Christies' Highlights Special European Art Exhibitions & Installations
Installation view of George Condo: The Mad and the Lonely at the DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra. © George Condo, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Giorgos Sfakianakis
Italy
Rome’s Galleria Borghese may have been a public museum since 1902, but it’s never held a show dedicated to a female contemporary artist before now. Until 15 September, 20 sculptures by Louise Bourgeois will be on display throughout its rooms, gardens and aviary. Through the placement of each work, the aim is to create a dialogue with the museum’s own historic collection around themes of metamorphosis, memory and emotion, while also highlighting the inspiration Bourgeois drew from the collection after her first visit in 1967.
Installation view of Louise Bourgeois. Unconscious Memories at Galleria Borghese. © The Easton Foundation/Licensed by SIAE 2024 and VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY. Photo: A. Osio
In the Tuscan town of San Gimignano, Galleria Continua is showcasing the art of Ai Weiwei. The exhibition consists of works made from Lego, porcelain, marble and bamboo, as well as an installation comprised of 2,358 wooden stools. The show is called Neither Nor — a title that Ai says ‘is intended to convey that, in most cases, our thinking is not limited to absolute truths or single interpretations, but rather exists in a state of ambiguity that allows for greater possibilities and debate’.
Works on show in Ai Weiwei: Neither Nor at Galleria Continua in San Gimignano include Stools, 2013, which consists of 2,358 wooden stools, and The Last Supper, 2022, made of Lego. Courtesy: Ai Weiwei Studio and Galleria Continua. Photo: Ela Bialkowska / OKNO Studio
In the far south of Italy, the Museo Archeologico Nazionale Reggio Calabria is inviting visitors on certain dates throughout the summer to watch a team of conservation experts inspect its two masterpieces: the stunning Riace bronzes. Discovered protruding from the seabed by a snorkeller in 1972, these life-size statues of ancient Greek warriors are among just a handful of bronzes to have survived intact from the 5th century BC.
2. Greece
Touching down in Athens at the George Economou Collection, a modern art gallery owned by the eponymous Greek shipping magnate, is the country’s first exhibition of work by the American figurative painter Dana Schutz. Spread over three floors, The Island brings together 15 paintings and five charcoal drawings that range from the artist’s first mature works, made around the year 2000, to a composition finished only months ago. The result is a succinct survey of Schutz’s development, which even surprised the artist herself, who said, ‘I saw my paintings in a way I never did before.’ It is open until March 2025.
Dana Schutz (b. 1976), Sea Group, 2021. Oil on canvas. 94 x 94 in (238.8 x 238.8 cm). On show at the George Economou Collection. © Dana Schutz / Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, Thomas Dane Gallery and CFA Berlin. Photo: Maris Hutchinson
On the other side of the city, the National Museum of Contemporary Art is showing the final exhibits of its four-part cycle What If Women Ruled the World? There’s a solo exhibition of paintings by the Iranian American artist Tala Madani, until 10 November, and a monumental installation courtesy of the British sculptor Phyllida Barlow, on view until 27 October. The nearby Museum of Cycladic Art, meanwhile, which usually draws crowds for its ancient idols, is hosting photographer Cindy Sherman’s first solo show in Greece. Running until 4 November, it focuses on her early work, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, when she photographed herself in the guise of various female stereotypes, from housewife to femme fatale.
Installation view of George Condo: The Mad and the Lonely at the DESTE Foundation Project Space, Slaughterhouse, Hydra. © George Condo, courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Giorgos Sfakianakis
Turning to the islands, the outpost of Athens’s DESTE Foundation located in a former slaughterhouse on Hydra is showing George Condo: The Mad and the Lonely until 31 October. It focuses on a series of small-scale paintings, each depicting a sitter in several desperate emotional states at once — a style Condo has described as ‘psychological Cubism’.
3. Monaco
Perched on Monaco’s waterfront, the Grimaldi Forum — a cultural hub that opened in 2000 — is hosting Turner’s Sublime Legacy: In Dialogue with Contemporary Artists until 1 September. The show is produced in collaboration with Tate, which has more than 30,000 works by Turner. It includes around 30 works by artists who have been influenced by him, including John Akomfrah, Olafur Eliasson, Peter Doig, Richard Long, Cornelia Parker, Mark Rothko, Howard Hodgkin and Jessica Warboys. Every evening, except Thursdays, a private guided tour takes place between 8pm and 10pm. Places cost €1,800 per person.
At the Grimaldi Forum: Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), Three Seascapes, circa 1827. Oil on canvas. Tate. Photo: © Tate
Mark Rothko (1903-1970), Untitled, 1969. Acrylic paint on paper. Tate. © 2000 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / ADAGP, Paris, 2024
The Nouveau Musée National de Monaco at Villa Paloma is hosting a solo show of work by the Spanish painter Miquel Barceló, known for his huge installation on the ceiling of the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva. The show includes 60 works — paintings, ceramics and embroideries — that explore the artist’s obsession with the ocean, and is open until 13 October.
Installation view of Miquel Barceló, Oceanographer at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco — Villa Paloma. Photo: NMNM/Andrea Rossetti, 2024
Until 29 September, the museum’s Villa Sauber site has an exhibition dedicated to the Italian filmmaker and writer Pier Paolo Pasolini. Clips from his films Accattone, Teorema and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom are juxtaposed with work by artists who either inspired him or took inspiration from him, including Pontormo, Pieter Claesz, Giorgio Morandi, Fernand Léger, Francis Bacon, Marlene Dumas and Francesco Vezzoli.
4. France
Since its opening in 2013, LUMA Arles has commissioned and presented the work of more than 100 artists across multiple venues. This summer, its Archives Gallery is hosting an exhibition of work by the American photographer Lee Friedlander.
Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen comprises 70 photographic prints and one film selected by the director of Fargo and The Big Lebowski, originally for two exhibitions shown simultaneously at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco and Luhring Augustine in New York. Coen says that the works, spanning the 1960s to the present, highlight ‘Lee’s unusual approach to framing — his splitting, splintering, repeating, fracturing, and reassembling elements into new and impossible compositions’.
Installation view of Lee Friedlander Framed by Joel Coen. The Tower, Archives Gallery, Parc des Ateliers, LUMA Arles, France. © Victor&Simon — Joana Luz
Elsewhere in Arles, at Fondation Vincent Van Gogh, is Van Gogh and the Stars, on show until 25 August. The Musée d’Orsay has lent the artist’s masterpiece, Starry Night, painted in Arles in September 1888, for a homecoming exhibition that juxtaposes Van Gogh’s ‘cosmic poem’ with the work of artists influenced by it.
In Marseille, Mucem J4’s summer show, Naturist paradises (until 31 December), investigates why and how France has become the world’s primary tourist destination for naturists. Around 600 works explore the reasons for the phenomenon, such as the country’s temperate climate and the rise in holistic practices including yoga, veganism and meditation across France.
Also on show (until 23 September) is Shared passions: From Basquiat to Edith Piaf, The Lambert Collection at the Mucem. The show brings together artists as diverse as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Sol LeWitt, Marcel Broodthaers, Cy Twombly, Kiki Smith, Nan Goldin and Louise Lawler and places their work in dialogue with ethnographic art and objects from Provençal culture, such as ex-votos and 19th-century bird traps used by the people of the Camargue delta.
A 2024 work by France-Lise McGurn commissioned by the Fondation Carmignac for the exhibition The Infinite Woman. Photo: JUDDartINDEX
At its villa on the island of Porquerolles, on the French Riviera, the Fondation Carmignac brings together more than 80 works by 60 artists for its summer exhibition, The Infinite Woman (until 3 November). The show explores the many ways in which women have been depicted in art over the centuries — from loving mothers and beautiful goddesses to objects of desire — by placing historical figures such as Botticelli in dialogue with contemporary artists including Lisa Yuskavage and Judy Chicago.
An installation view of Claire Tabouret’s exhibition L’éloquence des larmes in the Renzo Piano Pavilion at Château La Coste, including ceramics from her collaboration with the Sèvres Ateliers. Photo: François Deladerriere. Courtesy of Château La Coste
Château La Coste in Provence — the 500-acre vineyard dotted with buildings by the likes of Tadao Ando and Frank Gehry, and artworks by Tracey Emin, Louise Bourgeois, Lee Ufan and more — is showing three temporary exhibitions. One is dedicated to the leading figure in Chinese geometric abstraction, Ding Yi (until 16 September). The second celebrates the paintings of Joel Mesler, including new works inspired by sunsets in Provence (until 8 September). The third is a solo show by the French painter Claire Tabouret, which includes some of the ceramic vases she has been making in collaboration with Sèvres (until 15 September).
5. Spain
Installed across the South Galleries of Hauser & Wirth’s spectacular Menorca outpost is a solo exhibition (until 27 October) by Roni Horn. It brings together a selection of key works from across the New York artist’s career that reflect her interest in identity, meaning and perception. Central to the exhibition is Untitled (“A witch is more lovely than thought in the mountain rain”), a large-scale installation comprising nine round sculptures made from solid cast glass, works that seem to interact with their surroundings under the changing natural light.
An installation view of Roni Horn at Hauser & Wirth Menorca. © Roni Horn. Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: Stefan Altenburger
Before sitting down for lunch, make sure to explore Chillida in Menorca (also until 27 October) at the same venue, organized in collaboration with the estate of Eduardo Chillida to mark the 100th anniversary of the artist’s birth. Featuring more than 60 works made between 1949 and 2000, it celebrates Chillida’s profound connection with the island through steel sculptures, wood reliefs and works on paper.
Joel Meyerowitz (b. 1938), Paris, France, 1967, on show at the Museo Picasso. Pigment print on fine art rug paper. Courtesy of the artist © Joel Meyerowitz
If you’re heading for Málaga and planning to visit the Museo Picasso, book tickets for its photography exhibition, Joel Meyerowitz: Europa 1966-1967. In 1966, aged 28, the American photographer embarked on a year-long, 20,000-mile road trip around Europe, taking 25,000 photographs along the way. He spent six months of that year in Málaga.
Shown alongside portraits of Spanish musicians and flamenco dancers are street scenes, urban landscapes and photographs taken from inside Meyerowitz’s moving car. The exhibition also features a selection of original images from his first solo show at MoMA in 1968.
6. Turkey
Over the summer months, Bodrum transforms into a thriving hub of contemporary art, welcoming some of the best-known galleries from Istanbul and beyond. Bodrum Loft, for instance, a boho-luxe resort overlooking picturesque Demirbükü Bay, is hosting an open-air pop-up exhibition organised in collaboration with Thaddaeus Ropac: Persona features 10 works by four contemporary artists — Tony Cragg, Sylvie Fleury, Tom Sachs and Erwin Wurm — which beautifully complement the Aegean landscape.
A view of the exhibition Dream of the Infinite Space at Amanruya resort in Bodrum. Photo: Kadir Aşnaz
Erwin Wurm (b. 1954), Straight Blue (Substitutes), 2024, at Bodrum Loft. Aluminium, acrylic paint. 190 x 22 x 60 cm
Just along the coast, Amanruya is staging Dream of the Infinite Space (until 15 October), a new project curated in partnership with Istanbul’s Galeri Bosfor. Walk around the hotel grounds and exhibition areas to encounter large-scale paintings, sculptures and ceramics by emerging and established Turkish artists, among them Mithat Şen, Erman Özbaşaran and Yasha Butler.
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