What to See Across Europe This October

Danielle Mckinney | Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin | 7 September – 26 October

In ‘Haven’, Danielle Mckinney’s first solo exhibition in Berlin, the New Jersey-based artist finds new possibilities in spaces of rest and intimacy, reimagining them not only as personal retreats, but as arenas for larger cultural discourse. Mckinney is known for her stunning oil on linen works depicting Black women in repose; here at Galerie Max Hetzler her use of Old Holland paints, rich in pigments, helps to establish the depth and luminosity of the works. Mckinney builds her figures first, letting their presence dictate the mood of the scene, before adding interiors that compliment the emotional tenor of her subjects. The subtle glow of her figures emerges from the careful layering of tones, evoking both warmth and mystery. – Charles Moore

'Kathrin Sonntag and Gabriele Münter: The Travelling Eye’ | Marta Herford | 8 June 2024 – 12 January 2025

‘Kathrin Sonntag and Gabriele Münter: The Travelling Eye’ presents two German artists, both born in Berlin, yet a century apart. While Sonntag is known primarily for her photography, Münter is widely recognized for her association with the German expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter. Far more attention has been given to Münter’s paintings, but it is her photographs that form the focus of this exhibition, curated by Sonntag alongside her own work. The show borrows its title from Sonntag’s video The Travelling Eye (2024), based on photographs she took of Münter’s snapshots through a magnifying glass. The projection highlights unexpected details in the artist’s images, such as the clasped hands of a sitter or the way light falls on a scene. By pairing Münter’s photographs with ones from her own archives, Sonntag creates an uncanny dialogue  between the artists that poses the question: What does it mean to look? – Talia Kwartler

Iulia Nistor | Plan B, Berlin | 13 September – 26 October

Framed by sizeable pages of shiny acetate, the A4 worksheet­s that sit next to Iulia Nistor’s oil-on-wood paintings are both related and unrelated ­– though certainly not incidental. Per the title of her current exhibition at Plan B in Berlin, ‘paintings and propositions’, the annotated texts seemingly offer reflections on the relationship between the artist’s intentional acts of depiction, related material objects and our ways of perceiving the physical realm through pre-existing schemata. Yet they also read like pencil-scribbled musings that reflect quite generally on the philosophical nature of perception and its representational thread. For example, in one worksheet, Nistor wonders if ‘the process of individuating / an accidental, non-propositional property can make us aware of the implicit concepts of our perception’, or in other words, how we might become aware of the meaning we impose on things, and in turn, ‘question’ or ‘discard them’ altogether: her subject is the inherent push and pull between actuality and abstraction, and just where anything really exists. –Louisa Elderton

Ulla Wiggen | EMMA, Espoo | 18 September 2024 – 26 January 2025

Swedish artist Ulla Wiggen is best known for her mid-1960s paintings of electronics and computers. These flat yet intricate works resemble blueprints, often depicting circuit boards dotted with transistors, capacitors and electrical pathways. The recent surge of interest in Wiggen’s early work is due to its foresight as much as its visual appeal. Her paintings prefigure today’s digital world and highlight how we interact with our devices only at an interface level. The exact function of each piece of hardware is even more opaque today, decipherable only to the most technically proficient. – Nicholas Norton

‘Play It As It Lays’ | Charim Gallery, Vienna | 17 September – 19 October

Part of the Curated By festival in Vienna, ‘Play It as It Lays’ toys with our desire for solace and escape from an increasingly uncertain world. Taking its title from Joan Didion’s 1970 bestseller, which traces 31-year-old actress Maria Wyeth’s descent into madness amid the existentialist ennui of the 1960s, the exhibition features a range of artists whose practices grapple with the ramifications of a hyper-capitalist society.

Near the entrance, James Richards’s installation, Found Objects and Self Diagnosis Kits (2018–ongoing), is laid out on the floor with surgical precision. There is an ornamental sensibility to this extensive collection of medical supplies and disinfectants: treasured objects which help combat the fear of a contaminated life and offer a modest, if illusory, semblance of control. As well as hinting at Wyeth’s institutionalization at the beginning of Didion’s book, the work could also be seen to reference society’s tumultuous return to normality post-pandemic. – Ivana Cholakova 

^{Main image: Gabriele Münter, Guion Church (detail), Guion, Texas, 7.3.1900, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Paper on Aludibond, 17 × 17 cm. Courtesy: © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn; Gabriele Münter- and Johannes Eichner- Stiftung, München}