Top Exhibitions to See from Around the Globe

Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa

M Leuven, Belgium 

06 May – 30 October 

Ramírez-Figueroa often defines his artistic practice as one of storytelling and prop-making, which is often informed by, but distinct from, theatre. In the installation Deus Ex Machina (2021), for instance, he refers to a trope in ancient Greek theatre, in which a god comes down to resolve an apparently unsolvable problem for mortals. In these plays, the divinity would often appear hanging from ropes. Here, however, Ramirez Figueroa hangs a bronze branch in place of a deity, which is surrounded by masks that refer to the saints and gods who, in Guatemalan folklore, represent the protection of nature. – Fernanda Brenner  

‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’

National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., US 

10 April – 17 July 

In a 2018 article for this magazine, I argued that Toyin Ojih Odutola’s portraits of a fictional Nigerian aristocracy were radical for depicting their protagonists at leisure, cementing a Black experience entirely devoid of struggle or oppression. Four years on, ‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’ is setting a similar benchmark, arguing for an art-historical narrative that defies its non-Black viewers to walk away thinking – however beautiful or terrible an experience for Black people it might represent – that it has nothing to do with them. – Chase Hall 

The 12th Berlin Biennale

Various venues, Berlin, Germany 

11 June – 18 September 

One of the Biennale’s curatorial threads examines the ways in which the generational trauma of French colonialism is metabolized in the body, most notably in Tuan Andrew Nguyễn’s four-channel video installation The Specter of Ancestors Becoming (2019) about the descendants of Senegalese tirailleurs who took Vietnamese wives. Also of note are Mai Nguyễn-Long’s delightful Vomit Girl (Berlin Cluster) (2022), clay sculptures inspired by Vietnamese Dinh architecture, and her unnerving installation of doll parts and plants in jars that recall specimens of Agent Orange-affected organs and foetuses (Specimen, 2014). – Rahel Aima 

Lili Reynaud-Dewar

Layr, Vienna, Austria 

09 June – 30 July 

‘I invited men into my hotel room and asked them very personal questions about their lives’ is an exhibition that positions speech as the primary means of sexual differentiation. Lili Reynaud-Dewar is the titular hostess, her likeness reproduced 14 times in ten mounted, aluminium-framed prints and four cylindrical, printed-silk lampshades (all 2022). Here, continuing a decade-long practice of representing her body unclothed yet painted, Reynaud-Dewar’s naked skin is coloured a shade of vermillion. – Miriam Stoney

Douglas Gordon 

Dundee Contemporary Arts

29 May – 07 August 2022

In one sense, the presentation of Douglas Gordon’s k.364 (2010) at Dundee Contemporary – its first showing at a UK public institution – marks a homecoming for the influential Scottish artist. This seems appropriate for a film that centres on personal and artistic return: what does it mean to go back? How can the story of such a journey be represented? – Helen Charman 

^{Main image: Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Patrick Potot, Hotel du Pré, Room 506, Paris, March 2022, 2022, video, edition of 2 plus 1 artist's proof. Courtesy: the artist and Layr Vienna}