Art Monthly

‘Uneasy About ESEA’ – Morgan Quaintance argues that the homogenising effect of the ESEA label risks blocking a transformative and reciprocal exchange between global regions

October Art Monthly
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[image: Momoe i manu ae ala atae’e Tasker, ‘Protest banner for West Papua’, 2024]

A gallery view of an appliqué protest banner proclaiming: ‘Solidarity, Liberation, Self-determination. Free West Papua’.

“The flaw of binary models, which are used in geographical and community-based distinctions to cast the West as negative other, is that they come bundled with a Manichaean moral imperative: the body defining itself against the West must be made to stand for almost everything that the West is not.”

‘Looking Back in Anger’ – Naeem Mohaiemen interviewed by Amna Malik

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[image: Naeem Mohaiemen, ‘Through a Mirror, Darkly’, 2025]

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A shot of monochrome archival film strip showing a cameraperson filming an interviewee while soldiers watch on.

“Why had I never heard about Jackson State where, in that same month of 1970, there had been a shooting of African-American students? The two black students who died at Jackson State are not well remembered compared with the fatal event around the deployment of the National Guard at Kent State.”

An image of an 8-bit video game screen showing a tree in a fantasy landscape.

October art jobs, residencies, grants, exhibitions and other artists’ opportunities, plus art listings, podcasts and more in the latest newsletter:

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[image: Suzanne Treister, ‘Are You Dreaming?’, 1991–92, from the series ‘Fictional Videogame Stills’]

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TAKING ART APART SINCE 1976

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Art Monthly magazine October issue with a cover featuring a close-up photograph of a motorcycle kicking up dirt

Art Monthly, Issue 490, Oct 25

• Naeem Mohaiemen interviewed by Amna Malik

• Uneasy About ESEA – Morgan Quaintance

• On Obsolescence – Bob Dickinson

• On Magazines – Chris Townsend

• Karimah Ashadu – Profile by Kathryn Lloyd

+ news, views, reviews…

cover: Karimah Ashadu, ‘Machine Boys’, 2024

‘Kaari Upson: Dollhouse’, Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk – Elizabeth Fullerton

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[image: Kaari Upson, ‘Dollhouse’]

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A gallery view that features drawings hung on the walls and a central sculpture that consists of two folded and crushed leather sofas.

“Kaari Upson developed ‘The Larry Project’ after she snuck into the abandoned mansion of her parents’ neighbour, a wannabe Hugh Hefner, and discovered a trove of dream journals and photographs detailing his aspirations to a playboy mogul lifestyle.”

‘Sophie Podolski: Wisdom Should be Sung’ • ‘Milly Thompson: My Body Temperature is Feeling Good’, Goldsmiths CCA, London – Daniel Culpan

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[image: Milly Thompson, ‘White wine Lanzarote’, 2015]

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A childlike painting of a hand holding a glass of wine.

“In their paean to hedonism, Milly Thompson’s works nonetheless offer a feminist edge: that of the viewpoint so often either neglected or mocked of a middle-aged woman.”

‘Permindar Kaur: Mirror, Mirror • Prem Sahib: Doubles’, Pitzhanger Manor, London – Paul Carey-Kent

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[image: Prem Sahib, ‘Apotropaic I’, 2023]

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A sculpture consisting of two freestanding hoodies, the back garment resting its sleeves on the shoulders of the one in front.

“Sir John Soane’s out-of-town house is a particularly distinctive location, and Sahib is well-placed to make an unusually localised response to it. Born in 1982, he grew up nearby, and has fed the area into his autobiographically infused work over the past decade.”

‘Leonardo Drew: Ubiquity II’, South London Gallery – Andrew Chesher

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[image: Leonardo Drew, ‘Ubiquity II’]

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A large gallery space is filled with debris that forms two pyramidal stacks against opposing walls.

“What is this tableau of wreckage? Recent media images of Gaza's destruction come to mind. So, too, does the devastation wrought some two decades ago by Hurricane Katrina, especially to black working-class communities in New Orleans. But Drew speaks in formal terms.”

‘Abstract Erotic: Louise Bourgeois, Eva Hesse, Alice Adams’, Courtauld Gallery, London – Matthew Bowman

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[image: Eva Hesse, ‘No Title’, 1966]

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A sculpture featuring three ovoid forms hanging in nets that are pinned to the wall.

“In Eva Hesse’s work there are certainly body-like forms apparent: aspherical forms ensnared within netted bags in one work and the odd couple of a quasi-phallus conjoined with a quasi-testis in another work certainly allude in that direction. Yet this is a case where caution should be exercised.”

‘Rebecca Horn: Cutting Through the Past’, Castello di Rivoli, Turin – Maria Walsh

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[image: Rebecca Horn, ‘Cutting Through the Past’, installation view]

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A view of a large gallery space with a mirrored back wall set with a central window looking out onto trees beyond; the centre of the room is occupied by a low plinth featuring sculptural elements that include bare tree branches.

“As happens with retrospectives when the artist is deceased, there is now a rush to reframe Rebecca Horn’s work in terms of contemporary themes, such as nonhuman kinships. While Horn did stage interactions between herself and a cockatoo, this studio performance is arguably centred on mimicry.”

Maryam Tafakory – Profile by Luisa Lorenza Corna

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[image: Maryam Tafakory, ‘Razah-del’, 2024]

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A video still showing a close up of a newspaper featuring a photograph of figures seen from behind as they gaze out to sea.

“The brilliance of Maryam Tafakory’s approach lies in reversing the usual way prohibitions are signposted: she turns the gaze towards the film industry’s efforts to keep desire within the frame, and the shifts in image-reading this prompted across Iranian spectatorship.”

‘Dance Class’ – Chris Townsend celebrates the transgressive power of dance, from the bacchanale to the rave, and laments its repression under late capitalism.

September Art Monthly

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[image: Mark Leckey, ‘Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore’, 1999]

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A video still from vintage 1970s film footage of four Northern Soul dancers in an otherwise empty hall.

“Consider the dance marathons of the US’s 1930s depression era, dramatised in Sydney Pollack’s 1969 film ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ If there’s a finer allegory of industrial capitalism’s ruthless demands upon the human, I’m struggling to find it.”

‘Talking in Class’ – Dave Beech argues that we are still lacking the political will or the theoretical tools to talk about class

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[image: Jo Spence, with Terry Dennett, ‘The Highest Product of Capitalism’, 1979]

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A monochrome photo of the artist standing in front of a wedding photographer’s shop holding a sign reading: ‘I’ll take (almost) any work.’

“Downplaying the political narrative has the mysterious effect of pushing the working class as an empirical category into the history of capitalism while denying it a place in contemporary capitalism.”

Hilary Lloyd interviewed by Chris McCormack

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[image: Hilary Lloyd, ‘Sunglasses’, 2021]

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A video still of a model from a magazine wearing sunglasses.

“One of the things about filming people is that if somebody is doing something that they are consumed by then they will become glorious, otherwise they’re feeling under threat from the camera or what’s being demanded.”

An image made up of gridded panels that show a digitally altered orange ring against an amorphous green background.

September art jobs, grants, exhibitions and other artists’ opportunities, plus art listings, podcasts and more in the latest newsletter:

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[image: Felicity Hammond, V3: Model Collapse, 2025, artist talk, 6.30pm 12 Sep, The Photographers’ Gallery, London]

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Delivered to your door:
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TAKING ART APART SINCE 1976

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Art Monthly magazine September issue with a cover featuring a colorised inverted photograph of a face with text overlaid across reading as follows: “which pain does film cure?”

Art Monthly, #489, Sep 2025

• Hilary Lloyd interviewed by Chris McCormack

• Talking in Class – Dave Beech

• Dance Class – Chris Townsend

• Maryam Tafakory – Profile by Luisa Lorenza Corna

• On Residencies – Maria Fusco

+ news, views, reviews, more…

[cover: Maryam Tafakory, ‘Razeh-del’, 2024]