As we approach the first anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, The Art Newspaper has published an investigation that raises serious concerns that works of art taken by Russian troops from a museum in Kherson, Ukraine, in November 2022 may not be repatriated once the fighting ends. Our London correspondent Martin Bailey tells us about his story.
Installation from the 2019 Sharjah Biennial
Photo: Aimee Dawson
Plus, the Sharjah Biennial opens next week, and is the final biennial curated by Okwui Enwezor, who died in 2019, but set the blueprint for the show, entitled Thinking Historically in the Present. We talk to Nadine Khalil about the biennial and Sharjah’s place in the Middle Eastern art ecosystem.
Ming Smith's Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere (1998)
Photo: Museum of Modern Art, © Ming Smith
And this episode’s Work of the Week is Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere (1991/98) by the American photographer Ming Smith, a key piece in a new exhibition of Smith’s work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Oluremi Onabanjo, the curator of the show, tells us about the work.
• The Sharjah Biennial runs from 7 February to 11 June.
• Projects: Ming Smith, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 4 February-29 May.
• Ming Smith: Invisible Man, Somewhere, Everywhere, by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 48pp, $14.95/£17 (pb)