Editor’s Pick – Top International Shows:  October 4  – October 10, 2010

1. Brian Ulrich
Galerie f 5,6
Munich
11 September – 6 November 2010
http://www.f56.net

Brian Ulrich continues his exploration of consumer culture in the US with a series of photographs of derelict shopping malls. The project was triggered by George W. Bush’s comment shortly after 9/11 that ‘the vitality of our economy depends upon the willingness of Americans to spend’. As Ulrich continued documenting malls and thrift stores where much of the lower social classes shop, the economy turned in on itself dramatically leading to closures of many malls in the Unites States. Check out more of his work on Saatchi Online.

2. Eva Maria Rødbro
Foam_Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam
Amsterdam
27 August – 3 November 2010
www.foam.nl

The subjects of Danish photographer Eva Marie Rødbro’s Lone Stars series are young Texans on the cusp of adulthood. With a snapshot style reminiscent of Larry Clark or Nan Goldin, Rødbro photographs these young adults hanging out with each other and killing time while searching for intimacy and identity. Rødbro is exhibiting 40 photographs and a video work mad on her travels through Texas.

3. Michael Wolf: Life in cities
m97 Gallery
Shanghai
18 September – 31 October 2010
www.m97gallery.com

Michael Wolf’s terrain is the urban landscape, whether it’s street views in Paris, the Tokyo subway during rush hour, or voyeurism amidst the architectural splendours of Chicago.  This exhibition presents Wolf’s latest projects documenting the city in its different guises across the globe. Raising issues to do with appropriation and privacy infringement, Wolf, as well as taking his own photographs, also borrows from Google’s online Street View database of images to create a series of works which walk a fine line between beauty and discomfort, humour and fear.

4. Bob Dylan: The Brazil Series
Statens Museum of Art
Copenhagen
1 September 10 – 31 January 11
http://www.smk.dk/

Dylan, one of the great observers of the world, presents 40 paintings depicting Brazilian scenes which, according to a recent interview, he felt were better expressed through painting rather than song-writing. Dylan has painted since the 1960s, mainly with watercolour, but it’s only in the last few years that he has begun to exhibit his work in various exhibitions around the world – but not the US where critics have been less than positive about his talents as a visual artist.

5. Latifa Echakhch
MACBA
Barcelona
6 July 2010 – 6 February 2011
www.macba.cat

‘I like to work with what is often called “cultural heritage”, but the materials that I use are banal and clichéd, like sugar blocks, doors, couscous, rugs, official documents.’ For her exhibition at MACBA Moroccan artist Latifa Echakhch presents three new installations, two of which refer specifically to the flow of people from North Africa to Europe, fleeing poverty or war. The central piece, Fantasia (2010), consists of fourteen flagpoles distributed at different angles throughout the gallery space. The title makes reference to the ‘Moroccan fantasy’, a traditional Moroccan festival in which a group of men ride horses and shoot their weapons simultaneously so that all the shots make a single sound.

6. Antti Laitinen
A Foundation
Liverpool
17 September – 28 November 2010
www.afoundation.org.uk

“It is more important to struggle for your dreams than succeeding in them,” says the Finnish artist Antti Laitinen. This exhibition presents a decade of struggle and perseverance in performance works such as ‘It’s My Island trilogy’, ‘Bare Necessities’, and ‘Walk the Line’. Laitinen has also made a new work which involved building a boat from ancient bark transported by boat from Finland to England and then used to transport the artist on a voyage across the Mersey.

7. HUCKLEBERRY FINN
Wattis Institute
28 September  – 11 December 2010
www.wattis.org

Huckleberry Finn is the third show in a trilogy of Wattis Institute exhibitions that are based on canonical American novels. The trigger for this show is Mark Twain’s investigation of racial tensions in America through an international lens. Established and emerging contemporary artists from around the world have been invited to address this key theme of the book and the historical moment in which it was written. The show features a wide range of works, including painting, sculpture, film, video, drawing, and photography, by artists such as Ellen Gallagher, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Rodney Graham, David Hammons and Kara Walker.

8. CREAM
Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art
Helsinki
10 September – 5 December 10
www.kiasma.fi

Cream, an exhibition of work by Damien Hirst and his contemporaries mainly from private Finnish collections, presents the moment when British artists became rock stars. Featured in the show are some of
the most famous YBAs – Gary Hume, Sarah Lucas, Marc Quinn, Tracey Emin – plus other artists from the same period whose work is less characterised by controversy and sensation, such as Ian Davenport, Callum Innes, Chantal Joffe and Helen Chadwick.

9. Alec Soth
Walker Art Center
Minneapolis
12 September 2010 – 2 January 2011
http://www.walkerart.org/

The Walker presents the first U.S. survey of the work of Alec Soth, one of the most compelling voices in contemporary photography, whose offbeat images of everyday America form powerful narrative vignettes. Featuring more than 100 photographs made between 1994 and the present, the exhibition includes examples from Soth’s well-known series ‘Sleeping by the Mississippi’ and ‘Niagara’, a selection of rarely seen early black-and-white work, and a broad range of portraits. Also on view is the Minneapolis-based artist’s newest series, ‘Broken Manual’, exploring places of escape and individuals who seek to flee civilization for a life “off the grid.”

10. Donald Judd: A good chair is a good chair
Ikon Gallery
Birmingham
21 September – 14 November 2010
http://www.ikon-gallery.co.uk

This exhibition of Donald Judd’s furniture and related drawings offers a fantastic chance to see the work of one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century including early examples he constructed himself which are rarely shown outside of his adopted home of Marfa, Texas. The exhibition comprises chairs, beds, shelves, desks and tables made from solid wood, metal and ply, charting the refinement of Judd’s design and production processes.