The artist list for The Historical Exhibition of Manifesta11, that I am co curating has been announced - go see (a few missing names still being added including the amazing archive of Aaron Moulton) 

Too many to list here but here are some personal highlights include: Evelyne Axell, James Son Thomas, Giovanna Olmos, Paulina Olowska, Susan Hiller, Bhakti Baxter, Chris Burden, Aleksandra Domanovic, Michael Smith, Steven Claydon, Mark Leckey, Thomas Ruff, Frances Stark, Trisha Baga, Sophie Calle, Coco Fusco, Martine Syms, Jeremy Shaw amongst many other (around 100 artists in total...)

It's gonna be a busy couple of months...

(Image Anne Collier, Women With Cameras, 2014, Sixty-one 35 mm slides, 35mm slide projector, pedestal stand, and base, Edition of 3 + 1 AP, Courtesy of the artist and The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow, Lender Name: The Modern Institute/Toby Webster Ltd, Glasgow)

Best in Show: 2015

Stuck this up on Dazed Digital but wanted to archive here too. My best of 2015! 

Apart from my own shows of course...

December is the ideal time to round up an abundance of exhibitions in a tidy top ten – to compare and contrast what we saw, missed, liked and hated. There is no way anyone can be comprehensive. We still mourn missing shows in Paris, NYC, Istanbul, LA and all the rest that aren’t included below. Nonetheless, these are some of the best exhibitions you could see in 2015. Work that made us cry, tingle, laugh, spin out and look at the world in a different way.

WOLFGANG TILLMANS AT DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK

Tillmans first major solo exhibition with David Zwirner in New York was jaw-droppingly good. The huge exhibition felt as thorough and expansive as a museum solo show and highlighted how Wolfgang is often at his best when he focuses on the everyday. Some of the show-stoppers were a simple weed in a pavement, a pile of dirty washing and oddly formed tomatoes.

Grey jeans, inside, 2012Courtesy David Zwirner, New York

LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE AT THE SERPENTINE GALLERY, LONDON

This British painter’s major solo show at The Serpentine proved she is arguably one of the best painters of her generation. Black figures were presented in heroic, hypnotic portraits. This work in particular reinvented the representation of the figure as well as an approach to blackness in one of its most nuanced forms.

4am Friday, 2015Courtesy of Serpentine Gallery

HAROON MIRZA AT MUSEE TINGUELY

Mirza’s show at the Musee Tinguely in Basel was the best exhibition that you probably haven’t seen. The artist layered his work – in the form of his studio Hrm199 – over the museum’s own collection of kinetic art. The British artist presented incredible audio, light and sculptural installation works, including collaborative pieces with artists including Jeremy Deller and Channa Horwitz. If you missed it, at least get the catalogue.

Courtesy of Lisson Gallery

SAMARA GOLDEN AT CANADA GALLERY, NEW YORK

Walking into this space was the most disorientating experience. The floors mirrored with projected clouds floating across them while tables were on the walls. A heavy noise drone played throughout the space – making things even more upside down. One of the most refreshingly odd experiences of the year.

Courtesy of Canada Gallery

CYPRIEN GAILLARD AT SPRUETH MAGERS, BERLIN

This 3D film work was so well made that thousands came through the doors of Sprüeth Magers’ Berlin space. The piece focused on weird swaying trees, grown from seed presents (to American Olympic winner Jesse Owens) by the Nazis, and fireworks above the 1936 Olympic Stadium against a looped perfect sample from Alton Ellis’ Blackman’s Word. The work of Gaillard’s career.

Cities of Gold and Mirror, 2009Courtesy of Spruth Magers

HIPPIE MODERNISM AT THE WALKER ART CENTER, MINNEAPOLIS

The Walker Art Center programming is so good you know why Minneapolis' local Prince stays in the area. The latest show explores the counter-cultural experiments in art, architecture and design – from geodesic domes to the graphic work of Emory Douglas, the show demonstrates how radical creativity in the late 60s really was and what we can learn from it.

The Struggle for Utopia, 2015Courtesy of Walker Art Center

SOFTWARE, HARD PROBLEM AT CUBITT, LONDON

Morgan Quaintance is a curator (writer and broadcaster too) with a brilliant take on creating exhibitions. He has now been appointed curator of artist run Cubitt in Islington and his first show with Cecile B Evans, Dazed Emerging Artist Award Winner Lawrence Lek and older artist Manfred Mohr was a great take on the role of software in art.

Courtesy of Cubitt

JON RAFMAN AT ZABLUDOWICZ, LONDON

Rafman’s solo show at London’s Zabludowicz collection, which followed a solo in Montreal, was filled with video installations that were watched lying down on waterbed mattress, sitting on a massage chair, in a pool of floating plastic balls, in hot tight metal cabinets, in the set of a stained teenagers bedroom and in a 3D fake garden maze. The perfection mix of computer nerd tropes and contemporary art dialogues.

Main SqueezeCourtesy of Zabludowicz Collection

MARK LECKEY AT CABINET, LONDON

Who doesn’t love Mark Leckey? Leckey has created a new film work that debuted at Cabinet gallery that will floor fans of Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore. An incredible cut and paste narrative that brings together the artist’s own biography and themes about changing media interfaces and our relationship to the space race alongside the music and moods of popular culture.

The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things, 2013Courtesy of Cabinet

TETSUMI KUDO AT HAUSER & WIRTH, LONDON

Dazed was ahead of the game when we profiled the late Japanese auteur Tetsumi Kudo, who this year got a deservedly exciting solo show at Hauser & Wirth in London and Zurich. In both spaces, the interior of the gallery was covered with bright green Astroturf to provide a plus setting for Kudo’s straight electro penis cage, acid terrarium sculptures and UV tech-organic installations. Hard to forget.

Cultivation of Nature & People Who Are Looking at It (1970-71)Courtesy of Hauser & Wirth

Three things that made me happy this week

1) My E-Vapor-8 show at 319 Scholes in New York last May was mentioned as one of the 10 Pivotal Moments in Digital Art in 2012. Blush.

2) Island Pavillion launched with some rather mouthwatering prints by some good young artists (including a few I have put in past exhibitions and projects Alexander Peverett, Sara Ludy and Petra Cortright) The digital psychedelic Peverett above was obviously my top choice.

3) Mark Leckey is doing a Artist Film Club event at the ICA Jan 9. I bought tickets months ago and am overexcited its almost here.

Best in Show: 2011

This is my third annual round up of the best art shows of the year (see 2010 and 2009).

1 Mark Leckey at Printemps de Septembre

2 Friedrich Kunath at Whitecube Hoxton Square

3 Christoph Buchel's Piccadilly Community Centre

4 Thomas Hirschorn at the Swiss Pavillion at the Venice Biennale

5 Wolfgang Tilmans at Andrea Rosen (chosen by Beatrix Ruf)

6 The launch of French Riviera gallery culminating in the brilliant Les Televisions

7 Without Sanctuary (thought this was far more than exhibition and shouldnt really be judged in these confines)

8 Ostalgia at the New Museum (glimpse of Michael Schmidt U-NI-TY installationbelow)

9 Il Labirinto di Cristallo at Bubblebyte.org

10 The New Psychedelica at MU (I know I curated this but I was so pleased with the outcome and it was so important to me it would be ridiculous not to choose it. Still from Carlos Laszlo's film below)

Video of the Year

I went to the Printemps de Septembre in Toulouse last week. I liked Mark Leckey's installation so much that at one point I started having an almost drug-like reaction in front of the video. The video 'Out Demons Out' was at the heart of the project, though the sound felt very different in the space. For the rest of the layout you'll have to go see the show. The wall texts are below.

Mark Leckey

I went to Mark Leckey's performance last night at his rather awesome Serpentine show. Two recorded sound performances booming out of a soundsystem sculpture which faces a mammoth sculpture by Henry Moore and one live 6 voice shouting staccato number. It felt like he was trying to persuade the piece to come to life - bombarding it with stimulus. It was an interesting take on history and performance. A guy at the back even fainted...

I'm a massive fan of Leckey and always have been. I first interviewed him years ago for a Barbican Curve show about the relationship between club culture and art where he was showing a piece called 'Londinium' I think. There's been crazy response to Jonathan Jones' review of his Serpentine show on The Guardian (and an interesting response by Isobel Harbison on Frieze.com)

He shared his Top 5 YouTube videos with me in the current issue of Dazed which included wendyvainity and Crysis Barrels but you'll have to read the mag to see the lot and ready why. His top 5 objects are going on DazedDigital soon.

Images - Mark Blower installation view above, exhibition trailer below.

Ubuweb Top 10

So on ubuweb.com they get people recommending their top tens. These are what I'd choose at 11pm with a cold and no attempt at being thorough:

Francis Bacon - South Bank Show
http://www.ubu.com/film/bacon.html

Mark Leckey - Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore
http://www.ubu.com/film/leckey_hardcore.html

Paperrad - P Unit mixtape
http://www.ubu.com/film/paperrad_p.html

Helmut Herbst - German Dada
http://www.ubu.com/film/herbst.html

Cory Arcangel - I Shot Andy Warhol
http://www.ubu.com/film/arcangel_warhol.html

Sam Taylor Wood - Still Life
http://www.ubu.com/film/tw_still.html

Stan Van Der Beek - Symmetricks
http://www.ubu.com/film/vanderbeek_symmetricks.html

Guy Debord - The Society of the Spectacle
http://www.ubu.com/film/debord_spectacle.html

Moholy-Nagy - abstract film
http://ubu.artmob.ca/sound/aspen/qt/moholyNagy.mov

Eduardo Paolozzi - The Gay Atomic Coloring Book
http://www.ubu.com/aspen/aspen7/gayAtomic.html