Welcome to another month with art in the spotlight. While London may hold its fair share of talent, from Yayoi Kusama to Fashioning Masculinities, there seems to be a host of emerging and ongoing events in and around various parts of the United States.
Here are some of the best shows and art this August:
Art This August: Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. March 13, 2022–August 13, 2022.
Ivorian artist Frédéric Bruly Bouabré is an artist famous for inventing his writing system and religion for the Bété people of West Africa, a group to which he belonged. During the 1900s, he started to record the world around him by drawing on found cardboard, combining images and text. His ongoing exhibit comprises 449 ballpoint pen and coloured pencil drawings, “in which each postcard-size scene correlates to a monosyllabic Bété word,” says MoMA.
Art This August: Dakota Modern: The Art of Oscar Howe at the National Museum of the American Indian, New York. March 11, 2022–September 11, 2022.
Innovative artist Oscar Howe abstractly used tribal imagery. In his painting series, stories reveal and celebrate the people and unique character of South Dakota.
Art This August: “Lee Alexander McQueen: Mind, Mythos, Muse” at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. April 24, 2022–October 9, 2022.
Alexander McQueen’s life story is one of the most beautiful yet tragic in all fashion. Nevertheless, his exhibition draws from the fashion collection of Regina J. Drucker and LACMA’s permanent holdings. These “will look at McQueen’s master craftsmanship and ability to infuse couture looks with fanciful ideas, his vivid imagination, and bold references to the outside world,” shares Art-Net.
Art This August: “The Double: Identity and Difference in Art since 1900” at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. July 10–October 30, 2022.
When two images are presented together, our eyes can’t help but look at both forms and compare them. We essentially “see twice”. The art of the double causes us to see ourselves seeing. Here 120 works will enhance the idea of repetition and “reflect –or even create – senses of identity that are instead singular.”