Reports

Letter from Luxembourg

Agnieszka Gratza

The capital city of the tiny eponymous country that lies on the fault lines of Europe, Luxembourg gets bad press as a tax haven for corporations, awash with money but with none of the allure of other European capitals. Its strong suits, namely the economic, political and social stability which made Luxembourg an attractive option for the City of London firms looking to relocate somewhere in the EU post-Brexit, are also perhaps what makes the place seem a little boring and staid. Continue reading Letter from Luxembourg

Reviews

Tino Sehgal’s This youiiyou 

Agnieszka Gratza

The starting point for Tino Sehgal’s new work This youiiyou (2023) — whose very title suggests a mirroring effect — is an altarpiece painted by El Greco for the nave of the monastery of the Santo Domingo el Antiguo in Toledo, Spain, which belongs to the Fundación Botín’s collection. Continue reading Tino Sehgal’s This youiiyou 

Essays

All About Palms: Adelaide Cioni

Agnieszka Gratza

It was while swimming naked in the sea that the Futurist poet Filippo Tommaso Marinetti invented Tactilism, or the Art of Touch. Sharing his insights in “reflections of a swimmer,” Marinetti describes how he went about educating himself: “I started by submitting my sense of touch to an intensive treatment, pinpointing the confused phenomena of will and thought on various points of my body, and especially on the palms of my hands.” Continue reading All About Palms: Adelaide Cioni

Reviews

Isabella Ducrot

Agnieszka Gratza

Conceived as altarpieces for the baroque church of San Giuseppe delle Scalze a Pontecorvo in Isabella Ducrot’s hometown of Naples, the three larger-than-life works on paper presented as part of the artist’s show “Il Miracoloso” (The Miraculous) sat somewhat awkwardly on the walls of a white cube dwarfed by their imposing scale, their lower edges curving out to rest on the gallery’s polished concrete floor. Continue reading Isabella Ducrot

Reviews

Statecraft (and beyond)

Agnieszka Gratza

Inaugurating her exhibition program as the newly appointed director at the National Museum of Contemporary Art Athens (EMST), curator Katerina Gregos’s multifaceted group show “Statecraft (and beyond)” revisited some of the themes she previously explored and even some of the same works that were featured in “The State Is Not a Work of Art” at the Tallinn Art Hall in 2018, conceived with the centennial of Estonian independence in mind. Continue reading Statecraft (and beyond)