What an extraordinary year for the arts. Reflecting on it, there are countless threads to unravel, yet what stands out most is how the year unfolded as a less linear story of art—one with a willingness to embrace diverse narratives and alternative stories and realities. In doing so, it revealed a rich tapestry of pluralistic art histories, and with so much to discover.
Foreigners Everywhere/Stranieri Ovunque perfectly captured this spirit. Curated by Brazilian artist Adriano Pedrosa, the main art exhibition of the 60th la Biennale di Venezia seemed to divide opinion—loved and loathed in equal measure. For me, though, it was a treasure trove of ideas, introducing artists past and present with whom I had little or no prior connection.
Pedrosa bravely confronted the realities of movement and migration, the diasporic experience and the real or imagined ideas of emigrant and exile, refugees and nomads, as well as forgotten and unheard voices, lost cultures, destroyed crops. And it was exhilarating to walk through the Arsenale and the Giardini and notice all those voices in the arts that would otherwise be lost to us. With Personal Structures, which runs throughout the Venice Biennale, he has opened up a total ocean of art and ideas.
The latter was a new discovery for me. Founded in 2002 through artist René Rietmeyer, Personal Structures is an open platform for artists to exhibit and share their paintings and ideas. The concept arose as a reaction to non-subjective art, proposing instead that all art inherently carries something of the artist’s consciousness. making it inherently personal. As Sara Danieli, artistic director of the European Cultural Centre (the independent organisation of the exhibition), explains, “we consider the exhibition as a platform that values the diversity of artistic approaches and expressions, with the aim of documenting plurality”.
With the theme Beyond Borders, the majestic Venetian palaces Bembo and Mora, in combination with the Marinaressa gardens, hosted a dynamic organizational exhibition in which more than two hundred artists from 51 countries participated and with contributions from artistic and educational establishments. a tapestry of perspectives on the urgent and demanding situations of our time, exploring topics ranging from culture and gender identity to politics, lifestyles and the climate emergency (see featured topics here).
Other exhibitions of the organization in 2024 that offered selected old art narratives included the surely brilliant Harlem Renaissance at the Met in New York. In fact, the exhibition captured Harlem’s dynamic cultural, artistic, and intellectual movement of the 1920s and 1930s, while revealing its connections to European art and thought. It was definitely one of the highlights of my year.
Gieve Patel, Two Men with Handcart, 1979 at The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975- 1998 © Gieve Patel Courtesy of the Peabody Essex Museum Photography by Barbara Kennedy
Meanwhile, in London, The Imaginary Institution of India: Art 1975–1998 at the Barbican explored the era between two pivotal moments in Indian history: Indira Gandhi’s declaration of a state of emergency in 1975 and the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998. Featuring 30 artists, the exhibition told stories of social upheaval, economic collapse and the complexities of immediate urbanization. It took me a moment to get to the Barbican to fully appreciate the exhibition, but like Venice, the exhibition opened up a whole different world of artists to explore.
There have also been many solo exhibitions that have also invited a broader attitude towards art history. In Suspended States at the Serpentine, British Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare continues his quest to read new culture and national identities through the history of Western art and literature. As an artist I greatly appreciate it, this is an exhibition I have revisited many times on my walks through Hyde Park, finding something new to read about on each visit.
Meanwhile, at the Barbican Curve gallery, It Will End in Tears, by Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, addresses compelling themes (migration, belonging, hybrid identities) delicately told through the artist’s theatrical and imaginative scenarios that feature a film character black femme fatale who lives in a made up world. colonial post. The public was invited to walk through a series of life-size dioramas and paintings, immersing themselves in a thought-provoking exploration of complex human experiences.
Yinka Shonibare: Suspended States Serpentine South Gallery, London 2024
Unsurprisingly, this past year many artists have immersed themselves in the world of AI, investigating how the intelligence of devices can be shaped and expressed through their lenses. As Hans Ulrich Obrist, artistic director of the Serpentine gallery, rightly noted, “artists have the power to make the invisible visible. ” Two of the gallery exhibitions challenged my own biases and binary thinking about the future.
Take, for example, Los Angeles-based Turkish artist Refik Anadol. A pioneer in the aesthetics of synthetic intelligence, he creates incredible sensory and supernatural works of art through the visualization of knowledge. Anadol sees AI as a force for positive change. If carefully guided According to him, AI can improve creativity, well-being, contribute to education, shape better built environments and even help repair nature.
Refik Anadol, Echoes of the Earth: Living Archive, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine North
In addition, Anadol sees nature as the key to unlocking AI’s insights. Although he is aware that AI consumes a lot of energy, his argument is that nature provides the purest, most unbiased source of knowledge. at the center of his Serpentine exhibition this year Artificial Realities: Rainforest, a generative AI visualization powered through Anadol’s Large Nature Model, an open-source AI design that the artist is devising to gather insights from the plant world.
“I am the art of demystifying AI,” Anadol told me as we were surrounded by his makeshift immersive rainforest. “I must create anything new that changes our perspective. ” (See review here).
Also at Serpentine, in an exhibition that is running until February, two of the most influential artists and musicians working with AI, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, have imagined the art institution as a laboratory for artist-led AI systems. A collaboration with Serpentine Arts Technologies, The Call draws on the rituals of community musical groups—particularly choir singing—to explore how humans and machines can co-create. At its heart is the creation of new vocal datasets, polyphonic AI models capable of blending human and machine voices, pulling audiences into an immersive, participatory experience.
The Call, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst Serpentine, 2024
Like Anadol, for Herndon and Dryhurst, AI is an artistic tool that must be carefully cared for and trained. His paintings raise the idea that the device can simply update artists, advocating collaboration to shape AI as a spouse in the artistic process. By drawing parallels between AI education and choral rituals (call and response, camaraderie, collective sense), they propose a vision in which the warmth and connection of human communities can simply guide AI on a more collaborative and moral (see review). here). ).
Another Serpentine exhibition well worth mentioning in this roundup is Lauren Halsey’s Emajendat, the Los Angeles artist’s first UK solo show and a true feast for the senses. Running until March, this immersive and hugely enjoyable exhibition sees Halsey—co-curating with Serpentine’s chief curator Lizzie Carey-Thomas—transform the small gallery space into a site-specific “Funk garden.” Inspired by her experiences growing up in South Central LA’s improvisational backyard culture, the installation explores themes of community, identity and urban life.
The artist says: “As a teenager, I was a die-hard ‘Funkateer,’ and as an adult I imagined long-term odds revolving around networking, fairness, love, networking pride – everything related to Funk is the texture of who I am.
Lauren Halsey, emajendat, 2024. Installation view, Serpentine South, ©Lauren Halsey
Last year there were also exhibitions of masters and creators from the history of art. At age 90, South African artist Esther Mahlangu had her first true retrospective. I knew then that I was skilled at painting at the Iziko Museum in Cape Town. Brâncusi at the Center Pompidou in Paris paid tribute to the father of modern sculpture, Constantin Brâncusi, and it turned out to be the most beautifully imagined exhibition I have ever seen. Willem de Kooning and Italy at the Gallerie dell’Accademia in Venice perfectly captured the importance of the American artist’s Italian episode of 1959 and 1969 for what was another gem of an exhibition.
There’s still a lot to think about, but I’ll close out my year-end review with BMW Art Car via Julie Mehretu (see interview with the artist here). As those who know my paintings know, I have a soft spot for cars, and what could be more beautiful than a work that boldly celebrates speed and novel art?
Julie Mehretu BMW Art Car #20
What began as an irreproachable adventure in 1975, the BMW Art Car project presents a sample of the most renowned names in historical art (Calder, Warhol, Lichtenstein, Koons, Hockney. . . ), each of whom leaves an exclusive mark in them. racing cars. These cars tell the story of changes in car design, in motorsport culture, in our relationship with the car itself and reflect on new art. What’s not to love!
Mehretu’s BMW Art Car #20 is a truly striking addition to this legacy. The celebrated American artist reimagined the M Hybrid V8, transforming the racecar into a dynamic work of art that competed, though sadly didn’t win, in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The car’s abstract visual forms, digitally altered photographs from Mehretu’s monumental painting Everywhen (2021/23), are layered with dot grids, neon veils, and black markings.
Although Everywhen would possibly have been the birthplace, Mehretu allowed Art Car to locate its own language in the artistic process, the race, and the passage of time. Proposed at the birth of the pandemic, when the world was in lockdown, he saw the task as a metaphorical portal to the future. Mehretu speaks of his Art Car as if he were running through the painting, absorbing its energy, blur and challenge that symbolize movement and speed.
As Mehretu commented about the Art Car: “What’s more radically crazy than a car flying at full speed over the ground? The entire task revolves around invention, mental vision and pushing the limits of the possible.
Julie Mehretu signs her #20 BMW Art Car
South African artist William Kentridge (who also participated in the Venice Biennale with a glorious solo exhibition Self-Portrait as a Coffee Pot) once said that art is there to give a sense of groundedness in the world, to the artist and to the viewer. The most surprising thing that 2024 will demonstrate about the global aspect of the arts: this welcome to a broader diversity of artists and art.
The conversations we’ve observed in galleries, establishments, and art fairs are evidence that art can be a difficult platform for Americans and communities to express themselves, that art will have to be maintained as a space to question everything and not be hijacked for political reasons. Above all, what 2024 has shown so well is that art and artists can definitely help shape social and cultural conversations.
And as we approach 2025, it is critical that those dialogues continue to evolve, pushing boundaries, challenging our linear schooling in art history, motivating and generating new tactics for art to influence our world.
For more articles on art and design, my page here.
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