EXHIBITION: TOKYO
Francis Alÿs: Gibraltar Focus
Belgian artist Francis Alÿs is based in Mexico but travels around the world – from London to Peru, Israel to Gibraltar – to document social and political realities of today. Gibraltar Focus features around 100 works inspired and created at the Strait of Gibraltar in 2008. Using this physical and symbolic divide between Europe and Africa as a setting, Alÿs addresses the issue of national borders and immigrants through videos, installations, paintings and drawings.
Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, 4-1-1 Miyoshi, Koto-ku. Open Tuesday to Sunday, 10.00-18.00. Until 8 September.
mot-art-museum.jp
PHOTOGRAPHY: TORONTO
Saw the Splendour
Toronto-based photographer Osheen Harruthoonyan’s latest exhibition opens this week at Lonsdale Gallery in the city’s Forest Hill Village. Saw the Splendour – at first glance a visual escapade into outer space – is actually a collection of altered photographs. They’re the result of meticulously manipulated negatives through the use of chemical lifts and sculpted black-and-white emulsion over the originals. It gives the images both a sci-fi otherworldliness while maintaining the antiqued presentation that only working with traditional film can bring, to create something alien yet oddly familiar.
Lonsdale Gallery, 410 Spadina Road. Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11.00-17.00. Until 15 September.
lonsdalegallery.com
FILM: UK
What Maisie Knew
Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s latest film may be based on a 1897 novella but it's never been more appropriate for today’s society. Adapted for modern-day New York, the film is told from the perspective of the titular character, played by six-year-old Onata Aprile, whose rocker mother and art dealer father are splitting up and remarrying other people. Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan play the adults but it is Aprile who is the film's emotional core, impeccably capturing the vulnerability of an intelligent girl caught between quarrelling parents.
In cinemas throughout the UK. See website for details.
curzoncinemas.com
ART FAIR: SÃO PAULO
SP – Arte/Foto/2013
The seventh edition of SP-Arte/Foto fair kicked off earlier this week at São Paulo’s upscale JK Iguatemi shopping centre. Considered Brazil’s most important photography event, around 250 images are on display with a special focus on local talent such as sculptor-turned-photographer Vik Muniz and the social commentary found in the documentary work of Sebastião Salgado. As for the galleries, we recommend A Casa da Luz Vermelha, from Brasília and Kamara Kó, from Belém.
Shopping JK Iguatemi, Av Pres Juscelino Kubitschek, 2041, Vila Olímpia. Until 25 August.
sp-arte.com
MUSIC: GLOBAL
Shigeto: No Better Time Than Now
Using the Japanese name of his grandfather, Shigeto is the recording moniker of Detroit area beatmaker Zach Saginaw. The producer’s work is rooted in instrumental hip hop but from No Better Time Than Now’s opening crackly ambience leading onto the complex xylophone loops of “Detroit Part 1”, it’s clear that genres of any kind are a low priority. Saginaw spent three years studying jazz in New York and has absorbed a wealth of influences to help push his music from distorted, bruised electro to beautifully melodic synth hazes. Wherever he chooses to go next, the family name seems in good hands.
No Better Time Than Now is available to buy now.
ghostly.com/artists/shigeto
