Two Reviews and an Essay: Escoval, Carbotta & Kørner
Tue, Sep 16 2025 
Joana Escoval, exhibition view. Courtesy Galería Vera Cortês.
The September 2025 issue of Artforum (vol 64, num. 1) includes a review by Max Andrews of Joana Escoval’s exhibition “Tones of the Spine” (15 May–1 June 2025), seen at Galería Vera Cortês, Lisbon, back in May during a press trip organised on the occasion of ARCOLisboa.
“Joana Escoval’s work often demands precise attention to almost imperceptible details. Her sculpture pulse (all works 2025) consists of two dun-colored boulders—one relatively smooth, the other rougher. Each is just large enough to seem barely liftable. In its recent installation at Galeria Vera Cortês, a gracefully curling brass wire flowed out and back from a pristine white wall, perforating and connecting the two paired rocks so that they seemed plugged into the wall—one could almost imagine a hum of electrical current coursing through them.”
John Kørner, “Magic Opal Sea” (2025). Courtesy the artist and Victoria Miro.
On September 13, Danish artist John Kørner (Århus, 1967) opened his solo exhibition “Venice Lido Light” at Victoria Miro gallery in Venice, Italy (on view until 25 October 2025).
The exhibition is accompanied by a new essay by Max Andrews on Kørner's recent paintings and sculptures created during his residency at the gallery’s Venice studio. Evoking the water, light and horizons of Venice, while distorting them into dreamlike forms, the exhibition reveals a world that is both familiar and enigmatic.
As Max Andrews writes, Kørner is “a painter of problems that take shape, in reality finds himself painting in a city literally sinking under the weight of intractable troubles. Cocoon-like problems continue to manifest — a row is posing on a horizon, look — but never as a reaction to something gone wrong. On the beach, his mental clouds are precipitating doubt about how to picture a place that is already so saturated. No masks. No vedute. No Death in Venice. No Jeff in Venice.”
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Ludovica Carbotta, Exhibition view. Courtesy the artist and Bombon Projects. Photos: Roberto Ruiz.
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RELATED CONTENT:
- More writing on contemporary art – features, profiles, reviews, essays, etc.
- More frieze reviews
- More Artforum reviews
- "The Kørner problem” essay by Max Andrews in the monograph "John Kørner" published by Roulette Russe, 19 February 2018
- '2006 Problems' exhibition and publication by John Kørner, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 29 November 2006
- Copenhagen trip. 'Woman with 24 problems' by John Kørner, 30 September 2006
Latitudes' "out of office": wrap up of the 2017–2018 season
Thu, Aug 2 2018This is possibly our favourite post of the year. Not just because it means we’ll shortly be taking a deserved summer break. But also because it brings a sense of accomplishment to look back at what has happened during the last twelve months — to remember the many conversations we’ve had, the places we’ve been privileged to visit and to refresh all those ideas and plans we intended to move forward. Onwards!
September 11—October 6, 2017: Lead Faculty of the month-long "Geologic Time" residency at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.
2017, 2018, BCN Producció, behind the scenes, CAPC Bordeaux, Frieze, Joan Morey, John Korner, Latitudes-curated, looking back, Mariana Cánepa Luna, Max Andrews, out of office, The Banff Center
September 11—October 6, 2017: Lead Faculty of the month-long "Geologic Time" residency at The Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity in Alberta, Canada.
In this blog post, we shared some lithic impressions of the four weeks we spent leading a programme in Alberta's Rocky Mountains.
Far Afield, the artistic-curatorial initiative led by the also participant Caitlin Chaisson, hand-bound the resulting two-part publication for Far Afield's library, a platform for "collecting and sharing publications that support experimental art practices".
15 November 2017: Study day at CAPC musée "The Return of the Earth. Ecologising Art History in the Anthropocene." With a keynote by science historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, and a conversation between artists Xavier Ribas and Ângela Ferreira—the latter both featured in the exhibition—the event convened by '4.543 billion'-curators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, saw art practice and historical research intertwining with environmental and geological narratives, and vice versa.
Photos (this and following): Pep Herrero / La Capella—Barcelona Producció 2017.
(Above) Photo: Anna Moreno.
1 December 2017: Latitudes introduces the documentary "Harald Szeemann. The Life of a Dreamer" premiered at Cinemes Girona as part of the first edition of Dart Festival 2017, the Festival of Documentary Cinema on Contemporary Art.
9 December 2017: Mariana of Latitudes led the first "Parlem" [Let's talk] guided tour around the exhibition "Rosemarie Castoro. Focus at infinity", curated by Tanya Barson, MACBA's Chief Curator, a free event repeated on March 10 and March 31st.
23 January 2018: The online platform arteinformado.com publishes three artist recommendations by five Spanish-based curators. Mariana Cánepa of Latitudes selected Gerard Ortín, Martín Llavaneras and Anna Moreno.
2 February 2018: Roulette Russe publishes an image of John Kørner's book hot off the press.
One of the epic moments of the month: a gorgeous hike to Stanley Glacier. 
At the base of Mount Stanley, we found 505-million-year-old Burgess Shale trilobites, soft-body fossils from the Eldon formation.
Snow surprised us on our final week in Banff.
A fun evening at High Rollers bowling alley in Banff town.
The closing event of "Geologic Time" was conceived as a two-hour infiltration into the pages, shelves, and display possibilities of The Banff Centre library. Featuring storytelling, documentation, annotation, sculpture, video, conversation and other live situations, the event presented some sediments of the ten participants’ ongoing research and geological collaborations. Pdf of the event programme.
Posters communicating some of the seminars and excursions programmed during the four weeks. Design/Photos: Latitudes.
Intervention by Semâ Bekirovic, based in Amsterdam. Bekirovic employed a number of external hard drives to act as pedestals for small stones. How many terabytes can a hunk of rock hold? What fragments of data detritus, chunks and grains of documents, broken off images, or weathered files, might be read and written, stored or retrieved? 
Intervention by Caitlin Chaisson based in Vancouver. Chaisson researched a former experimental farm station in Agassiz, British Columbia, and a forgotten centennial time capsule buried under a granite marker there. Caitlin also presented a cut-and-paste station on the table next to the photocopier, and a display for the tall vitrine just behind it.
Intervention by Caroline Loewen, based in Calgary. Caroline delves deep into the story of sandstone in Alberta, a rock that gained widespread favour for building and decorative use following Calgary’s Great Fire of 1886. The black-and-brown Rundle Rock that was once quarried at the base of Banff Centre's Mount Rundle and was used extensively in creating the Banff Springs Hotel also joins a conversation that anticipates an exhibition scheduled for next summer at Lougheed House in Calgary.
Intervention by Justy Phillips & Margaret Woodward (A Published Event) based in Hobart. Described by the Hobart-based duo as “an accumulative event of mineralogical, metaphysical and metallurgical telling”, the books that have come into the world to date have been incorporated into the library’s holdings alongside a glossary and can be found in the geology section upstairs.
An audio narration drafted by Penelope Smart was also heard on the upper floor, near the “memoirs and narrative” section. Here, an image of the exquisite marble bust by Giovanni Strazza animated Penny’s writing during the last weeks. It came to St.John’s, Newfoundland, in 1856. Ring the bell to the right of the main door of the Presentation Convent adjoining the Basilica in St.John’s and maybe one of the sisters will let you see it.
Remnants of the 2-hour event.
For the final event on October 5th, participants Becky Forsythe and Camila Sposati decided to collaborate through a performance using the library photocopier on the main floor. ‘"Receding Agate" and "Receding Rhodochrosite" was a collection of pages produced during a procedural artwork that slowly and methodically extracted copies of Agate and Rhodochrosite from Roger Caillois' "The Writing of Stones". Each page is a copy of the last, so text begins to harden into pebble-like shapes, and images begin to simplify as darker forms in an experiment of accumulation and sedimentation.’
27 October 2017: Cabaret at La Capella space, a public programme organised by the Museu d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona in the context of their Joan Brossa exhibition. The Capella space was decorated with fragments of Antoni Hervàs "El Misterio de Caviria" scenography, presented only a year earlier at the other La Capella space as part of the 2016 BCN Producció season. The project was mentored by Latitudes. Following Hervàs’s interests in Barcelona’s dwindling cabaret scene, he invited Gilda Love and castanets master Juan de la Cruz "el Rosillo" (who sadly passed away a few months after) to interpret a moving repertoire of popular Spanish copla, against the backdrop of parts of his scenography.
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| Gilda Love and castanets master Juan de la Cruz "el Rosillo". Photos by Dani Cantó/MACBA.
5 November 2017: The 1878 painting by Alfred Roll "The Old Quarryman" is exchanged with Alfred Smith's "The Grave Docks" (1884) in the Latitudes-curated exhibition "4.543 billion" at the CAPC musée. The show remains on view another two more months, until January 7, 2018.
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Photo: Lysian Gauthier © Musée d'art contemporain de Bordeaux.
Photo: Alice Cavender.
(Unframed) Alfred Smith's (Bordeaux, 1854–Paris, 1936) “Le Quai de la Grave” [The Grave Docks] (1884). Collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux.
15 November 2017: Study day at CAPC musée "The Return of the Earth. Ecologising Art History in the Anthropocene." With a keynote by science historian Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, and a conversation between artists Xavier Ribas and Ângela Ferreira—the latter both featured in the exhibition—the event convened by '4.543 billion'-curators Max Andrews and Mariana Cánepa Luna, saw art practice and historical research intertwining with environmental and geological narratives, and vice versa.
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| (Top) Left to right: Max Andrews, Xavier Ribas, Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Ângela Ferreira during the debate. (Below) Ângela discussing her work in the exhibition. Photos (Above and below): Latitudes. |
22 November 2017: Launch of Anna Moreno's "The Drowned Giant" publication at the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya alongside architect and researcher Lluis A. Casanovas. Moreno's project is part of the BCN Producció 2017–18 programme of which Latitudes' is a jury member and mentor.
Video of the presentation (in Catalan).
Video of the presentation (in Catalan).
Earlier that week we spent two intense mornings unpacking, hand spraying, numbering, inserting poster and booklet and re-packaging the limited edition of 300 vinyl records in the former Escola Massana, nearby La Capella.
A short video on the project was screened on betevé tv (in Catalan, starting 04:24min).
A short video on the project was screened on betevé tv (in Catalan, starting 04:24min).
Photos (Above and below): Latitudes.
1 December 2017: Latitudes introduces the documentary "Harald Szeemann. The Life of a Dreamer" premiered at Cinemes Girona as part of the first edition of Dart Festival 2017, the Festival of Documentary Cinema on Contemporary Art.
9 December 2017: Mariana of Latitudes led the first "Parlem" [Let's talk] guided tour around the exhibition "Rosemarie Castoro. Focus at infinity", curated by Tanya Barson, MACBA's Chief Curator, a free event repeated on March 10 and March 31st.
Photo: Latitudes.
December 2017: Transition from Storify to Wakelet to archive all the social media stories related to Latitudes' projects.
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| Latitudes' Wakelet profile. |
20 December 2017: Max Andrews of Latitudes (and Contributing Editor of frieze magazine) looks back at 2017 from Barcelona and beyond, at some art highlights from a tumultuous 2017, including Amie Siegel, Pierre Huyghe, Lúa Coderch, Francesc Torres, Adrià Julià, Jordi Mitjà, Eulàlia Rovira & Adrian Schindler, Joan Morey, and Claudia Pagès.
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| 2017 from Barcelona and beyond. |
23 January 2018: Opening of the exhibition "Artengo2000" by Magda Vaz and Camille Orny at the sala petita of La Capella. This is the third and final Barcelona Producció project mentored by Latitudes.
(Above and below) View from "Artengo2000", an exhibition by Camille Orny and Magda Vaz at the Sala Petita in La Capella. Photo: Pep Herrero / La Capella.
25 January 2018: Print proofs of the forthcoming John Kørner's monograph published by Roulette Russe with texts by Oliver Basciano, Marie Nipper and Max Andrews' of Latitudes, published on the occasion of his recent mid-career retrospective "Altid Mange Problemer" at Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen (17 June–13 August 2017).
2 February 2018: Roulette Russe publishes an image of John Kørner's book hot off the press.
9-10 February 2018: Trip to Montpellier to attend the opening of "Crash Test" at La Panacée/Centre d'art Contemporain MoCo.
16 February 2018: Max Andrews of Latitudes wrote a review of the show for frieze magazine, published online and in the printed issue in April.
15 February 2018: Award ceremony of the 2017 Premis Ciutat de Barcelona, of which Mariana was a jury member in the Visual Arts category. Joan Morey was the awarded visual artist.
Lola Lasurt presented ‘Donació’ (Donation) in the Galeria Joan Prats booth, a body of work produced for the ‘Composiciones’ commissioning series Latitudes curated for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2016. Lasurt was also exhibiting as part of La Casa Encendida's "Generación 2018".
26 February 2018: After nearly two years in development, the sixth ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ dispatch from Yerevan, Armenia, is finally live!
In her day-long tour Yerevan-born, San Diego-based curator and researcher Marianna Hovhannisyan extended the invitation to Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan, three students from the studio college at the National Center of Aesthetics. The purpose was to document transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre. The shared inquiry was based on how knowledge transmission and generational exchanges in the Armenian contemporary art field could be approached—particularly in terms of exploring the fragmented histories of its institutional work. As they were putting together the touches on this online version of the offline day, the studio-college itself closed down permanently at the end of 2017.
2 March 2018: Book launch of John Kørner's monograph in Copenhagen. Published by Roulette Russe with texts by Oliver Basciano, Marie Nipper and Max Andrews.
March 20, 2018: Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes reviews ‘Allora & Calzadilla’ at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, for art-agenda."A piercing whistle punctuates the blaring of a trumpet. But in the columned central space of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the only visible instrument is a grand piano. For three days a week throughout the course of the exhibition, the instrument is played—and, one could say, worn—by a pianist who stands in a hole cut into its center."
The same day, we sent the Spring newsletter to our contacts, in English and in Spanish.
12—14 April 2018: Three performances by Les Brontë, Quim Pujol and Eliana Beltrán over three consecutive evenings at La Capella, part of the BCN Producció 2017–18 programme of which Latitudes' is a jury member and mentor.
1 May 2018: Max Andrews' profile on Madrid-based artist Teresa Solar Abboud goes online on frieze website.
28 June 2018: The seventh ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ dispatch from Hobart, Tasmania, goes live on http://incidents.kadist.org/ On this occasion, the offline conversation took place between curator Camila Marambio and artist Lucy Bleach. We're also working on the eighth destination: Buenos Aires.
18–29 July 2018: Two days in Dublin followed by a 10-day residency in Askeaton, as part of Askeaton Contemporary Art's (ACA) thirteenth annual event "Welcome to the neighbourhood". In 2018 ACA invited artists Matt Calderwood, Jonny Lyons, Ruth Clinton, and Niamh Moriarty, alongside curators Gareth Bell-Jones (Flat Time House, London) and Latitudes. More on this post.
August 2018: Aaaand we’re out of office! Kinda.
Save the following dates:
13 September, 6–9pm: Opening of ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna.
14 September, 6pm: Performance “One motif says to the other: I can’t take my eyes off you” by Adrian Schindler and Eulàlia Rovira. Followed by the artist lecture: “A Blow by Blow Account of Stonecarving in Oxford” by Sean Lynch. Part of the exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna.
19 September, 19h: Opening of ‘Joan Morey. COLLAPSE’, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.
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| Installation piece by Alice Channer. |
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| Work by Agnieszka Kurant (foreground) and Aude Pariset (background). |
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| Detail of a vitrine piece by Bianca Bondi. |
20–23 February 2018: Trip to ARCOmadrid fair, below some social media posts.
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| Photo: Roberto Ruiz. |
Lola Lasurt presented ‘Donació’ (Donation) in the Galeria Joan Prats booth, a body of work produced for the ‘Composiciones’ commissioning series Latitudes curated for the Barcelona Gallery Weekend 2016. Lasurt was also exhibiting as part of La Casa Encendida's "Generación 2018".
22 February 2018: Max Andrews' review of Lúa Coderch's solo show "The girl with no door on her mouth" at àngels barcelona, is published online. The text is also be included in the printed issue in April.
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| Review of Lúa Coderch's solo show "The girl with no door on her mouth" at àngels barcelona. |
26 February 2018: After nearly two years in development, the sixth ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ dispatch from Yerevan, Armenia, is finally live!
In her day-long tour Yerevan-born, San Diego-based curator and researcher Marianna Hovhannisyan extended the invitation to Vardan Kilichyan, Gohar Hosyan, and Anaida Verdyan, three students from the studio college at the National Center of Aesthetics. The purpose was to document transformed, disappeared, or permanently-closed art institutions in the city centre. The shared inquiry was based on how knowledge transmission and generational exchanges in the Armenian contemporary art field could be approached—particularly in terms of exploring the fragmented histories of its institutional work. As they were putting together the touches on this online version of the offline day, the studio-college itself closed down permanently at the end of 2017.
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| http://incidents.kadist.org/yerevan |
(Above and below). Courtesy Roulette Russe. Photos by Finn Wergel Dahlgren.
March 10 and 31, 2018: Second and third guided visits to Rosemarie Castoro's exhibition at MACBA led by Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes.
MACBA's Instagram story announcing the talk.
March 20, 2018: Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes reviews ‘Allora & Calzadilla’ at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, for art-agenda."A piercing whistle punctuates the blaring of a trumpet. But in the columned central space of the Fundació Antoni Tàpies, the only visible instrument is a grand piano. For three days a week throughout the course of the exhibition, the instrument is played—and, one could say, worn—by a pianist who stands in a hole cut into its center."
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| Mariana Cánepa Luna of Latitudes reviews ‘Allora & Calzadilla’ at the Fundació Tàpies, Barcelona, for art-agenda. |
The same day, we sent the Spring newsletter to our contacts, in English and in Spanish.
12—14 April 2018: Three performances by Les Brontë, Quim Pujol and Eliana Beltrán over three consecutive evenings at La Capella, part of the BCN Producció 2017–18 programme of which Latitudes' is a jury member and mentor.
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| (Above and below) "Fine Cherry" performance by Les Brontë. Photos: Latitudes. |
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| "Verde Croma" by Quim Pujol. Photos: Latitudes. |
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| "Reading Room #3" by Eliana Beltrán. Photos: Latitudes. |
28 April–4 May 2018: Trip to Berlin during the Gallery Weekend, and later to Cologne to visit Haegue Yang's mid-career retrospective ‘ETA 1994–2018’ at Museum Ludwig, and Ana Jotta's first solo exhibition in Germany at the Temporary Gallery. More on this blog post and on this Wakelet feed.
23–29 May 2018: Trip to London to visit +35 exhibitions, friends, and family – highlights below, full photo report here. Short day trip to Oxford's Pitt Rivers Museum (a favourite of ours), the Natural History Museum and Modern Art Oxford.
(Above and below) Cinthia Marcelle's "The Family in Disorder" (2018) at Museum and Modern Art Oxford.
(Above) The incredible main hall of the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford.
(Above) The opening of Leonor Antunes's "a thousand realities from an original mark" at Marian Goodman.Polycarbonate and brass screens and rope sculptures. Each screen corresponds to the exact measurements of one of the glass panels in the Upper Lawn Pavilion in Wiltshire, built between 1959 and 1962 by the British architects Alison and Peter Smithson (1928-1993 and 1923-2003).
Fantastic assembly of Markus Lüperz's tent paintings at Michael Werner Gallery, which the artist painted at age 24 using distemper on canvas.
Batia Suter's work at The Photographers' Galery. One of the nominees for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize 2018, finally won by Luke Willis Thompson with his striking film "autoportrait".
(Above) Antoni Hervàs studio at Gasworks during his 3-month residency.
(Above) View of Trafalgar Square with Michael Rakowitz's "The Invisible Enemy Should Not Exist" featuring on the Fourth Plinth commission.
(Above) Peter Gabriel discussing his during the internet interspecies symposium "The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish" curated by Lucia Pietroiusti and Filipa Ramos for the Serpentine Gallery at the London Zoo.
Things that make us very happy: when a friend travels half the world to find one of our publications (Amikejo catalogue by Mousse Publishing in 2011) in the library of TEORética in Costa Rica and shares a snapshot on Twitter :-)
28 June 2018: The seventh ‘Incidents (of Travel)’ dispatch from Hobart, Tasmania, goes live on http://incidents.kadist.org/ On this occasion, the offline conversation took place between curator Camila Marambio and artist Lucy Bleach. We're also working on the eighth destination: Buenos Aires.
Throughout June–July 2018: Intense writing period in preparation for two forthcoming exhibitions: ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ (Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna, opening on September 13 and, on view until October 14) and ‘COLLAPSE’, a solo exhibition by Joan Morey opening on September 19 over two floors of the Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats, with the following chapters at the Centre d'Art Tecla Sala (23 November 2018–13 January 2019) and a new commission at a yet-undisclosed location (10 January 2019).
Desmore castle undergoing restoration.
Artists and POW workers after the tour.
RUSAL Aughinish alumina plant from afar, this is the largest alumina refinery in Europe.
Group trip to Lismore Castle upper garden in County Waterford.
The gardens featured works by Franz West (above) and Rashid Johnson (below).
The Grange Stone circle.
During the residency, we learnt of the story of ‘the Pilgrim’, a merchant from Barcelona who arrived in Askeaton around 1767 and who lived out his life in the Franciscan friary, dying there in 1784. Digging further in the local library, we came across a 1984 article written by Tim Kelly in a back issue of the ABC News, Askeaton’s local publication of record. The story reveals a dramatic narrative bringing to life a cryptic inscription found in the cloister that reads “Beneath lies the Pilgrim’s body, who died January 17, 1784”. The tale involves an Italian, a Spaniard, and a morbid blood-hunt that links Barcelona with Askeaton and is read aloud by artist Carl Doran.
Hear more at https://soundcloud.com/lttds/the-pilgrim
Matt Calderwood's boat ready to sail on the River Deel.
Making of Jonny Lyons’ "Joyride" on the River Deel.
"Welcome to the neighbourhood" Open day.
Save the following dates:
13 September, 6–9pm: Opening of ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna.
14 September, 6pm: Performance “One motif says to the other: I can’t take my eyes off you” by Adrian Schindler and Eulàlia Rovira. Followed by the artist lecture: “A Blow by Blow Account of Stonecarving in Oxford” by Sean Lynch. Part of the exhibition ‘Cream cheese and pretty ribbons!’ at Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna.
19 September, 19h: Opening of ‘Joan Morey. COLLAPSE’, Centre d'Art Contemporani de Barcelona - Fabra i Coats.
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes "out of office" 2016–17 season, 1 August 2017
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2015–16 season, 1 August 2016
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2014–15 season, 7 August 2015
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2013–14 season, 31 July 2014
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2012–13 season, 31 July 2013
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2011–12 season, 31 July 2012
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2010–11 season, 1 August 2011
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2009–10 season, 30 July 2010
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2008-9 season, 30 July 2009
"The Kørner problem” essay by Max Andrews in the monograph "John Kørner" published by Roulette Russe
Mon, Feb 19 2018
Exhibition poster of "Altid Mange Problemer" at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Summer 2017. Photo: Latitudes.
The 280-page bilingual Danish/English monograph will be launched on March 2, 2018, at 4:30 pm, in Kunsthal Charlottenborg's Apollo Kantine, although it will become available for online orders from February 26.
In his essay, Max tries to define what "The Kørner problem” (the title of the essay) might be:
(...) "The apparently ‘wicked’ problems and appalling catastrophes that interpenetrate Kørner’s works are manifold. The upsurge in jihadist terrorist activity in Europe since 2015 and its fallout are unavoidable (whether vestiges of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the Bataclan attacks in Paris, suicide bombings in Brussels and Manchester; or truck attacks in Nice, Berlin, Barcelona; rampaging attacks in London, and so on). The civil war and the rise of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) in Syria and the exacerbating effects of climate change and mega-drought that affected the region are inescapable. The European debt and migrant crisis are here. Yet elsewhere Kørner also brings to mind what at first seem like unrelated problems: the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and the calamity of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown, human trafficking, et cetera, states of exception that seem to confirm that the problem is evermore radical, atrocious, ungrounded—more diffuse while remaining intractably real. American pop star Ariana Grande knows this as well as Kørner. Released in spring 2014, three years before the suicide bombing of her concert at Manchester Arena, her most successful single to date is titled “Problem”. We are witnessing new kinds of wicked problems and Kørner paints accordingly."
In preparation for the catalogue essay, in July 2017 Latitudes visited Kørner's impressive "Altid Mange Problemer" mid-career exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the largest exhibition of his works to date, gathering paintings and sculptural pieces from 2004 to the present.
Max has previously written on John's work for the catalogue of his 2006 exhibition "Problems" at Victoria Miro Gallery in London.
(Above and following): Photos: Finn Wergel Dahlgren. Courtesy Roulotte Russe.
In his essay, Max tries to define what "The Kørner problem” (the title of the essay) might be:
(...) "The apparently ‘wicked’ problems and appalling catastrophes that interpenetrate Kørner’s works are manifold. The upsurge in jihadist terrorist activity in Europe since 2015 and its fallout are unavoidable (whether vestiges of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the Bataclan attacks in Paris, suicide bombings in Brussels and Manchester; or truck attacks in Nice, Berlin, Barcelona; rampaging attacks in London, and so on). The civil war and the rise of ISIL (ISIS, Daesh) in Syria and the exacerbating effects of climate change and mega-drought that affected the region are inescapable. The European debt and migrant crisis are here. Yet elsewhere Kørner also brings to mind what at first seem like unrelated problems: the 2011 Tōhoku tsunami and the calamity of the Fukushima nuclear power plant meltdown, human trafficking, et cetera, states of exception that seem to confirm that the problem is evermore radical, atrocious, ungrounded—more diffuse while remaining intractably real. American pop star Ariana Grande knows this as well as Kørner. Released in spring 2014, three years before the suicide bombing of her concert at Manchester Arena, her most successful single to date is titled “Problem”. We are witnessing new kinds of wicked problems and Kørner paints accordingly."
In preparation for the catalogue essay, in July 2017 Latitudes visited Kørner's impressive "Altid Mange Problemer" mid-career exhibition at Kunsthal Charlottenborg, the largest exhibition of his works to date, gathering paintings and sculptural pieces from 2004 to the present.
(Above and following): Photos by Latitudes.
Latitudes' first visit to Copenhagen also involved Kørner's work, as we visited his solo show 'ARoS Bank' at the ARoS Århus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (13 June–10 September 2006), which became the subject of our first blog post over a decade ago, in September 2006 (!).
RELATED CONTENT:
RELATED CONTENT:
- Latitudes' writing archive
- Latitudes' "out of office" 2016–2017 season 1 August 2017
- Max Andrews' essay on Christopher Knowles for NoguerasBlanchard at Liste 2017, 21 July 2017
- Mariana Cánepa Luna reviews Ana Jotta’s “Abans que me n’oblidi (Before I forget)” exhibition in art-agenda 11 November 2016
- '2006 Problems' exhibition and publication by John Kørner, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, 29 November 2006
- Copenhagen trip. 'Woman with 24 problems' by John Kørner, 30 September 2006
Report from New York: Gramcsi Monument, visiting critics at ISCP, Carol Bove at The High Line and galleries route
Mon, Sep 23 2013
Visiting Thomas Hirschhorn's "Gramcsi Monument", a project produced by Dia Art Foundation at Forest Houses, in the south Bronx. Some recent articles on the project are available via Artfagcity's "How Do People Feel About the Gramsci Monument?" and a summary with more reviews via the Gallerist.
On the September 4 and 12 we were 'visiting critics' at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The first round included seven visits to the studios of Sofie Thorsen, Niko Luoma, Ramiro Chaves, Mojé Assefjah, Shigeyuki Kihara, Javier Barrios and Tobias Dostal. In the second round (12 visits), we visited Paulien Oltheten (participant in our 2009 project "Portscapes"), Henrjeta Mece, Deva Graf, Bernard Williams, Hugues Reip, Ruth Campau, Tricia Middleton, Savas Bovraz, Sasa Tkacenko, I-Chen Kuo, Mónica Ferreras and Petr Sprincl and collaborator Marie Hájková. A selection of images below.
Back in 2006, Max Andrews of Latitudes edited the publication and wrote the catalogue essay for an exhibition at Victoria Miro Gallery in London of Danish artist John Kørner, also a current resident at ISCP.
(Above) Studio visit with Danish-born, Vienna-based artist Sofie Thorsen.
(Above) Studio visit with Argentinian-born, Mexico City-based artist Ramiro Chaves.
(Above) Studio visit with Dutch artist Paulien Oltheten.
(Above) Studio visit with Kurdish-born Turkish-based artist Savas Bovraz, recipient of the 2013 Victor Fellowship of the
Hasselblad Foundation.
(Above) Studio visit with Chicago-based artist Bernard Williams.
(Above) Studio visit with Berlin-based artist Tobias Dostal, creator of this magic trick,
you'll be amazed!
(Above) Studio visit with Canadian artist Tricia Middleton.
On Friday 13, we visited a few Chelsea galleries, starting at 18th street with a bombastic show by Matthew Day Jackson show at Hauser Wirth. A concise review of the exhibition in this New Yorker article.
(Above) Ho Chi Minh City and Los Angeles-based collective The Propeller Group at Lombard Freid.
(Above) An overview of the 1960s–2000s work by the late John McCracken occupied David Zwirner's spaces.
(Above) Phil Collins at Tanya Bonakdar.
(Above) "Some Dreamers of the Golden Dream" a cross-generational group show with works by Ed Ruscha, Alex Israel, Alex Hubbard, Julie Becker, Lutz Bacher, and Rachel Harrison at Greene Naftali Gallery.
(Above) The always great Annette Kelm presents 2013 photographs at Andrew Kreps – on view until November 2nd.
(Above) Claudia Wieser's mirrors, ceramics, wooden sculptures, geometric prints at Marianne Boesky.
Barbara Gladstone Gallery showed Damián Ortega's 25 twisted steel sculptures which cast the alphabet with their shadows.
At Metro Pictures, David Maljkovic's show includes the animation "Afterform" – on view until October 19.
(Above) Wonderful photographic work by Leslie Hewitt at Sikkema Jenkins – on view until 5 October. Another short view of the exhibition on this New Yorker article.
(Above) Bortolami Gallery presented paintings by Morgan Fisher based on colour swatches from a prefab house company owned by artist father.
(Above and below) Pablo Helguera's "Librería Donceles" at Kent Fine Art
(210 11th Avenue, 2nd floor). "Librería Donceles" is an itinerant
bookstore of 10,000 used books in Spanish, of virtually every subject,
and the only Spanish-language used-book store in the city. On view until
8 November.
In the Lower East Side, Simon Preston presented one of the best shows in town centered around the new film 'Provenance' (2013) by Chicago-born artist Amy Siegel. The 40min. the film documents the interior of homes of avid collectors in New York, London, Belgium and Paris that have furnished their homes with 1950s tables, chairs, settees and desks originally conceived by Le Corbusier and Pierre Jeanneret, for several buildings in Chandigarh, India. Go see it, ends 6 October.
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'2006 Problems' exhibition and publication by John Kørner, Victoria Miro Gallery, London
Wed, Nov 29 2006
“There are plenty of known knowns in what John Kørner has recently painted: ships and trees, men and women, crocodiles and birds, town and country—and most apparently in '2006 Problems', factories and bicycles. These are modern things that we know we know. And as this commandeered logic continues, we know there are some things we do not know (known unknowns), and still others we don't yet know we don't know (unknown unknowns). It's the known unknown phenomena that belong to the realm of Kørner's sustained symptomatology of problems. Visible in paint as coloured blot marks shaped like elongated eggs or dropped-in droppings, problems often line up in Kørner's works as if notes on a musical stave or blobs of clay on wobbly shelves, latent undifferentiated tissue that's waiting to become more specific. Of course, how to paint a problem must have been in itself a problem. We may presently be dealing with the problems of this year, or equally, it could be that there is a host of two thousand and six of these quandaries. Kørner makes paintings and painted ceramics, while, as he insists, he is not really a 'proper' painter. His often vast canvases are foremost a way of communicating through a very direct means and are only paintings later, almost by coincidence. All of this is, needless to say, problematic.”
Excerpt from the catalogue essay “2006 Problems: John Kørner” by Latitudes’ Max Andrews.
'2006 Problems' by John Kørner
Victoria Miro Gallery, London
25 November – 22 December 2006
Paperback, English, 44 pages, 30 x 23
ISBN 978-0-9554564-0-4
Purchase here for ₤10
More photos here
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Copenhagen trip. 'Woman with 24 problems' by John Kørner
Sat, Sep 30 2006
A 3-hour train from Copenhagen is the ARoS Art Museum in Århus, where the John Kørner's exhibition 'Århus Bank' finished 17 September. Paintings, ceramics and a video 'My favourite seven paintings': a great opportunity to be immersed in all things Kørner. In his video he presents some of his paintings to different audiences (kids, old folks, his art professor, birds, etc).
One of the works he presents in the video is this mural, commissioned by the Copenhagen City Hall. We are working with John on the publication for his upcoming show at Victoria Miro Gallery, London which opens at the end of November.
All photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (except when noted otherwise in the photo caption)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.