What we're seeing this week

OPENINGS

The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World
14 December – 5 April
MoMA, New York
moma.org

Showing recent work by 17 artists, The Forever Now (click here to read an interview with the show’s curator) identifies a shared timelessness, or ‘atemporality’, in numerous works produced in the early years of this millennium. Varied in style, form and subject, the nearly 90 works on show evade easy categorisation, combining genres and referencing multiple moments from art history, engaging with traditional styles and reworking for the current moment. It’s an intriguing premise that raises questions about originality, subjectivity, and our image-led age, but aside from this curatorial endeavour, the exhibition is simply a dazzling survey of recent painting, with works by the likes of Oscar Murillo, Joe Bradley, Nicole Eisenman, Mark Grotjahn, Julie Mehretu and Laura Owens.

Mark Grotjahn, Untitled (Circus No. 1 Face 44.18), 2012. © Mark Grotjahn. Photograph by Douglas M. Parker Studio

Laure Prouvost
Neuer Berliner Kunstverein Showroom, Berlin
16 December – 23 January
nbk.org

Winner of the 2011 Max Mara Art Prize for Women and the Turner Prize in 2013, Laure Prouvost has been much celebrated in recent years, but this exhibition is her first solo show in Germany. In videos and installations, including Swallow (2013) and Burrow Me (2009), she combines text and image to examine the idea of miscommunication, from slips of the tongue to translation errors, all drawn from her own experiences as a Frenchwoman living in London.

Laure Prouvost, Swallow, 2013. © Neuer Berliner Kunstverein

Give and Ye Shall Receive: Gift Giving in the Middle Ages
16 December – 15 March
Getty Center, Los Angeles
getty.edu

At a time of year when the giving of gifts can lose its meaning, this exhibition of precious illuminated manuscripts sheds light on the cultural, social and spiritual significance of the exchanging of gifts. These ornate illustrations not only depict gift giving in medieval society, but the manuscripts themselves would have been commissioned as luxurious gifts, to forge alliances or celebrate important milestones. This is an exhibition that celebrates the form of these beautiful books as much as the history of patronage and gift giving.

Franco dei Russi, cutting from a choir book, 1470s The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles

Angelo Filomeno: The House of Magic Affection
18 December – 31 January
Galerie Lelong, New York
galerielelong.com

When encountering his delicately embroidered paintings, it is no surprise to discover that Angelo Filomeno has a background as a tailor and professional costumer. With over a dozen recent paintings and a series of intimate works on linen, this display highlights Filomeno’s technical skill in using rich materials such as silk, crystal and metal. In jarring contrast to the immediate allure of these works, the artist regularly employs macabre imagery of insects, skeletons, reptiles and human body parts, reminiscent of mythological stories and the darkest fairy tales.

Angelo Filomeno, Amulet (Green Akrep), 2013. Courtesy Galerie Lelong, New York © the artist

LAST CHANCE TO SEE

Annette Kelm: Staub
Until 21 December
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne
koelnischerkunstverein.de

Included in MoMA’s prestigious New Photography exhibition in 2013, Annette Kelm is one of a young generation of artists bringing fresh approaches to the photographic medium. Working with an analogue camera and printing by hand, Kelm works across multiple genres — still lifes, portraits, cityscapes and landscapes — and her subjects are equally difficult to pin down, from feminism and the women’s movement, to consumerism and mass-production, to entirely decontextualised images of flowers. The common strand running throughout is a concern for the nature of imagery and representation, often critically explored through the visual language of advertising.

Annette Kelm, Untitled (Cardboard, Paisley, Ladder, Hands), 2013. Courtesy of the artist and Johann König, Berlin