5 Standout Shows at Galleries across the Globe This September
Installation view of works by Serge Attukwei Clottey and Mestre Didi in “The Speed of Grace,” curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, at Simões de Assis, São Paulo. Courtesy of Simões de Assis.
In this monthly roundup, we shine the spotlight on five stellar exhibitions taking place at galleries in five cities worldwide.
In “Bestiaries,” Hannah Lim offers a vivid selection of sculptures and paintings that reinterpret chinoiserie while reflecting on the artist’s own Chinese and British heritage. For the show, Lim mined inspiration from Chinese and medieval bestiaries—books that compiled illustrations and descriptions of real and mythical animals—and recreated and combined the creatures, traditions, and aesthetics she found. The results are shimmering, intricate paintings and a stunning group of large, vibrant snuff bottle sculptures made from jesmonite and polymer clay.
Lim started making these sculptures in 2020, inspired by her longstanding interest with snuff bottles, which she first encountered as a teen at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. “It seemed every time I visited a museum in the U.K. there always seemed to be a vibrant collection of snuff bottles, they became for me a visual emblem of my Chinese and British heritage,” Lim recalled in a statement. “Snuff bottles were in the past treated as quite personal objects, detailed yet functional, they could fit inside the palm of your hand.” Lim’s snuff bottles are personal, too, yet they’re much larger and adorned with playful eyes, limbs, and other graceful flourishes. Combining her own experiences with those of these historical objects, Lim’s sculptures are at once intimate and magical to behold.
—Casey Lesser
Installation view of “Heidi Hahn – Kink Odelisk” at Kadel Willborn, Düsseldorf. Courtesy of Kadel Willborn.
In her new show at Kadel Willborn, New York and Düsseldorf-based painter Heidi Hahn continues her career-long exploration of female bodies, with equal attention to another subject: painting itself. She calls this way of working “narrative formalism,” placing equal emphasis on both content and materiality. Across the 14 works on view at the gallery, Hahn’s women are rendered in diaphanous washes of paint and abstracted into blocky geometric forms that prioritize contour and color over legibility. Yet, they remain recognizable, as does their affect: They collapse into themselves, limbs folded, gaze averted or out of frame altogether. Some, like Kink Odalisk #13 (2023), seem poised to dissolve into the canvas.
Perhaps counterintuitively, these gestures of refusal invite closer engagement. There is more to see here than flesh—a counterpoint to the odalisques of Ingres and Manet. As Hahn said of her subjects in an interview with BOMB, “they want to be felt rather than just seen.”
“Kink Odelisk” is Hahn’s second solo outing with Kadel Willborn, which represents the artist alongside Mitchell-Innes & Nash and Michael Kohn Gallery.
—Olivia Horn
Installation view of “Elfyn Lewis: Cân i Gymry” at &Gallery, Edinburgh, Düsseldorf. Courtesy of &Gallery.
In his second solo show at &Gallery, Welsh painter Elfyn Lewis draws inspiration from rifling through the LPs at his local record shop during his student days in the 1980s. In particular, his works reference the legendary Welsh-language alt-rock band Datblygu (one piece is even named after the band), which established a sardonic and cutting lyrical style that gave Welsh-speaking music a native musical commentary on the times.
Named after a song by the band, “Cân i Gymry” presents many small works (indeed, mostly around the dimensions of vinyl records and CD cases) that often include thick pools of paint swelling around the canvas. Slicks of pure, unmixed paint sear through gradients, splatters, and swishes: Agoriad Llygad (2022), for instance, places flag-like horizontal bars of green, yellow, black, and blue in the center of a mishmash of swept-up dark color.
Lewis, who was named Welsh Artist of the Year in 2010, wrote that the works in the show are dedicated to “musicians, friends and family, who’ve helped us believe in ourselves and what we, as a country, Cymru [the Welsh name for Wales], can be.”
—Josie Thaddeus-Johns
Installation view of “Hiroshi Sato: Transvaluation” at Marrow Gallery, San Francisco. Courtesy of Marrow Gallery.
Hiroshi Sato investigates the social disquiet of post-pandemic San Francisco in a series of new paintings at Marrow Gallery, which is based in the city.
Drawing inspiration from the aesthetics and sociocultural themes of Edward Hopper, Sato’s paintings reflect a city grappling with financial turmoil and urban uncertainty. The works convey a prevailing sense of isolation and estrangement that has come to characterize parts of the city.
Sato’s subjects are imbued with a palpable tension, depicted in locations from law offices to ice cream parlors. Reminiscent of Hopper’s portrayal of Depression-era New York, the show reflects the artist’s belief that “contemporary artists must engage with the present moment.”
—Arun Kakar
Installation view of works by Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Hank Willis Thomas, and Derrick Adams in “The Speed of Grace,” curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, at Simões de Assis, São Paulo. Courtesy of Simões de Assis.
Simões de Assis has inaugurated its new São Paulo headquarters with “The Speed of Grace,” an impressive group show organized by the powerhouse, tastemaking curator Larry Ossei-Mensah.
The show brings together a dazzling spectrum of work by beloved emerging and established names. Highlights include new works by closely watched painters Bony Ramirez and Tunji Adeniyi-Jones; collages by Deborah Roberts; a crimson durag canvas by Anthony Akinbola; editions by Derrick Adams and Hank Willis Thomas; and a poetic sculpture made from palm, leather, shells, and beads by the late Brazilian artist Mestre Didi.
Though the artists and works can hardly be strung together by a single theme, with this show Ossei-Mensah offers a fresh, expansive spotlight on artists of color who boldly use their work to confront entrenched power dynamics and uplift Black and Brown communities.
—Casey Lesser
