and John Galliano. It’s bound to be magnificent. May 10–October 8; metmuseum.org
Georgia O’Keeffe: Visions of Hawaii
In 1939, aged 51, American modernist Georgia O’Keeffe spent three months in the Hawaiian Islands. The work she made there is characteristically sensual and vibrant, a celebration of the Islands’ rugged landscapes and exotic plants. More than 15 of O’Keeffe’s paintings, which haven’t been seen together in New York since their debut in 1940, will be displayed in the New York Botanical Garden from May, along with a lush flower show evoking the Hawaiian flora that inspired O’Keeffe. May 19–October 28; nybg.org
Margiela / Galliera, 1989-2009
From March, maverick fashion designer Martin Margiela is the subject of a retrospective in Paris. The enigmatic Belgian – famous for his use of trompe l’oeil and iconic cloven Tabi boots – disrupted the fashion system with his conceptual approach to garment making, challenging conventions of scale, proportion, luxury and garment ‘finish’. The exhibition charts Margiela’s career up to 2009, when he relinquished control of his Maison (now helmed by John Galliano). It’s a rare opportunity to explore the creativity of a designer known for staunchly maintaining his anonymity. March 3–July 15; palaisgalliera.paris.fr
Virginia Woolf: An Exhibition Inspired By Her Writings
Legendary literary titan Virginia Woolf is the focus of a new exhibition inspired by her writings at the Tate St Ives in Cornwall, a location where the modernist spent much of her childhood and one that still boasts the iconic views that inspired To The Lighthouse. The show brings together the work of more than 80 modern and contemporary artists including Vanessa Bell, Sandra Blow and Dora Carrington, to explore feminist perspectives on landscape, domesticity and identity through the filter of Woolf’s writing. February 10–April 29; tate.org.uk. The exhibition then tours to Pallant House, Chichester, May 26–September 16, and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, October 2–December 9
Sally Mann: A Thousand Crossings
Some 115 photographs epitomizing Sally Mann’s hauntingly beautiful aesthetic are exhibited at the National Gallery of Art in Washington in spring. Organized into five sections – family, landscape, battlefields, legacy and mortality – the works reveal the continuing influence of the American South on Mann and provides an overview of the themes that have fascinated her throughout her career. March 4–May 28; nga.gov
Lee Miller And Surrealism in Britain
Innovative photographic experimentations established Lee Miller as a key creative in the Surrealist movement. Having apprenticed with Man Ray, Miller’s work captured the extraordinary: blurring distinctions between art and photography and lending an exciting dimension to her projects for the fashion industry. At the Hepworth Wakefield in Yorkshire, this unique sensibility is explored in an exhibition of Miller’s work and that of other UK-based creatives in the surrealist orbit during the ’30s and ’40s. June 22–October 7; hepworthwakefield.org
Michael Jackson: On The Wall
Michael Jackson is one of the most recognizable and depicted cultural icons ever. Andy Warhol’s seminal use of the singer’s image in the ’80s opened the floodgates and a whole host of contemporary art-world heavyweights, like Maggi Hambling and Grayson Perry, followed. London’s National Portrait Gallery celebrates Jackson’s legacy in a new showcase bringing together works by over 40 artists who have been influenced by the King of Pop. June 28–October 21; npg.org.uk
The EY Exhibition: Picasso 1932 - Love, Fame, Tragedy
A new Tate Modern exhibition zooms in on the pivotal work Pablo Picasso created in 1932, a period now aptly referred to as his “year of wonders”. The London show offers a month-by-month insight into the artist’s extraordinary imagination at a time when he was at the height of his powers. March 8–September 9; tate.org.uk
Joan Jonas
Pioneer of performance and video art Joan Jonas is the subject of a landmark exhibition at London’s Tate Modern: it’s the first time a single artist has been celebrated in a show that straddles the Tate’s galleries, film screening cinema and installation space. The American will also perform with other creatives as part of the museum’s Ten Days Six Nights show (16–25 March). For an artist known for her boundary-pushing mixed-media experimentations, it’s a fitting tribute. March 14–August 5; tate.org.uk
Tacita Dean: Landscape, Portrait and Still Life
How is design shaping the world of tomorrow? A new exhibition at London’s V&A aims to answer this question via 100 key objects that illuminate what our near future could look like. Thought-provoking hypotheses are drawn with the help of everything from smart appliances to satellites, and our relationship with artificial intelligence and internet culture is put under the microscope. May 12–November 4; vam.ac.uk
The Future Starts Here
This spring, Berlin-based British visual artist Tacita Dean has three distinct exhibitions opening at three different London galleries, an unprecedented feat: Landscape at the Royal Academy of Arts, Portrait at the National Portrait Gallery, and Still Life at the National Gallery. Dean’s work has little in common with the other headline-making Young British Artists she first came to prominence with – it has a mesmerizing beauty and poetry all of its own, something this triumvirate of shows promises to do justice to. From March 15; royalacademy.org.uk; npg.org.uk; nationalgallery.org
Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up
Frida Kahlo’s wardrobe speaks loudly about her cultural heritage, femininity and the pleasure she took in color, texture and pattern. When the V&A opens its Frida-focused exhibition in June, it will be the first time some of her clothes and personal artifacts (including jewelry, photographs, makeup, prosthetic limbs and orthopedic devices) have left Mexico. The items are borrowed from a trove of treasures that were uncovered at the Blue House in Mexico City in 2004, a home Kahlo shared with her husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera. June 16–November 4; vam.ac.uk
Anni Albers
Banned from studying painting at Dresden’s Academy of Fine Arts, German-born Anni Albers subsequently joined the Bauhaus art school, where she studied from 1922. She soon began exploring textiles, using an interdisciplinary approach towards the technical and functional limits of hand-weaving. Her experiments proved trailblazing, provoking a reconsideration of the worthiness of fabric craft, and cementing her status as one of the key shapers of the modernist aesthetic. London’s Tate Modern pays tribute to her this fall. October 12, 2018–January 13, 2019; tate.org.uk
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