Art around the world
Written By Divya Venkataraman
From a type artist's retrospective in São Paolo, to climate-conscious creations on a South Korean island, these art exhibitions are lighting up their corners of the world this season.
Hong Kong
Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman: Masquerades.
December 14, 2024 – May 5, 2025. M+, Hong Kong
Yasumasa Morimura and Cindy Sherman might not be usual bedfellows in art history lectures, but that’s exactly what makes this Hong Kong-based exhibition so compelling. It draws the two photographers together based on their experimentations with masquerade, and the way they portrayed the women around them, and captured their own selves on camera. Vanity or self-exploration? That’s the eternal question.
Paris
Tituba, Who Protects Us?
October 17, 2024 – January 5, 2025. Palais de Tokyo, Paris
Hovering somewhere between historical record and supernatural fiction, this show at Paris’ Palais de Tokyo takes inspiration from the novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, by Maryse Condé. Within the walls of the cultural powerhouse, African and Caribbean artists gather to present haunting, powerful works that speak to the heavy legacy of resistance. Below its high ceilings, deeply reflective, multimedia pieces invoke memory, mysticism, and the weight of history.
São Paulo
Mira Schendel - waiting for the letters to form.
October 25th — February 2nd, 2025. Instituto Tomie Ohtake, São Paulo
Given that she’s of the most eminent creatives of her generation in Brazil, there’s no doubt that Mira Schendel’s ticket for a retrospective has been up for some time. Now, that’s exactly what Instituto Tomie Ohtake has brought its audience, gathering a collection of over 250 of her works, from paintings, to monotypes, drawings, notebooks, and graphic objects, to celebrate the way Schendel worked and created. The type artist who was born in Switzerland of partly Jewish heritage and later fled to Brazil from Europe was able to create art and facilitate richer meanings through words and text unlike quite anyone else.
Jeju
Jeju Biennale 2024.
December 2024 – February 2025. Jeju
On the small South Korean island of Jeju — known amongst tourists for its volcanic geology and its matriarchal family structures more than its art — a Biennale is currently underway. Here, 87 artists around the world have been called to respond to the theme of ‘drift’. Naturally, on an island, the temptation is to link the idea with the lapping waves on the cliffs, but others have also taken figurative and political interpretations on the theme. There are recycled plastic chandeliers; mixed media installations on the April 3 massacre, ‘greatest tragedy in Jeju history’, and digital meditations on Ukraine and seeking asylum in war.
