RFI: Current Art Exhibitions in London

the candice breitz is indeed terrific

tim i am maybe writing about janetcardiff@whitechapel 4 brown wedge, kay?

there must be better art listings than timeout surely, can anyone point me inna righter direction

Also fantastic is the four screen piece at White Cube Hoxton Square by Christian Marclay, a mesmerising collage / parallel projection of musical moments from familiar old Hollywood films which becomes a visual sample collage. And upstairs there's an interesting slideshow by Kyoichi Tsuzuki (best know for his 'Tokyo Style' book) of Tokyo pink salons, sex parlours which mimic the mise en scene of tube trains and clinics so that customers can indulge their fantasies with cosplay hostesses.

heh i thought momus might mention the tsuziki! did you see the masakatsu kondo thing at david risley perchance, unheimlich verdant VR, bit corny but not uninteresting

anyone seen the paradise thing at...er. big gallery. about paradise.

Canaletto at Nat Gall is fantastic.

would love to see this thread bumped regularly

did anyone see Christian Marclay's the Clock at the White Cube? and was anyone lucky enough to blag a slot in Bindu Shards?

Not sure if this is an appropriate thread for this or if I'm gonna get hated on for self promotion. BUT!

This will be a current art exhibition in London at the start of next month (7th July - 10th July) which is called the Streatham Festival which will involve art and also music and food and rolling London walks and all sorts of things that London ILX0rs are generally interested in.

http://www.streathamfestival.com/2011/wp-content/uploads/Streatham_Festival_2011_Programme_of_Events.pdf

On page 5 of that programme you may notice that someone has foolishly allowed yours truly to exhibit some of my sketchies! The opening is on 3rd July, and on Saturday 9th July 11am to 7pm I will be doing that "artist in residence" sitting in the glass box drawing like a monkey in a zoo thing that terrifies me so much. But they are going to allow me to DJ some music so if you felt like coming down and pointing and laughing - I mean, keeping me company and seeing some lovely London art (I'm a rank amateur obviously but Jiro Osuga is GR8) in beautiful downtown Streatham. That would be nice.

Whose is the giant pig? That's awesome.

I've no idea, to be honest. When random fabric art-things appear round our parts, we tend to just blame the Ninja Knitters.

is it just the 9th that you'll be there? will try to make it.

I may be around on the 3rd as well but running out to go to various other Festival events.

The 9th is the only day that I've committed to being in the gallery all day.

Would be nice to see you, tho! Really easy to get there, train from London Bridge to Streatham Station, the gallery is pretty much right across the road from the station.

anyone going to Bold Tendencies in Peckham multi-storey car park? opening party tonight, with sculpture spread out over the top 4 floors, and a bar set up on the roof. looks like a great spot for a summer evening, provided the weather behaves.

also, not sure if he's sneered at in some kind of lol streetart kinda way, but there's a new Barry McGee show opening tonight. his last one on vyner street was pretty amazing. you had to enter the gallery space by crawling through an upturned van that filled the doorway. even without the gimmicks, i really like his pen and ink dudes.

So, this is now tomorrow, and I have taken the unprecedented step of sourcing some PLONK in the flavours of red and white and pink so there will be DRINK if that helps persuade anyone to venture down to the wilds of South London.

Train from Kings X or London Bridge to Streatham Station (just plain Streatham, not Streatham Common or Streatham Hill, though you can bus from either of those) and it is literally across the road from the train station, well, just a little to the left. 227 Streatham High Street and there is a big blue banner on the storefront.

Did I mention there will be wine?

Anything recommended? On a soggy staycation, having worked through the hot weather. What's the best guide for exhibitions these days?

I've seen the Lee Bul exhibition at the Hayward and traipsed round Tates Modern and Britain so far.

On a mid-century tip, and depending on where you are, the Edward Bawden in Dulwich and the Gertrude Hermes in the recently re-opened Gunnersbury are both marvellous in their different ways.

Thanks ! The Gertrude Hermes looks really interesting and an opportunity for first visit to Gunnersbury.

This remains the most comprehensive listing, if you can stand to dig through the interface for what looks interesting to you:

https://newexhibitions.com/exhibitions/

I don't have a current favourite filter / source for recommendations, hence I've fallen horribly out of touch with what's going on.

I'm so glad I got to the Hermes: I have a book of her woodcuts but seeing the real things up close was a whole new thing. It's only one room but I thought it was amazing and the closer I looked to more amazing it got. Worth the hour and a half each way to get there.

Also I do like pictures of fish.

Talking of fish, and Lee Bul:

“Majestic Splendour” was first shown in 1997 at New York’s MoMA, but the smell was so offensive that museum-goers complained that it made them feel unwell, which resulted in MoMA pulling the work from the exhibition entirely. In subsequent showings of the work, the fish were encased in plastic baggies filled with potassium permanganate in an attempt to minimise the stench. Described as “a strong oxidiser similar to chlorine”, the chemical is neither toxic nor flammable, however, when combined with other combustible materials its flammability increases. After receiving expert chemical advice and deciding that the risk was too big to take – particularly given that this was just the second show of its newly opened space – the Hayward and the artist made the decision to withdraw the fish. But not before they spontaneously combusted and caused a small fire to break out in the gallery that the fire service attended.

Haha wow!

Did you like the Lee Bul?

It was good, though a bit sparse. The stand out piece being is the Tardis-like lightbulbs and mirror-maze ‘Via Negativa II’, which has an incredible understanding of space. Difficult to shake off a feeling of grey depression with her other work, for me at least.

Enjoyed the Gertrude Hermes exhibition a lot. It was good that it included examples of her sketchbooks and typical tools used in woodcut engravings. I also explored the largely deserted palatial mansion in which it was set as well, and Gunnersbury Park itself.

Carlos Cruz-Diez at Phillips in Berkeley square is good. Check and see if Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams have anything on but I thing they shut up for August.

https://instagram.com/p/Blz4jTtHpGw/

A quick recap of recent exhibitions I've visited:

Picasso and Paper, Royal Academy : Opened today. It's really more a good display of a selection of Picasso's works from throughout his career than specifically being about his use of paper. Very enjoyable, and interesting to learn just how many preparatory sketches he did for his major works. Slightly exhausting and crowded exhibition

Brigid Riley, Hayward Gallery: To be honest I think she's completely over-rated, and ploughing quite a narrow boring furrow, painfully obvious when you compare her to someone like Picasso. But the Hayward's a great space, the paintings are displayed well, and it was interesting to see early works.

William Blake, Tate Britain: I'm not sure if I just wasn't in the mood for this, but I didn't really enjoy it much at all. There's something about Blake's graphic works that gives me the creeps, in the same that reading about the Old Testament does, and I felt the need to head out of the exhibition and see some art without mythical overtones.

Rembrandt's Light, Dulwich Picture Gallery: Again, a very crowded exhibition. I guess I'm glad I saw it, but my estimation of Rembrandt actually went down. Maybe the wrong collection of pictures for me.

Tim Walker, Wonderful Things, V&A : A fantastic exhibition, taking you into its own world, creating works with unique atmospheres, and a fascinating insight into how fantastical photography is created.

Leonardo Exhibition, National Gallery: Embarrassingly bad for £15 (apart from the main painting)[. One main large room is Leonardo quotes in mirror writing on the wall. I felt so bad for them when staff asked what I thought of it that I bought a poster for another £15.

Olafur Eliasson, Tate Modern : It was really good to see so many people really enjoying this one. LOts of creative ideas and surprises.

Thanks for this - I need to see the Tim Walker one before it closes.

A few I forgot:

Lucian Freud, Royal Academy : Really enjoyed this. I hadn't realised just how small some of his self-portraits are...Really transporting to look at - there's something magical about the painting of flesh.

Dora Maar, Tate Modern : Well curated, but mostly disappeared from memory the moment I left the exhibition.

Dahn Vo, South London Gallery : Apparently this was in the Guardian's top 5 exhibitions for 2019. Didn't resonate with me at all, and I found the SLG's excellent and very radically inclined bookshop of much more interest.

...and ahem -oh dear - of course it's Bridget Riley....

I like Bridget Riley but the Hayward was such an uninterestedly curated blockbuster show. Saw it at the weekend surrounded by children called Poppy and Holly and their awful parents and it was just a magic eye posters for people who went to university. Saw a very good show of her drawings once at least ten years ago in Paris that stuck with me for a long time.

I hated the Dahn Vo exhibition as well, felt like he was just smugly displaying his huge social capital. The only bit I enjoyed was the selection curated by Julie Ault.

Unearthed: Photography's Roots, Dulwich Picture Gallery: enjoyed it a lot. An interesting way of covering the early years of photography and a well chosen selection of photos. It is quite pricey for a small show unless you have a concession.

Epic Iran, V&A: Really enjoyed this one as well. Entry was delayed by an hour or so by a security alert - so felt a bit foolish fretting over that and then coming face to face with item no. 1: a pot made from before the time of Stonehenge. Different time perspective. Good coverage across various art forms: textiles, persian miniature watercolours, calligraphy and also brings you up to date with modern artists. If you're appetite is not sated, you could then take in the V&A's excellent middle easter gallery afterwords.

Alice: Curious and Curiouser, V&A: Enjoyed it overall, but with some reservations about the way it covered wider influences of Alice which I though was a bit empty and uninventive in places.

Stretching the definition of London a bit to include Oxford (less than a hour from Paddington, I enjoyed the Ashmolean's new "Tokyo: Art and Photography" exhibition.

Despite the dubious garish publicity photo/flyer, this doesn't just concentrate on the Tokyo nightlife scene, but uses a wide variety of artworks to illustrate the development of Tokyo as a mega-city.

Two exhibitions at the National Gallery are both well worth seeing.

Durer - a good assemblage of works covering his travels to the Alps, Italy, Venice and Netherlands. The oil paintings were something of a revelation as I was unaware of them, and I preferred them to the etchings (though of course appreciate the incredible craftsmanship involved in his etching). Exhibition space is slightly dark.

Poussin - a smaller exhibition illustrating Poussin's fascination with antiquities and how he portrayed dance in his paintings. Really nice done, with plenty of space to admire the paintings/artwork , and a very good film included as well. Really liked this exhibition.

Ty for this - I might miss the Poussin cos I’m only briefly in before end of year but I’ll certainly check out the Durer

Love Poussin & Durer, shame I won't be able to make it to these :(

Wonder if it has Poussin's filthy satyr paintings?

Satyrs do feature - but nothing explicitly filthy.

Just a quick plug for the refurbished Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House. Already an outstanding collection, they've done an amazing refurb job and the lighting in particular is fantastic, enabling you to really see paintings. The art cafe just opposite is also very good. I will be making return visits.

One of my bugbears about the National Gallery is that a lot of the paintings in their exhibitions are hung in gloomy basement spaces that don't bring out the colours, and where you struggle to see details properly. This was particularly evident in the recent Gauguin exhibition, which it looks like I forgot to review, and where the paintings didn't look nearly as colourful as they did in the accompanying film and catalogue.

The Kawanabe Kyosai exhibition at the Royal Academy was sold out yesterday, so I visited their Whistler's Woman in White Exhibition:Joanna Hiffernan instead.

It is quite interesting but only 3 rooms - and I'm not really sure it justifies the £17 charge in this cash-constrained times. Main findings: I don't enjoy Whistlers etchings or sketches much (so that's one room mostly wasted); I like his use of 'japonisme' - so preferred Symphony in White No. 2 to the main featured No. 1., and enjoyed the small series of Hiroshige woodblock prints that make an appearance. Finally I preferred some of the paintings by other artists featured - though I wasn't sure how directly related to Whistler and his model they were (I didn't read the exhibition catalogue).

Can recommend the free Jock McFadyen - Tourist without a Guidebook exhibition in the same Royal Academy building. Really good rooms to display the art with the space it needs and enable you to absorb it. You need to hurry if you want to catch it though - it's on until 10 April.

Visited the David Hockney at The Fitzwilliam exhibition in Cambridge yesterday (50 minutes from Central London).

Liked it a lot. There's isn't a huge amount of Hockey content but it's mixed in with the regular Fitzwilliam exhibits in a way that works really well. It was great to have a rare opportunity to see a few of the early 70s large scale canvasses, including Les Parc des Sources, Vichy. Free entry - worth booking a ticket in advance if you're travelling any distance to it.

https://www.francetoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/David-Hockney-Le-Parc-des-Sources-Vichy-1970-David-Hockney-Photo-Chatsworth-House-Trust-Devonshire-Collection-Chatsworth-.jpg

I was thinking of going to see this album covers exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery but it does just sound like they've mounted a selection of reasonably well-known sleeves in a gallery space - I think I'd rather see prints of the original photos, at least in combination with the sleeves.

https://thephotographersgallery.org.uk/whats-on/record-photography-art-album-cover

Oh that looks good anyway, plus it's cheap lol.

Think I'll wait to see the reviews of that one.

Admirable ambition for the new Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster exhibition (free) at the Serpentine South Gallery:

Alienarium 5 is a proposal for freedom and interspecies connection. It is an experimental place in which to discover new forms of love and to imagine possible encounters with visitors from outer space.

The album cover exhib was very small and well random. But still, I wasn't ever sure I'd ever live to see a physical copy of Nommo by Milford Graves and Don Pullen, so that's one off the bucket list, and the curator's small collection of commemorative May 1968 7 inch singles were again something I'd never seen assembled before, and definitely brought out the collector scum in me, which is I guess one sign of curatorial success.

And as xyzzz said, it was only a fiver and there were also the four Deutsche Börse Photography nominees on another floor, all of them worth a look at lovely big print sizes. If I had a vote, I would be torn between the Anastasia Samoylova and Gilles Peress portfolios.

The bookshop has some tempting things. Not an uninteresting selection of 'music' books to accompany the exhib, but I genuinely felt they'd missed a trick by not stocking A Hidden Landscape Once a Week - unless it's OOP?

Pretty sure I'd never been down Ramilles Street before either, and even now I found it a bit of a thrill to uncover a hidden landscape once in a blue moon in central London.

I really like The Photographers' Gallery, it's somewhere you can pop in for 30 minutes and always see something that's interesting or even good

Totally agree, when I worked in Wardour St I would pop around there all the time during my lunch break, always something interesting and the little bookshop is fantastic.

Found out about this upcoming Cezanne exhibition when idly thinking “where can I go to see Klee in London?” Might put links to stuff I’m interested in in here.

!!!!!!!

https://courtauld.ac.uk/whats-on/edvard-munch-masterpieces-from-bergen/

there was a Munch exhibit in Glasgow a few years ago which was amazing and it was nowhere on the scale of that, I am very jealous

Lucian Freud: new perspectives - National Gallery

Visited today. Well worth seeing (I’ll spare my own personal views on Freud).

Not sure that the exhibition discovers new perspectives, and is very similar to the last Lucian Freud exhibition I saw at the Royal Academy (2019 I think).

But, really good large rooms and lighting, though some of the later large paintings are hung quite high up.