Five-Star Review: Sandra Mujinga

“Love Language” at Croy Nielsen, Vienna

by Maximilian Geymüller

View of “Love Language,” Croy Nielsen, Vienna, 2023. All images courtesy: the artist and Croy Nielsen, Vienna. Photos: Kunst-dokumentation.com

View of “Love Language,” Croy Nielsen, Vienna, 2023

Sandra Mujinga, And What Was Left (5) , 2023, faux leather, cotton, threads, eyelet, 58 × 42 × 18 cm

Sandra Mujinga Slow Water (2) (detail), 2023, plexiglass, paper, acrylic paint, invisible seal glue, 112 × 82 × 4 cm

Sandra Mujinga, Love Language (3) (detail), 2023, aluminum, steel, Velcro, 110 × 60 × 195 cm

In her second solo show at Vienna's Galerie Croy Nielsen, Preis-der-Nationalgalerie 2021 winner Sandra Mujinga continues her excursions into the posthuman. Her grim look at the existential, including animal survival strategies revealed in detached skins, is lightened up surrealistically: A swarm of glove-jellyfish hybrids hangs on one of the walls, while three giant armadillos seem to be disappearing, their rear ends still visible, silver metal scales laid down on the exquisite fin-de-siècle parquet. An extra Huysmans moment for free.

Title: ★★★☆☆
Looks: ★★★★☆
Curatorial concept: n/a
Press text: ★★☆☆☆
Printed matter: n/a
Installation: ★★★★★
Lighting: ★★★★☆
Color story: ★★★☆☆
Execution: ★★★★★
Relevance: ★★★★☆
Boldness: ★★★☆☆
Discourse-friendliness: ★★★★☆
Viewer-friendliness: ★★★★★
Market-friendliness: ★★★★☆
Pleasure factor: ★★★★☆
Surprisingness: ★★★★★
Thought fodder: ★★★★☆
Hopefulness: ★★★★★

_______INSERT_______

THE SHOW GETS 4 OUT OF 5 ARMADILLO TAILS!

_________________________________________________________________________________

“Love Language”
Croy Nielsen, Vienna
3 Feb – 18 Mar 2023

Views

Five-Star Review

Sandra Mujinga

Croy Nielsen

Nilbar Güreş, Mayzu, 2022. Courtesy: the artist and mumok, Vienna. Photo: Oliver Ottenschläger

Remix as Revitalization

A group exhibtition at mumok, Vienna invited artists to pair their work with objects from the museum collection, briefly reversing the flows of power at the heart of modernism.

Spike Events

Spike x Tezos: Deepsalon #2

Our second panel with Tezos on art and Web3 takes on digital collecting, participatory engagement, and on-chain marketplaces. Thursday, 23 March 2023, 6pm at despace berlin.

Discourse

Caravaggio, Narcissus ,1597–99, oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm. Courtesy: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome

Caravaggio, Narcissus,1597–99, oil on canvas, 110 x 92 cm. Courtesy: Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica, Rome

Tragedy and the Superflat

As the blender of post-modernity makes an ever-smoother paste of our selves and our projections, Daniel Moldoveanu asks if we are becoming front-row voyeurs of a death we could prevent.

Discourse

Avalon Lurks (left) and Dese Escobar (right) at the PIN-UP party, EDITION Hotel, Los Angeles

Avalon Lurks (left) and Dese Escobar (right) at the PIN-UP party, EDITION Hotel, Los Angeles

7pm in Los Angeles

LA VIP Courtney Malick dishes on airport-hangar art mazes, who’s actually a DJ, and the yearly rerun of showing face.

Views

#74

Views of Sanja Iveković, “Works of Heart (1974–2022),” Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, 2022. All images courtesy: the artist and Kunsthalle Wien. Photos: Boris Cvjetanović

Zagreb Surrogate

Tea Hacic-Vlahovic takes in 50 years of Sanja Iveković’s irreverent polymathy at Kunsthalle Wien, from fake-masturbating above Tito’s motorcade to publishing her mother’s poems.

Discourse

Still from “EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING,” produced by Praxis Society, 2023

Still from “EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING,” produced by Praxis Society, 2023

User Error: Angel Investors on Holy Land

Hearing murmurs of crypto city-states in the making, Adina Glickstein ponders the complicated politics of exit.

Discourse

#74

Michella Bredahl, Siblings Martha, Alma, Asta and Olga in their home, 2022

be still my heart

Stephanie LaCava hovers over streams of online girlhood, scanning for the highly charged tropes and the transient beauty of the jeune fille 2.0.

Views

#74

Lion Attacking a Horse , 4th century BCE, pentelic marble. © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali. Courtesy: Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini, Rome

Lion Attacking a Horse, 4th century BCE, pentelic marble. © Roma, Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali. Courtesy: Archivio Fotografico dei Musei Capitolini, Rome

Breaks Down into Many Times

The third exhibition in a research series on Greco-Roman antiquities at Fondazione Prada, Milan, uncovers the tears, sutures, and grafts of capital-H History.

People

#01

Monica Bonvicini, Stonewall 3 , 2002, galvanized steel tubes, chains, and broken safety glass, 205 x 1230 x 100 cm. All images: © Monica Bonvicini, VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2022. Courtesy: the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich; and Galerie Krinzinger, Austria. Photo: A. Burger

Monica Bonvicini, Stonewall 3, 2002, galvanized steel tubes, chains, and broken safety glass, 205 x 1230 x 100 cm. All images: © Monica Bonvicini, VG-Bild Kunst, Bonn, 2023. Courtesy: the artist; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York; Galleria Raffaella Cortese, Milan; Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich; and Galerie Krinzinger, Austria. Photo: A. Burger

Cage Club: Monica Bonvicini

Mid-way through Monica Bonvicini’s exhibition “I do You” at the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, we’re resurfacing an interview with the artist from the very first issue of Spike.

Views

From right to left: Brittany Engel-Adams, Vincent McCloskey, Brittany Bailey, and David Thomson in Yvonne Rainer’s Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees? , 2022. Courtesy: Performa and New York Live Arts. Photo: Maria Baranova

From right to left: Brittany Engel-Adams, Vincent McCloskey, Brittany Bailey, and David Thomson in Yvonne Rainer’s Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?, 2022. Courtesy: Performa and New York Live Arts. Photo: Maria Baranova

Last Chance

Premiered in Europe last month at Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, Yvonne Rainer’s final performance aspires to complicate her legacy on questions of exclusion.

"Talk remains cheap – which doesn’t mean we should buy it"

-Ella Plevin

Outrage Inactivism