As the global vaccination roll-out continues, many of us have begun making mental bucket lists of the activities and places we’re eager to return to once it’s safe. Last year proved difficult for exhibition programming worldwide, but museums and curators have not been idle and there are multiple amazing exhibitions due to open this year (virus-related lockdowns notwithstanding). Digital art is wonderful and kept us over during lockdown, but nothing compares to visiting an exhibition to view your favourite artist’s work in person.
Here is our list of some of the must-see art exhibitions of 2021, featuring landmark retrospectives for the very best.
Exhibitions are still subject to Covid-19 restrictions—please check on each museum website before visiting.
YAYOI KUSAMA: A RETROSPECTIVE
Photo Source: Britannica
Eight of Yayoi Kusama’s most important exhibitions, which took place between 1952 and 1983, will be recreated for a retrospective of the Japanese artist’s work in Berlin for spring.
The show will feature documentation of nude public performances, such as the naked anti-war performances happening on Brooklyn Bridge in 1968, and some of the artist’s lesser-known works: Accumulation of Corpses (Prisoner Surrounded by the Curtain of Depersonalization) (1950), and a collage of fake dollar bills, Untitled (around 1962-63). The restaging of the shows will illustrate how the artist’s use of space developed and how she harnessed a multitude of mediums in her career, which now spans 70 years. The exhibition will also include a never-before-seen infinity mirror room.
Museum Dates: Gropius Bau, Berlin, 23 April-15 August; Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 2 November-23 April 2022.
DÜRER’S JOURNEYS: TRAVELS OF A RENAISSANCE ARTIST
Photo Source: Art Newspaper
Albrecht Dürer spent the late 15th and early 16th centuries traveling across Europe while focused on gathering ideas and techniques, making contacts among artists and clients, and steadily spreading his own fame. He did all of this at a time when travel was difficult, dangerous, and expensive, and ultimately the hassle proved worth it.
These exhibitions will track the importance of Dürer's travels, as far as Italy and the Low Countries, for the development and heavy influence of his work. The show will feature Christ Among the Doctors (1506) from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and smaller sketches that Dürer made in silverpoint of landscapes, plants, animals, and people during his travels
Museum Dates: Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, 18 July-24 October; National Gallery, London, 20 November-27 February 2022
SOPHIE TAEUBER-ARP: LIVING ABSTRACTION
Photo Source: Art Newspaper
Pioneer Sophie Taeuber-Arp is best known for her geometric abstractions and her association with Dada alongside her husband, the German-French sculptor Jean (Hans) Arp. A major traveling survey will aim to show how Taeuber-Arp contributed to the history of abstraction through her steady commitment to innovation and experimentation irrespective of her husband’s career.
The exhibition will comprise 400 pieces beginning with early architectural and interior design commissions and ending with abstract line drawings produced shortly before the artist’s accidental death in 1943.
Museum Dates: Kunstmuseum Basel, 20 March-20 June; Tate Modern, London, 15 July-17 October; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 21 November-12 March 2022
GEORGIA O’KEEFFE
Photo Source: Art Newspaper
This exhibition sweeping across Europe will give audiences across the continent a chance to explore the life and work of the pioneering American Modernist.
80 paintings have been chosen to provide a wide-angle view of the artist’s lengthy career. Among them will be New York Street with Moon (1925), the first of a series depicting the city’s streetscapes, and Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1 (1932). The show aims to offer a European perspective on the apparently very American phenomenon of Georgia O’Keeffe”. It also marks a return to Spain for the artist, who traveled there twice in the 1950s.
Museum Dates: Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, 20 April-8 August; Centre Pompidou, Paris, 8 September-6 December; Fondation Beyeler, Basel, 23 January 2022-22 May 2022
BOTTICELLI
Photo Source: Art Newspaper
A major survey of the Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli will include masterpieces from important US and European collections, such as Madonna and Child (1467-70) from the Musée du Louvre; The Return of Judith to Bethulia (1469-70) from the Cincinnati Art Museum; Judith Leaving the Tent of Holofernes (1497-1500) from the Rijksmuseum; and Portrait of Giuliano de' Medici (1478-80) from the Fondazione Accademia Carrara.
The exhibition will demonstrate how the artist alternated between the production of one-off paintings and works produced in series, with the help of his many assistants.
The artist’s studio was transformed into a laboratory of ideas and became a training center characteristic of the Italian Renaissance. Works by other leading 15th-century artists such as Verrocchio and Fra Filippo Lippi will also feature.
Museum Dates: Musée Jacquemart-André, Paris, 10 September-24 January 2022.
Which exhibition are you excited to see?
JOURNAL
