Dana Hoey’s latest video work, Pilgrim, Puritan, Whore, is a masterpiece, created in only a few weeks specifically for the “MATRYOSHKAS” exhibition at Analix Forever in Geneva, Switzerland from 12 March to April 26, 2021. This exhibit brings together two women whose work is about imprisonment: Rachel Labastie and Laure Tixier. Rachel Labastie’s work is about the imprisonment of women, while Laure Tixier’s is about the imprisonment of children and of bodies. The exhibition is accompanied by a video program including Janet Biggs, Dana Hoey, Randa Maddah, Joanna Malinowska, Rachel Labastie, Guendalina Salini and Laure Tixier.

By “Matryoshkas”, do we mean Russian dolls? Not only. “Matryoshkas” in this exhibition, refers to all the women we carry within us: the women of our past, our ancestors, their lives, their confinements, their jails, trapping us in turn into all that they have lived. We are locked inside their past. But paradoxically, all these “Matryoshkas” within us also represent opportunities, all of our possible identities, all we can become. These “Matryoshkas” thus are to be seen as an oxymoron between imprisonment and freedom to choose.

Dana Hoey in her videos Pilgrim, Puritan, Whore, immediately attributes a triple identity to the woman she portrays, who is none other than the artist herself. First, a woman in an Amish dress transports blocks of stone from meadow to snow. The Amish community is a Christian community of former European Anabaptists, founded in 1693, living henceforth mainly in Pennsylvania, and following a full-fledged lifestyle, refusing any modernity. Second, a young girl from the same community carries wood as instructed by a young man, then the roles are reversed. Third, the Amish woman gradually takes off her clothes, without undressing, until she appears in a T-shirt that reads “Hysterical Female“.

Video clip 1

Then we find her, sitting quietly in the corner of the fireplace, as she should, knitting a skein of new wool without needles. At dawn, amid the cries and songs of the animals saluting the sun, she is going to throw the ashes in the snow.

Video clip 2    

Pilgrim, Puritan, Whore is a video of great simplicity, whose images are of astonishing beauty. Nothing is explained, Dana Hoey is not in a didactic mode; everything is suggested. The Amish woman is a perfect representation of the confinements that we allow to be imposed upon us, of the chains handed from generation to generation, never thrown away. When the whore sheds her Amish clothes, there is a hint of a revolt against the status quo, even though the woman’s face remains unmoved. She then appears in a new uniform, that of “hysterical female” (an epithet full of contempt with which the good Doctor Freud and many others have globally rigged all the women tempted towards revolution against their dominated state – any kind of refusal of their confinements). But after making a physical attempt to break down the barriers, the woman finds herself again by the hearth, in her age-old place and position. The “hysterical female”, the whore, is tucked again into the puritan’s shell.

Meanwhile, a young Amish girl is carrying firewood, instructed by a young man. But then the roles are reversed: it is now the young man who carries the wood under the supervision of the girl. A sign of hope? The younger generations indeed have the opportunity to change the world, whether Amish or not. They are one of these possibilities that the Matryoshkas carry with them.

Finally, the woman comes out of the house, the ashes from the hearth in a bucket, like the remains of her life as a recluse, and throws them into the wind. With this magical gesture, like a witch’s gesture, the entire forest sings its greeting to the dawn sun. Women, even if socially locked up, keep within themselves the possibility to interact with a different world, an asocial one, or one with different social rules: the world of earth, nature, animals, cycles. But while dawn could have meant yet another possible sign of rebirth, the woman turns back to her house, bucket empty and head bowed.

The past is not over yet.

Pilgrim, Puritan, Whore, 2021, cell phone video, in camera sound, 9 minutes 53 secs, ed. unique with 2 APs.

After a softening of restrictions on spaces throughout Montreal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has been able to open its doors to the public once again. After a long autumn and winter without the presence of many physical arts spaces, the acclaimed museum’s reopening has been met with a warm welcome. And as one of their first exhibitions of 2021, Ecologies: A Song for Our Planet serves as a strong return to the community and a reminder of our role in our own natural communities.

Curated by Iris Amizlev, the MMFA’s Curator of Intercultural Arts, Ecologies highlights artists and works from the museum’s collection which have dug into the topics of our natural environment. Many of the works will be on rotation throughout the exhibition’s run, which will be on display until February 27th, 2022—giving more than enough reason to experience the thought-provoking collection multiple times throughout the coming year.

There is a wonderful balance immediately noticeable as one walks through the cycle of Ecologies, something that Amizlev states she wanted to foster with the layout of the exhibition. Despite the physical makeup of the room being an open concept with one central unit, there are distinct conceptual divisions that really shape the quadrants of the space. Displays that contain animal figures carved by Inuit artists—including  Osuitok Ipeelee and Peter Qumaluk Itukalla—give a sense of environmental bookends to the sections. It feels almost seasonal as the tour moves from harmonious nature, to industrial destruction, to hopeful up-cycling, to the dread of global warming.

Pieces such as Giuseppe Penone’s Path immediately draw the viewer into the soul of Ecologies, a rough and regal twisting of oxidized bronze, its wood-like limbs and detailed leaves giving way to the near-missable face amongst the limbs; serene yet strangely sorrowful, the intermingling of human and environment is striking.

The darkest sides of humanity’s intertwining with the world it resides in are just as hard to look away from. Robert Longo’s Joe Test reproduces in charcoal an image of the U.S.S.R.’s first atomic bomb test. The sheer capacity for human’s to irrevocably change our world for the worse is captured starkly, something feeling so ancient about the image despite it being less than a century ago. When viewed alongside the many depictions of our world for better and for worse, this representation of that which creates nothingness is all the more sobering,

Yet despite the weighty feelings and dark realities that are necessarily depicted across Ecologies, the exhibition is not at all without its lighter side. Laurie Walker’s Sisyphus, the Dung Beetle is already engrossing from a distance—a large sphere of rolled dung with a perfect split of it painted gold—but upon closer inspection, the miniature beetle and the Superman logo that adorns its shell are a perfect pairing. Walker’s brilliant mix of mythologies, pop culture and nature beams with humour and brightness and encapsulates much of the positivity that curator Iris Amizlev is expressing through this collection.

After the tour of the exhibition space, one piece remains of Ecologies that is situated in another wing of the building—the video installation Requiem for a Glacier. While there was only time to see a fragment of the forty-minute loop (and will be covered in full at a later date), it goes without saying that creator Paul Walde has captured the sheer immensity and ominous essence of a glacier threatened by global warming and industrial development, and serves as a gripping cap to the ideas behind the collection.

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has done a tremendous job with the presentation of Ecologies: A Song for Our Planet. Highlighting our world, those who live within it, and those who capture that relationship, it displays the positives and negatives of human capability in a graceful balance. It is a breath of fresh air when wanted and a cold shock of truth when needed, but above all else, it is a stunning collection as we look towards what a new year on this planet holds for us.

In this week’s Art World Roundup… The Humboldt Forum announces it “expects” to repatriate Benin Bronzes to Nigeria and days later, the University of Aberdeen made a similar announcement. The mother of a cultural producer who died in the Beirut explosions continues her daughters work in launching new online arts platform, the Ghent Altarpiece gets a snazzy new £26 million glass case, and the Serpentine Gallery removes Sackler name from one of its galleries in “rebranding process.”

Years in the making, Humboldt Forum begins talks to return Benin Bronzes

The Humboldt Forum in Berlin has announced that it will not display the Benin Bronzes that have long been held in the collection of Berlin’s Ethnological Museum. Moreover, on Monday, Hartmut Dorgerloh, general director of the Humboldt Forum, said he anticipates that the works will soon be returned to their home in Africa. “As far as we know today, the Benin bronzes were largely acquired illegally,” Dorgerloh said in a statement. “I share the conviction that there must and will be restitutions.” The announcement follows meetings between Germany’s director general of cultural affairs for the German Ministry of Affairs, Andreas Görgen, and the governor of the Nigerian state of Edo, Godwin Obaseki. But, the topic has been a point of contention for years and most recently, Bénédicte Savoy, co-author of a major report on restitution commissioned in 2018 by French President Emmanuel Macron, has been calling on Germany to restitute the Benin Bronzes. The final decision to return the bronze works, which were stolen by British troops in the late 1800s, is up to the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which manages Berlin’s public institutions, but Dorgerloh says the return of the works is “expected.”

Also in Benin Bronze news…

Just days after the news came out that the Humboldt Forum is seeking out means to repatriate their holdings of Benin Bronzes, Scotland’s University of Aberdeen followed suit. The school announced this week that it will return a Benin Bronze that it purchased in 1957. Neil Curtis, head of museum and special collections at the university said that the purchase was “extremely immoral.” Echoing those sentiments, George Boyne, principle and vice chancellor of the university, said in a statement, “It would not have been right to have retained an item of such great cultural importance that was acquired in such reprehensible circumstances. We therefore decided that an unconditional return is the most appropriate action we can take, and are grateful for the close collaboration with our partners in Nigeria.” The University of Aberdeen only holds one Benin Bronze, a sculpture depicting a ruler known as the Oba, in comparison to the hundreds of bronzes held in collections across Europe. However, the university will be the first such institution to do so and it will set a president that no matter how many stolen goods are held in collections, they should be returned. “The reaching out by the University of Aberdeen and eventual release of the priceless antiquity is a step in the right direction,” said Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Nigerian minister of information and culture, said in a statement. “Other holders of Nigerian antiquity ought to emulate this to bring fairness to the burning issue of repatriation.”

A mom in Beirut keeps daughter’s legacy alive with AD Leb

Gaïa Fodoulian, a 29-year-old cultural producer, was one of the many people who lost their lives in the Beirut explosions that occurred in August of last year. Now, her mother, Annie Vartivarian, is honouring Fodoulian’s legacy with a new online arts platform. Titled AD Leb, which stands for Art Design Lebanon, the platform was the brainchild of Fodoulian and she was working on the project before her death. AD Leb will offer virtual gallery space for artists from Lebanon and those from other places in the Middle East. Now, thanks to the work of Vartivarian, who also leads Laetitia Gallery in Beirut, AD Leb will launch on April 4^th alongside an in-person exhibition called “Everyone is the creator of one’s own faith,” a nod to the last Facebook post published by Fodoulian just hours before the explosions. The exhibition is one of the first large-scale exhibitions to be held in the Lebanese capital since its arts community was impacted by the disaster. To be held in the historic Tabbal building, the show will include works primarily by Lebanese artists alongside works by Middle Eastern artists. The launch of the gallery comes at a time when Lebanon is struggling through an economic crisis compounded by the pandemic. Many, including many artists, have left the country for other parts of Europe or the Middle East. Vartivarian, though, hope that AD Leb will help strengthen and rebuild the arts community of Beirut. “Gaïa would have wanted to help keep the creative scene of her country alive,” Vartivarian told Artnet News. “We continue to live in great hardship in Lebanon. The situation has gotten worse, but people still express themselves through art. They try and channel their fears, their trauma, and their hopes through creative means.”

The Ghent Altarpiece gets a brand new home

The Ghent Altarpiece is not only one of the most important artworks in the canon of art history, it’s also the most-stolen artwork. Consisting of 12 panels, various parts of the polyptych have been stolen on seven different occasions and one panel of the massive painting has never been recovered. So, it’s no surprise that after a major seven-year long restoration, the altarpiece’s new home is a £26 million bulletproof glass case. The newly-restored altarpiece, created by Hubert and Jan van Eyck in 1432, was unveiled this week in its new home situated in the Sacrament chapel of St Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, Belgium. The case will offer protection over the artwork in a number of ways but it’s also meant to improve visitor experience in viewing the incredibly detailed artwork. The case will provide climate control for the painting as the chapel can get as chilly as 2ºC during the winter months. Within the case, the altarpiece rests on a steel frame that has pneumatically controlled wings so that the altarpiece can be slowly opened and closed each day without opening the case. In case of emergencies, the chapel has been retrofitted with large security doors which required changes to the chapel’s walls. The altarpiece underwent extensive restoration that saw overpainting and varnishes removed, revealing the van Eyck brothers’ original painting – and the controversial face of the Lamb of God. “Both the magnificent restoration and the circumstances in which the Ghent Altarpiece can now be admired are astonishing,” said Jan Jambon, prime minister of Flanders, at the unveiling of the restored work in its new home. “The splendour of colours, the details, the lighting: everything is perfect. That makes us proud. We are pleased that the Flemish government was able to contribute to this and that we can show this masterpiece to our children and grandchildren and hopefully soon to many tourists.”

Sackler name removed from one more gallery

The Serpentine Galleries in London have further separated themselves from the Sackler Family, founders and former owners of Purdue Pharma, which created and marketed the highly addictive pain medication OxyContin. The London museum has removed the Sackler name from a gallery although the building that the gallery is in reportedly still holds the Sackler name. Formerly known as the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, the area of the museum is now known as the Serpentine North Gallery. The Serpentine Galleries announced in 2019 that they would no longer accept donations from the Sacklers. While this move could be an extension of the distancing process, a spokesperson for the museum said that the Serpentine is undertaking a “rebranding process” that has led to the removal of the Sackler name on the gallery. “We recently introduced new way-finding terminology to help visitors distinguish between the two galleries,” they continued. “These terms will appear on the website and on all marketing materials.”

Over the course of the pandemic, the internet has been our main resource for almost everything, including art. But, in our time at home, what artists have people around the world been searching for? This question was answered by the people of Ken Bromley Art Supplies, a family-run art business in Bolton, who took up the task of figuring out which artists we were seeking out. Their research not only shed light on the interests we share but also led to a series of maps depicting our continent-crossing similarities.

“I’m fascinated by what people Google and what it reveals about us as humans – what we Google is what we care about or are interested in,” Gareth Evans of Ken Bromley Art Supplies told Art Critique in an email. “This sparked the idea. With the majority of the world being in lockdown due to Covid-19, we thought it would be interesting to see which artists were most Googled as a way of measuring who has been the most popular whilst people have been stuck at home. Once we started working on it, we knew it was a really interesting idea.”

To figure out who the world was looking up, the Ken Bromley research team compiled a list of more than 600 artists that included well-known artists from every country, the “all-time greats,” as well as contemporary and emerging artists. After they formulated their list, they then began the arduous process of checking the frequency at which the artists were searched for using Google’s Keyword Planner.

Their research revealed that people from all over the globe had similar artist-related search histories with just over a dozen artists topping the charts in countries around the world. Leonardo da Vinci was the most Googled artist in 82 countries making him the most searched for artist, overall, during the pandemic. Taking the second and third top spots were Frida Kahlo and Vincent van Gogh, respectively, winning in 29 and 24 countries.

“We were quite surprised that only 13 different artists actually won. We think this shows the huge impact the all-time greats have had as they are still relevant and their work is still admired today,” Evans said of their findings. “We were delighted to see Frida Kahlo come in in second place. Although people in the art world know who she is, many people have never heard of her so we think it’s great that this research might help make more people discover her work. It was interesting that Frida Kahlo, a Mexican artist, was the number one artist for USA.”

Among other artists who made the list were Artemisia Gentileschi, who was the most searched for in 23 countries. Evans and the Ken Bromley team attributed her popularity to exhibitions focused on the 17^th century Italian painter, many of which were rescheduled or postponed due to the pandemic, as well as a Google Doodle featuring the artist on what would have been her 427^th birthday in June 2020.

In addition to a surprisingly small cohort of top-searched artists, the Ken Bromley team found Africa to offer intriguing and surprising data, Evans said. North African countries heavily favoured van Gogh while Picasso had a stronghold over those in West Africa. Meanwhile, da Vinci, like much of the world, had a strong hold over the south-eastern regions of Africa.

The Ken Bromley team took their research one step further, using their findings to create a stunning and colourful set of maps showcasing our collective searches from life during the pandemic. The maps exemplify the similarities that can be found between people around the world. So, even during a difficult time that was isolating for many, we’re brought together in unusual ways.

So, who do you think came out on top in your country? Find out, below, through the maps created by the Ken Bromley team.