Every five years in Kassel, Germany, documenta is a contemporary art exhibition lasting 100 days. Each edition presents hundreds of works in and around the city, typically conceptual and frequently site-specific. Of the thousands of works shown since the first documenta in 1955, sixteen have become permanent installations in Kassel.
I stormens öga
At Artipelag, a museum overlooking a bay in the Stockholm archipelago, an exhibition by Mats Bigert and Lars Bergström considers the intersection of culture and climate change. I stormens öga (In the storm’s eye) comprises works from 1990 to 2017 focusing on weather, climate, and human activity.
Imagine Peace Tower
On Viðey Island, near Reykjavík, Iceland, a beam of light shines up into the sky, penetrating the clouds up to an altitude of at least 4,000 meters. The light comes from the Imagine Peace Tower, a work conceived by Yoko Ono as a memorial to John Lennon and dedicated to peace.
Christo, The Floating Piers
This weekend, a large-scale project on Italy’s Lake Iseo connected two islands to each other and to the mainland. The project is not a bridge, tunnel, or other infrastructure, but a temporary art installation by the conceptual and environmental artist Christo.
Ólafur Elíasson at the Château de Versailles
Each summer since 2008, the Château de Versailles presents a contemporary monographic exhibition by a guest artist. For the ninth edition in 2016, Ólafur Elíasson has installed a series of site-specific works – three in the gardens and six inside the palace – to produce new perceptions of the iconic site.
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Bruce Munro, Field of Light
In the Australian outback near Uluru, a temporary art installation has been created near one of the world’s most recognizable natural landmarks. The project, Field of Light, opened at sunset on April 1.
Museu do Amanhã
In Rio de Janeiro, the Museu do Amanhã (Museum of Tomorrow) has opened just in time to become, perhaps, the most incredible new museum of 2015. Designed by Santiago Calatrava, the Museu do Amanhã is the showpiece of a redeveloped cultural district.
Ólafur Elíasson, Ice Watch
At the Place du Panthéon in Paris, twelve enormous blocks of ice are melting as world leaders are gathered nearby at Le Bourget for the UN Climate Summit. The ice is an installation by the Danish-Icelandic artist Ólafur Elíasson, whose work frequently joins nature and public installations to affect perceptions of the environment.
Reflections on Water
Recently, we have been enamored with landscapes and water. Here’s a thematic roundup with two exhibitions that we’re sorry to have missed, and two that we plan to see soon.
My Generation: Young Chinese Artists
At the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, My Generation: Young Chinese Artists presents works by artists born in mainland China after 1976. They are products of China’s one-child policy and have grown up during a time of rapid urbanization, globalization, and cultural transition.