The holidays might be the time to rest, recuperate and let yourself get a bit lazy, but don't let that stop you from leaving the house to see some amazing art! Enjoy sifting through our list of the most interesting exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout Europe that are on view through January 2019. And as a little bonus, we add one of the hottest exhibitions in the United States this winter...
Alberto Giacometti – A retrospective
— Guggenheim Bilbao —
This retrospective surveys four decades of Alberto Giacometti’s work, with over 200 sculptures, paintings and drawings. The exhibition offers a unique perspective on Giacometti’s work, showing special pieces and archive material gathered by Giacometti’s wife Annette, on loan from the Fondation Giacometti in Paris. The exhibition runs till February 24th 2019.
Website: Guggenheim Bilbao
Cecily Brown – Where, When, How Often and with Whom
— Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek —
British-born, New York-based artist Cecily Brown offers a fascinating female gaze at an in many ways male-created world. She draws inspiration from artists like Joan Mitchell, Willem de Kooning, Philip Guston and Francis Bacon and is drawn to painting’s dark and seductive elements, adding motifs from pornography and contemporary human disasters. Explore Brown’s deeply riveting works at Louisiana Museum of Modern Art until March 10th 2019.
Website: Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
Alex Katz
— Museum Brandhorst, Munich —
From December 6th 2018 – April 22nd 2019, Museum Brandhorst is hosting a major exhibition of works by Alex Katz, the American contemporary artist known for his iconic portraits of beautiful women (and especially his own wife Ada Katz). The exhibition includes over 80 works by Katz and offers an excellent overview of his oeuvre from the 1950’s to today.
Website: Museum Brandhorst
Picasso: The Sculpture
— Galleria Borghese, Rome —
Until February 3rd, you get the unique and unusual opportunity to experience the interplay between Picasso’s sculptures and Bernini’s famous marble statues at the Villa Borghese in Rome. Picasso visited Rome in 1917 and saw Bernini’s sculptures in person, which proved to influence his own artistic practice. The show is curated by Picasso’s granddaughter Diana Widmaier-Picasso together with Anna Colvina, the former director of the Villa Borghese.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
— Fondation Louis Vuitton Paris —
You still have until January 14th to experience the mind-blowing Jean-Michel Basquiat exhibition covering Basquiat’s entire career. Some of the works have never been shown before in Europe, like some of the collaborative works between Basquiat and Andy Warhol. The exhibition spans four floors of the magnificent Fondation Louis Vuitton building designed by Frank Gehry. An experience you won’t want to miss.
Website: Fondation Louis Vuitton
Turner Prize 2018
— Tate Britain, London —
Tate Britain is once again hosting the Turner Prize this year. The Turner Prize is awarded to a British artist for an outstanding exhibition or other type of presentation of their work in the preceding year. The four shortlisted artists are Forensic Architecture, Naeem Mohaiemen, Charlotte Prodger and Luke Willis Thompson. Their works explore burning social issues such as human rights violations, identity politics, and racial, class and social inequality. The winner will be announced this December, but the Turner Prize exhibition will be open to the public until January 6th 2019.
Website: Tate Britain
Jeff Koons – Works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection
— Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo —
Jeff Koons – Works from the Astrup Fearnley Collection is the fifth exhibition in a series celebrating the museum’s 25th anniversary. The collection shows the development of Koons’s works since the 1980s. Director of the Astrup Fearnley Museet, Gunnar B. Kvaran, writes about the highly divisive Koons in the exhibition catalogue: “One could add that Koons’s creative act is also – and not least – a political act, aimed at re-evaluating the cultural references of a class that for too long had been regarded as a cultural outsider.” Catch this exhibition until January 20th 2019.
Website: Astrup Fearnley Museet
Klimt/Schiele (drawings from the Albertina Museum, Vienna)
— Royal Academy of Arts, London —
This collaboration between the Albertina Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts marks the centenary of the deaths of two of the most important artists of the 20th century, Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele. The exhibition offers a fascinating insight into the artistic relationship between the artists and their different creative processes. Rare and fragile self-portraits by Schiele will even be on display, which will not be shown after this for a long time due to their delicate nature. On view till February 3rd 2019.
Website: Royal Academy of Arts
Warhol 1968
— Moderna Museet Stockholm —
In 1968, the Moderna Museet Stockholm put on a retrospective of Andy Warhol’s work, focusing on the theme of repetition. It was the first solo Warhol exhibition at a museum in Europe. The exhibition proved extremely complicated to organise given the small team at the time, and the bizarre ideas that were to be executed. However, it also turned out to be a landmark in Warhol’s career, and a fantastic roundup of what had passed. Now, 50 years later, the Moderna Museet is showing an exhibition about the exhibition! Explore the complexities behind the 1968 exhibition and Warhol’s work from the perspective of this turbulent year. Take in the bizarre beauty till February 17th 2019.
Website: Moderna Museet
Note: for those of you who happen to be in New York, the must-see exhibition of this winter is:
Hilma af Klint: Paintings for the Future
— Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York —
Hilma af Klint began creating radically abstract work as early as 1906, years before her male contemporaries Vasily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich and Piet Mondriaan started working in this abstract form. However, Af Klint kept most of her work to herself as she believed the world was not yet ready for her art. She even stipulated that it should only be shown starting 20 years after her death. It is only in the past three decades that she has been receiving more attention. And now, the artist who was so far ahead of her time is experiencing a true art world explosion. Witness the Swedish artist’s wildly impressive oeuvre until April 23rd 2019 at the Guggenheim in New York.
Website: Guggenheim New York
