When you go to the museum today … you will find many myths and legends

Filled with ethereal fairies and magical animals, evil-looking women and monsters – not to mention the mysterious evil woman living in a gingerbread house – fascinating and terrifying myths continue the magic. Children are fascinated by cannibalism, as Margaret Atwood mentioned earlier. They are constantly being re-told and reconsidered, changing from the ancient myths to the writings of Brother Grimm; from Disney to Angela Carter to the newly launched Kengo Kuma Museum in Denmark, based on articles by Hans Christian Andersen.

Artists have also been fascinated by ancient myths. When the Victorians came in as a dream, the little story scenes like Sleeping Beauty, The latest interpretation comes with a feminine distortion – like the Little Red Riding Hood seen by Kiki Smith’s eyes. During the year, fairy tales have been turned into a series of exhibitions: the only exhibitions of modern artists making their own complex and intriguing stories.

“I have worked on Korean and European myths, and everything is the same. There is almost always a beautiful young woman who turns into an old cow, ”says a London-based artist. Claire Partington. “It’s nice to be a little nervous. They’re easy to get along with; it’s a common language in cultures.”

Partington present show (March 19) at Winston guards a Seattle museum sings and releases a new portrait of his work, Mythical Story (published by the Amsterdam gallery KochxBos), which shows how his sculpture works originated as a literal translation of fairy tales and grew into modern myths. Its old clay sculptures (from £ 10,000 to £ 16,000) contain traditional and well-known cultural artifacts; of golden hair, the legend of gold wings lives The Bachelorette (2021), lying on the floor next to a bottle of beer, wearing a minidress and flops.

I was encouraged by Goya. But also the reviews of horror movies

In his recent work, several people refer to Grimm’s story Brother and Sister (adapted from the Russian people’s story); combines the blue and white models of Delft with Georgian luxury clothing, as well as the versatility of animals and human heads. “It’s a story about change and transformation, like, ‘Don’t drink water, you’ll be a fish.’ Or, ‘Do not touch that, you will become a wolf,’ ”says Partington.

More rustic – but rich in symbols – is the work of ceramic Kathy Ruttenberg, which will be displayed everywhere Lyles & KingThree locations in New York since March 19. The magnificent ceramic sculptures, small and large, depict its own forest: the leafy and remote corner of Ulster County in upstate New York, where it is shared by small animals. “Every day is like the Grimm legend around here; it’s not just a myth, it’s a reality, ”he laughs. “The pigs are here in the studio with me right now.” In addition to the four Vietnamese pork chops – Trixie, Sir Francis Bacon, Oola and Boris – there are goats, peacocks, Angora rabbits, cats, dogs and horses. “It’s all a great establishment,” he says of his establishment. “I think it’s an escape and a distraction. I’m making my own film right now. I’m a director.”

Ruttenberg’s visual stories are almost always based on a picture: a woman who grew hairy branches, plucked by a flock of birds; a man with a deer’s head high on a tree with legs – and high heels. “[Ruttenberg] It undermines human, animal, and environmental governance, ”said Isaac Lyles, executive director of Lyles & King.

In a new show, called The Midnight Sun, legends have a modern-day paradigm. Length – meter Mankind Needs a Miracle (2020), a girl looks at an angel over a leafless tree, with an owl and an owl represented; in a small piece called The Sky Drops (2020), looks under the sun at a burning distance. “Sometimes I just want to wrap myself in a tree,” says Ruttenberg. “Sometimes I think my life is crazy, but other days it just doesn’t work. I feel so connected to the world. And it is beautiful. ”

The home of artist Klara Kristalova in the suburbs of Norrtälje, Sweden, is also a delight. “While living here, I meet more deer than humans,” says the Czechoslovak artist. “It’s not always fun – it can be boring, especially – but it’s good for my skills. I’m always on the job.” His garden has become a repository for his worst sculptures – with horse heads or baskets with long curly black hair, their pale faces. “I love their play. In my career, that’s a joke and the most important. I have a very black joke. I’m very encouraged. Goya. Also comments on horror movies. ”He also mentions his work as a dry film: an event that is about to take place. Something strange and unexpected. Maybe something terrible. “But you have to think for yourself.”

For the next demonstration of Kristalova – on Photos of Norrtälje Art Gallery in May; move to Perrotin in New York in September – his interest in transition has shifted from adolescence to future life. “The work of older women is strange and mysterious,” she says, adding that she is currently working on a mechanical project to be set up in the French town of Le Havre, which will be based on a sea monster – “a major threat.” – surrounded by marine life.

It is a boon to fleeing to a sad world outside the studio

But it is not the only sculpture that has a momentary moment. The woodcuts and paintings of Cologne’s twin brothers Gert and Uwe Tobias “reflect their Romanian heritage as well as local legends, costumes, handicrafts and vernacular languages,” says artist Rodolphe Janssen. They depict flying creatures, photographs or floral sculptures, floating in a beautiful but gem-filled world filled with a myriad of myths and fiction rather than real stories. “Like fairy tales, some of our works exist in a place and eternity, the same world,” says Gert, in preparation for the grand exhibition at Contemporary Fine Arts Berlin from March 4th. “Unreasonable, fun, and the same thing.”

The most vivid and mysterious are the paintings by Indian artists Shaw winner, whose work will be on display at the Dries Van Noten project site in LA from 16 February to 26 March. Bringing together stories and symbols from the east and west, the beautiful landscape of Shaw, a foreign land (POA, from Pace Gallery) often remembers his childhood in Kashmir. In memory of the work of Hieronymus Bosch, busy events are associated with anthropomorphic and are hardly made in enamel and metallic dyes.

Shaw relates: “As a kid, I was fascinated by myth. “I started living in a fantasy world that I created in my head and I was able to turn a strange place into a magical world with my eyes closed.” Dear copy of The Giant Book of Myths, published by Hamlyn, is frequently featured in his paintings, including one which takes place on his own opening on April 20 at the Ca ‘Pesaro Museum in Venice. “I have always used myths as illustrations to describe and record my experiences,” he explains.

Like Ruttenberg and Kristalova, Shaw has surrounded himself with a spectacular place to create his work; but for him his place is the old sausage factory in Peckham. Nonetheless, green planting, including a collection of Bonsai trees, and magic, with water swirling over alpine rocks built in 2020. well in the Wellies. “Almost all the photos of my next show are placed inside the rockery,” he says. “I’m fleeing to a sad world outside the studio.”