While she was a refugee attending school in Sweden, artist Hayv Kahraman saw the face of botanist and zoologist Carl Linnaeus—who taxonomized human “varieties” as he did plants and animals—on the 100-kronor bill: “I was taught that he was a genius,” says Kahraman. Her upcoming show at ICA SF in San Francisco interrogates Sweden’s history of eugenics and current anti-immigration stance alongside Linnaeus’s legacy. When it comes to categories, she asks, “By whom were they created and who do they benefit? And what if I refuse to be part of this system?”
Elsewhere, others are sifting the sands of time: At Monique Meloche Gallery in Chicago, Sanford Biggers will soon turn his transhistorical focus on quilts and marble sculptures, while Singapore’s National Gallery celebrates Liu Kuo-sung’s reinvigoration of classic brushwork. And, not pictured, a recent hit returns for its next act—the Hilton Als–curated Joan Didion: What She Means arrives at Miami’s Pérez Art Museum—while 50 years after Picasso’s death, Madrid’s Museo Nacional del Prado puts on Picasso, El Greco and Analytical Cubism, pairing the modernist with the old master. In fresh context, what’s old becomes eye-poppingly new.
ARMANDO SALAS PORTUGAL: TERRITORIOS
Museo Nacional de Arte, Mexico City
Over his nearly 60-year career, the Mexican photographer rendered expeditions to volcanoes, architectural angles, and remote countrysides in moody gray scales and pastels—14 photos of which appear in the show.
SANFORD BIGGERS
Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago
The Los Angeles–born, New York–based artist is best known for his textile works, but a 2017 residency in Rome turned him on to marble. In both mediums, an examination of economics and socio-politics remains.
HAYV KAHRAMAN
ICA SF, San Francisco
In surreal, large-scale works—what she calls her “army of fierce women”—the painter traces ties between botany and white European imperialism, on view in January.
YAYOI KUSAMA: YOU, ME AND THE BALLOONS
Factory International, Manchester
Kusama’s installation, created for this new flagship cultural space, includes giant dolls in tendrilled landscapes stamped with her signature polka dots.
LIU KUO-SUNG: EXPERIMENTATION AS METHOD
National Gallery, Singapore
More than 60 works and 150 items from the 91-year-old artist’s personal archive provide a glimpse into the mind of a pioneer in modernist Chinese ink painting.
WE BUY GOLD: SEVEN
Jack Shainman Gallery, Nicola Vassell Gallery, NYC
Joeonna Bellorado-Samuels’s roving anti-gentrification gallery project takes up residence at Shainman (where Bellorado-Samuels is a director) and Vassell, with contributions from Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Max Guy, and more.
