Gordon Matta-Clark was already established as an “anarchytect” by the time he turned his attention to New York’s piers in the 70s, which were, at that time, a dilapidated area popular with the pre-Aids, downtown gay scene. It was into this setting that self-taught photographer Alvin Baltrop arrived to record the hedonistic homosexual displays taking place amid the desolation. There’s a connection to Liverpool’s own docklands, which fell into a similar state of disrepair in the same decade and now houses the venue for this exhibition. For the first time in the UK, this highly influential underground subculture is recorded in the double header of Matta-Clark’s destruction-as-creation and Baltrop’s photographs of the waterfront cruising.
Open Eye Gallery, Sat to 9 Feb
RC
Photograph: ALVIN JEROME BALTROP./PR
David Ostrowski’s paintings look sorry for themselves. Rough trails of paint trace the boundaries of his washed-out canvases to create windows on to nothing. Occasionally a grungy grey rectangle invades the picture plane like a concrete block. This is art with a mean hangover or painting as a semi-destitute practice. A former student of German punky bad boy painter Albert Oehlen, Ostrowski’s work is deliberately cack-handed, an impression bolstered by his current press release, a glib Q&A with cult indie film-maker Harmony Korine.
Simon Lee Gallery, W1 to 31 Jan
SS
Photograph: PR
Restraint is a major theme for the young Czech artist Eva Kotátková, who is just old enough to remember the communist regime and its post-1989 fallout in her home country. Kotátková’s most recognisable works are collages of old photos where figures seem to tie themselves in knots, with their bodies bound by white, rope-like lines or strung up like marionettes. For her first UK solo show she’s getting physical, with live performers creating “body constellations” on a giant checkerboard. Meanwhile, using a script inspired by her philosophy lecturer father, an actor plays a professor, discussing forms and styles of storytelling.
Modern Art Oxford, to 2 Feb
SS
Photograph: PR
Michael Hanna’s installations are a strange and virtually indefinable combination of behavioural psychology, sound engineering and architectural construction. Perforated steel, unfired clay and acoustic foam are built up into interior structures where experimental film fragments and sound sequences are overlaid to create highly suggestive environments. Like a research scientist, Hanna has sampled the look and sound of the goings-on during his year-long stint as the Millennium Court’s artist-in-residence. His end product may bear some resemblance to past projects such as Mouth Tank, in which visitors were invited to sit and experience a multimedia collage of looped breathing, deconstructed voice patterns and mantras.
Millennium Court Arts Centre, Sat to 25 Jan
RC
Photograph: PR
Modern art and political conservatism aren’t the most likely bedfellows. Here, the London-based collaborative group Pil and Galia Kollectiv question this assumption by curating a series of provocations. Included are Croatian sculptor Oscar Nemon, who fled the Nazi invasion of Brussels, arriving in London as an avant garde refugee. Later, he changed tack and became known for his bust of Margaret Thatcher, still, apparently, on its plinth at Tory HQ. The contradictory theme is taken up by the Slovenian IRWIN Group, who present a framed icon dedicated to the day in 1916 Zürich that the anarchist dada artist Hugo Ball chanted abstract poetry while dressed as a bishop.
Castlefield Gallery, to 2 Feb
RC
Photograph: PR
The 10 artists and designers up for this year’s Jameel prize are all inspired by Islamic culture but diversity is the watchword, with work veering from Arabic calligraphy to some seriously sculptural haute couture fashion. Turkish designer Dice Kayak’s dresses (pictured)resemble voluptuous buildings, with bell-like skirts and sleeves, while Mounir Fatmi’s animation nods to the recent rapid change in the Middle East, turning circular calligraphy into revolving cogs. Other highlights include the Pakistan-born Waqas Khan’s intricate ink drawings that are composed from tiny dots and lines, which take their cues from traditional miniature painting and Sufi mysticism.
Victoria & Albert Museum, SW7, Wed to 21 Apr
SS
Photograph: Dice Kayek Archive/PR
Sydney-born artist Tim Johnson’s formative creative years were spent under the influence of Australian punk band Radio Birdman and working in collaboration with Aboriginal artists. That schooling helped influence his eclectic canon, which takes in Tibetan monks, Vietnamese farmers and UFOs. It would be easy to laugh at what might come across as an overload of hippy appropriations and cliches, yet Johnson’s deadly earnestness conjures delicately painted surfaces that shimmer with a contagious aesthetic charm.
Ikon Gallery, to 9 Feb
RC
Photograph: PR
Modern cities may be built from sturdy concrete and steel, but their landscapes are anything but static. The Japanese artist Yutaka Sone’s sculptures have historically merged the natural and man-made, like his banana trees, and now he turns his attention to the island cities of Hong Kong, Manhattan and Venice. Made in collaboration with traditional craftspeople in a village in south-west China where the artist’s studio is based, they’re exactingly hewn mini-metropolises carved into marble.
David Zwirner, W1, to 25 Jan
SS
Photograph: Grant Delin/PR
