Vlatka Horvat: By the Means at Hand
London-based a-n member Vlatka Horvat represents Croatia at the 60th Venice Biennale with a presentation that reflects on diasporic experience. Addressing the Biennale’s theme ‘Foreigners Everywhere’, Horvat’s ‘accumulative’ exhibition brings together artworks by a wide-ranging group of international artists who live ‘as foreigners’.
All of the small artworks on paper have travelled to Venice through improvised means: passed by hand, via friends, acquaintances and strangers who have acted as informal couriers for the project.
This unofficial network reflects the systems people create through migration and displacement, based on need, solidarity, shared struggle, mutual support, friendship and trust.
The alternative logistics that Horvat has created to stage By the Means at Hand also raise questions about the environmental impact of institutionalised modes of production, transportation and presentation of contemporary art, an issue that feels especially pertinent in Venice, a city at particular risk from the effects of climate change and mass tourism – including that created by the Biennale itself.
Until 24 November 2024, Pavilion of Croatia, 60th Venice Biennale, Fàbrica 33, Cannaregio croatianpavilion2024.com/
Rachael Clerke: Art Business Ltd
Continuing their playful exploration into economics and business through artistic practice, Bristol-based a-n member Rachael Clerke has launched a new project and real life company to “expose the inner workings of their trade as an artist.”
Running for the entire 2024-25 tax year, the earnest and irreverent Art Business Ltd includes a custom website which displays data such as income and expenditure, good and bad work days (indicated by a smiling or sad face graphic), Clerke’s menstrual cycle, the number of days for invoices to be paid, and application success and failure rates.
Adopting the affects and language of corporate business, including a company logo, uniform, and convoluted initialisations (TAFKASTRC = The Artist formerly known as Sole Trader Rachael Clerke), the project kicked off with a ‘private hard launch party’, with a press conference and a buffet of hard foods.
Meanwhile, The Dance of Professionalisation for Survival, created in collaboration with performance maker Clara Potter-Sweet, offers a series of movements each attached to creative-economy buzzwords such as ‘networking’, social media strategy’ and ‘stakeholders’, intended for use by creatives to “aid survival and make space for catharsis”.
You can also hear Rachael on the a-n/SPACE studios podcast Artonomics from 2022, discussing alternative models for making art and making money, DIY and collaborative methods, and their previous projects where ‘art plays at business’.
6 April 2024 – 5 April 2025 (the 2024-25 tax year), online now at artbusiness.ltd
Crip Arte Spazio: the DAM in Venice
This group exhibition celebrating the work of the UK’s Disability Arts Movement (DAM) features the work of a-n members Jameisha Prescod, Abi Palmer, Tanya Raabe-Webber and Jason Wilsher-Mills. Artists Terence Birch, Tony Heaton OBE and Ker Wallwork also take part, along with archival work from activist street photographer, Keith Armstrong (1950 – 2017).
Crip Arte Spazio reflects the ‘dynamism, wit, and grandeur’ of DAM, a movement which aligned art with the fight for rights for disabled people, broke barriers and ultimately helped to affect changes to UK law.
An exuberant display of protest banners, cartoon panels and artist films are accompanied by photography, graphic novels and campaign merchandise, in an exhibition that also spills out into the venue’s courtyard. There, Jason Wilsher-Mills’ inflatable sculptural work Rhubarb Totem, a large cartoon-like figure, sits alongside a work by Tony Heaton: a golden car with a number plate which reads ‘LAMÉ’, that appears to be diving towards the ground.
Until 30 November 2024, CREA Cantieri del Contemporaneo, Guidecca, Venice shapearts.org.uk/Event/crip-arte-spazio-exhibition
Matthew Krishanu: The Bough Breaks
The most significant exhibition of a-n member Matthew Krishanu’s work to date presents a body of new work, including paintings and works on paper.
Krishanu’s atmospheric works include scenes from his own life, most often his childhood years in Bangladesh, growing up with his brother, and their parents who were Christian missionaries. In the paintings, seemingly familiar narratives are alluded to but destabilised, to raise questions about childhood, religion, race, power, and the legacies of empire.
In dialogue with the history of painting, Krishanu’s work often explores how representations in the canon of Western art have shaped our collective unconscious around questions of race and gender, while his deeply personal subject matter speaks to the human condition in all its complexity.
26 April – 23 June 2024, Camden Arts Centre camdenartcentre.org
Diaspora!
This new festival, presented by the Diverse Artists Network, showcases multi-artform work in venues across Bristol, from underrepresented cultural communities in the region.
The packed bank holiday weekend programme includes workshops, talks, concerts, poetry, films and parties. Four visual arts exhibitions take place: Royal West of England Academy hosts ‘New Black Narrative’, which brings together work by members of Bristol Black Creatives to explore themes such as Black intimacy, Black vulnerability and Black joy, while Sparks shows work by digital artist Alpha Wilson.
You’ll find mixed-media work that celebrates the roots and evolution of carnival by Trinidadian artist Bandele Iyapo at Tobacco Factory, while The Island stages a group show investigating the ‘subtle yet profound ways cultural identity and heritage influence artistic expression’, through various artistic approaches to perspective, technique and narrative.
3 – 6 May 2024, venues across Bristol diverseartistsnetwork.com/diaspora-festival/
Top image: Crip Arte Spazio – DAM in Venice, Shape Arts, installation view. Tony Heaton, Gold Lamé (left) and Jason Wilsher-Mills, Rhubarb Totem (right)
