Francis Alÿs

Tate Modern
Bankside
June 15–September 5, 2010

Curated by Mark Godfrey and Kerryn Greenberg

Over the course of his two-decade career, Belgian-born Francis Alÿs has developed a nuanced poetics of labor, largely via low-key, wryly resonant activities: pushing a huge block of ice through his adopted hometown of Mexico City until the cube has completely melted (Paradox of Praxis, 1997); directing five hundred volunteers armed with shovels to shift a great mass of sand four inches (When Faith Moves Mountains, 2002). This major mid-career exhibition will include the multifarious documentation Alÿs produced for these and some thirty other performative projects he’s staged worldwide. Premiering will be Tornado, 2010, a video in which the artist, dashing headlong into spinning cyclones of ash and sand, searches (once again) for meaning in a world of chaos.

— Jeffery Kastner

Ernesto Neto

Hayward Gallery
Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road
June 19–September 5, 2010

Curated by Cliff Lauson

It is no mystery why Ernesto Neto has become one of Brazil’s most popular artists. He engages not just sight but touch and smell. To be fair, while this approach is crowd-pleasing, it also demonstrates a clear historical link to the heyday of Tropicália, the Rio de Janeiro–based interdisciplinary movement of the late 1960s that expanded colorful abstraction and sensory exploration (think Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticica) in the direction of audience involvement. Here Neto will showcase six participatory installations spread across two galleries and three sculpture courts. In addition to his familiar bulbous, pillow-like forms, a steel-based work will make its debut. The accompanying catalogue will include contributions from the curator, São Paulo Bienal director Moacir dos Anjos, and others, as well as a conversation between Hayward director Ralph Rugoff and the artist.

— Daniel Quiles

Thomas Struth: Photographs 1979-2010

K20 Grabbeplatz
Grabbeplatz 5
February 26–June 19, 2011

Whitechapel Gallery
77 - 82 Whitechapel High Street
July 5–September 16, 2011

Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art
Rua Dom João de Castro, 210
October 1, 2011–February 28, 2012

Kunsthalle Zurich
Limmatstrasse 270
July 17, 2013–September 12, 2010

Curated by Tobia Bezzola, Anette Kruszynski, and James Lingwood

Asked to pinpoint the essence of photography, Thomas Struth said it was “a communicative and analytical medium,” and his work is a prime example of that rigorous, intellectual approach. One of the most successful graduates of Bernd and Hilla Becher’s Düsseldorf School, Struth is also one of the strictest adherents to its influential version of Neue Sachlichkeit. This three-decade survey rounds up nearly one hundred works, from his earliest, modestly scaled and unpopulated black-and-white streetscapes to the massive color views of thronged museum and cathedral interiors that have come to define his oeuvre, concluding with a series of big new studies of industrial sites.

— Vince Aletti