Erasmia Kadinopoulou
‘Until Light Slaps’
Petrine, Paris
Until July 27

Petrine, nesting in the trendy 10th arrondissement of Paris, and making its Art Basel debut in October, currently hosts a solo show by Greek artist Erasmia Kadinopoulou. A large wooden birdhouse takes center stage with the viewer invited to peak into its holes. No bird is in sight, but instead something akin to a dialog between lights. Facing the birdhouse, two lamps embody the endless and identical movement of the sun: rising and setting. The exhibition also features photographs in the same warm tones that bathe the works on view, a small notebook like a deck of cards with poems and illustrations, and a velvet box decorated with a bird. In this silent, discreet, but very much alive setting, the light seems to be the central character, invisible yet noticeable, like the ghosts of the absent birds. J.A.

Ellen Berkenblit
‘Flugenhorns’
Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin
Until August 3

Ellen Berkenblit’s first solo exhibition in Germany showcases the evolution of her cartoonish female figures. In these large-scale paintings, the girls appear overwhelmingly tough, as they glare out, seemingly positioned against the world. Berkenblit’s pervasive use of dark backgrounds intensifies the somber mood, highlighting the inner emotional landscapes of her characters. The tigers, horses, and birds that populate some of the canvases mirror the aggrieved attitudes of her human subjects. The only respite from this intensity are the few infants that appear – their expressions of curiosity and tentative smiles accentuating the shift from the innocence of early childhood to the hardened state of these youths. Overall, the effect of these defiant works is an appealing invitation to temporarily join their protagonists’ state of discontent. A.R.

Sonia Gomes
‘…vivem no compasso do sol’
Mendes Wood DM, Paris
Until August 3

In the skilled hands of Sonia Gomes, any textile is reborn as a character, a concept, or an idea – or all of the above at once. The title of her show is borrowed from curator and researcher Yina Jiménez Suriel, and roughly translates to ‘living in the tempo of the sun.’ The sun and the Brazilian artist’s work have circularity in common – both aesthetically and poetically. Gomes only uses fabrics that she finds or receives as gifts, and in ‘…vivem no compasso do sol’, she has combined them with bronzes, collages, and drawings to widen the tales told by a new cycle of work. Her colorful, intricate, and multimedia works stand on the floor, or hang from the ceiling or the walls of the gallery spaces, creating a sanctuary for visitors to reflect on the delicate but complex entanglement of all things. J.A.

Dennis Scholl
‘Neue Wunden oder Vom Beginn der Unmittelbarkeit’
Kunstverein Göttingen, Germany
Until August 11

The paintings and drawings of German artist Dennis Scholl feel both impossibly ancient and as if they were finished just seconds ago. They depict scenes of encounter – between people, animals, plants, or hybrids of the above, often in shadowy woods or by crystalline streams. His works are populated by a cast of characters that hint at the artist’s interest in ancient Greek mythology and folktales of all sorts. In Transitional Environments (2023), for example, a genderless figure half swallowed up by a fish and evoking the German myth of Lorelei (a seductive siren of the Rhine river), rises from the water to gently kiss a protagonist emerging from a bouquet of oak leaves. Here, like in nature itself, beauty, danger, and mystery are united rather than opposed, like playful forest spirits holding hands. K.C.

Group show
‘Twilight Is A Place of Promise’
Esther Schipper, Berlin
Until August 24

Spotlighting the work of 19 painters born between 1895 and 1996, this group show takes a line from Harryette Mullen’s poem The Only Ones as both its title and a soft point of departure. Whether figurative or abstract, the wildly diverse works of the artists on view (hailing from around the globe, some historical, others established, still others just emerging) all touch on notions of inwardness, contemplation, and spirituality. There’s also a subtle, defiant politics in these pieces – highlights include works by the late Lebanese artist Huguette Caland, the colorful forms of Ethiopian artist Merikokeb Berhanu, and a poignant portrait, painted on leather, by Berlin-based American artist Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju. K.B.

Group show
‘Voyage’
Morena di Luna (Maureen Paley), Hove, UK
Until September 15

Nestled on the ground floor of a Georgian building, Morena di Luna, Maureen Paley’s second gallery, opened in 2017, in the English seaside town of Hove, the gallerist’s private escape. Its 2024 summer offering is alluring; it gathers poetic and meditative works under the evocative title ‘Voyage’. Among them are a lone figure in a rocky landscape by fast-rising painter Jake Grewal, a couple of seascapes by Merlin James, a prone body bundled in bedsheets by Mike Silva, and a series of porthole-like canvases by the late Antiguan artist Frank Walter. With a selection of lunar images chosen by antiquarian Nathaniel Lee-Jones – who runs the East-London treasure trove M. Goldstein – the exhibition beckons visitors to a journey to the moon, in a discreet nod to the Georges Méliès film Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902) from which it draws its name. C.M.

Peter Doig
Sant’Andrea de Scaphis, Rome
Until September 21

Should you find yourself walking the hot streets of Trastevere this summer, a smart way to get respite may be to stop by Sant’Andrea de Scaphis. The former church offers cool temperatures and houses a little gem: a single painting by the celebrated Scottish painter Peter Doig. His works often evoke the island of Trinidad, where he lived for many years, but this one is decisively Mediterranean: like escapees from a gladiator fight, two lions are shown interacting – whether they are fighting of flirting isn’t clear – in a stone building which opens onto a coastal landscape, rendered in the same red tones as many of Rome’s façades. It’s an ambiguous, oddly composed, and yet entirely seductive painting, which by itself manages to fill the dark interior with the type of energy that may arise from an animated discussion with a new lover, while sipping a negroni on an Italian seaside terrace. K.C.

Biennale de Bonifacio #2
Bonifacio coast, Corsica, France
Until November 2

Set against the stunning backdrop of the picturesque town at the southern tip of Corsica, the second edition of the Biennale de Bonifacio revolves around the theme of the fall of empires, highlighting the dynamics between decadence and emancipation, vandalism and heroism, ruin and foundation. Titled ‘Roma Amor’, the exhibition examines the ambivalence of history, with a special emphasis on the Mediterranean past, present, and future. Featuring just under 20 artists, including sculptures by Ali Cherri, a film by Laurent Grasso, photographs by Youssef Nabil, and a video installation by Bill Viola, the group show, organized by curatorial duo Prisca Meslier and Dumè Marcellesi, takes visitors on a poetic and emotional journey through Bonifacio’s historic cultural heritage as well as its contemporary identity. P.S.