Exhibition Roundup - May 2011

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

Tracey Emin: Love is What You Want

The first major survey of Tracey Emin's work, Love is What You Want, will be at the Hayward Gallery from 18th May until the 19th August. Read Monica Ali's article: Tracey Emin: 'What you see is what I am'.

Mark Leckey, GreenScreenRefrigerator 2010

Mark Leckey, Turner Prize winner 2008, presents See, We Assemble, at the Serpentine Gallery from 19th May until 26th June. Leckey's approach is described on the Serpentine website as a multi-disciplinary practice that encompasses sculpture, sound, film and performance. For example, the work illustrated is described as follows: In the recent performance piece 'GreenScreenRefrigeratorAction' (2010), Leckey sought to communicate the inner life of a ‘smart’ fridge – one that keeps an electronic tally of its contents – and to render audible its ‘voice’. In his bid to become one with the appliance, the artist inhaled refrigerator coolant and draped himself in a green cloak that, at a certain point in the performance, allowed him to morph into the green-screen backdrop against which the fridge was set. Advancing the notion that we can be in constant communication with every aspect of our environment, that everything feels alive, Leckey’s universe is mediated on multiple levels.

Mitch Epstein, Biloxi, Mississippi  2005

Two new photography displays have been opened at Tate Modern: Photography: New Documentary Forms will be on show until 31st March 2012 and Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan, until 10th July 2011. The first comprises the Tate's acquisition of the work of 5 photographers: Luc Delahaye, Mitch Epstein, Guy Tillim, Akram Zaatari,and Boris Mikhailov.Mitch Epstein (illustrated) was recently awarded the Prix Pictet (see below).

Simon Norfolk, Kabul, 2010

Burke + Norfolk: Photographs From The War In Afghanistan presents the fruit of a project following Norfolk's discovery of an album of photographs by John Burke, seen in the National Media Museum in Bradford and thought to be the first photographs taken inside Afghanistan: In October 2010, Simon Norfolk began a series of new photographs in Afghanistan, which takes its cue from the work of nineteenth-century British photographer John Burke. Norfolk’s photographs re-imagine or respond to Burke’s Afghan war scenes in the context of the contemporary conflict. Conceived as a collaborative project with Burke across time, this new body of work is presented alongside Burke’s original portfolios. (From Tate Modern website). Read article by Ian Jack and In Conversation: Paul Lowe and Simon Norfolk. 

John Burke, Landholders and labourers, Afghanistan, c1880

Simon Norfolk, A team from the mine ­detection centre, Kabul, 2010?

Michael Craig-Martin, Hearing Things, 2003

Michael Craig-Martin: Drawings 1967 - 2002 is at Alan Christea until 4th June and is the first exhibition of drawings by the artist. Read interview with Stuart Jeffries.

Callum Innes, Untitled No.21, 2011

 Callum Innes: New Paintings and Watercolours is at the Frith Street Gallery, 13th May - 31st July.

Ian Hamilton Finlay, Zimmerit, 1992

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Definitions is at Victoria Miro until 1st June.

Ai Weiwei, Moon Chest, 2008

Ai Weiwei's work will be shown at the Lisson Gallery, 13th May - 16th July. As noted on the gallery's website, the whereabouts and situation of the artist remain unknown following his arrest in China: Ai Weiwei was detained by authorities in Beijing while trying to board a flight to Hong Kong on 3 April, and has not been seen or heard from since. Lisson Gallery, along with all his supporters in the UK and around the world, is alarmed by the detention of Ai Weiwei and greatly concerned for his safety. Read the gallery director, Nicholas Logsdail, writing in the Guardian: It feels rotten putting the show on in Ai Weiwei's absence. Read Where is Ai Weiwei? by Adrian Searle, and more articles about the artist here.

John Salt, Pontiac with Tree Trunk, 1973

An exhibition of paintings by the photorealist John Salt is at the Ikon Gallery until 17th July. Though I have long been aware of Salt's work it was something of a surprise to learn that he is not, in fact, American, but was brought up in Birmingham and was actually the first artist to be exhibited at the Ikon back in 1965.

Tadasu Takamine, God Bless America (video), 2002

 Also showing at the Ikon until 17th July is Tadasu Takamine: Too Far to See. God Bless America is a video in which ‘the artist and his wife wrestle with two tons of clay over a period of 17 days'. Read Laura Cumming's review of this Japanese artist's first European show. 

Atkinson Grimshaw, Boar Lane, Leeds

Atkinson Grimshaw: Painter of Moonlight is at the Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate until 4th September.

Finally, 3 recent graduates of University of Gloucestershire, Martin Abrams, Hannah Stoney and Richard Taylor, and a current lecturer, Paul Rosenbloom are featured in Curatorial Contrast 2 at BayArt Gallery in Cardiff, until 27th May. Four established artists, Cherry Pickles, Andreas Rüthi, Sue Williams and Paul Rosenbloom have each been invited to nominate emerging artist whom they have taught. The installation shot, below, shows work by Richard Taylor.

Photography Exhibitions Roundup - April 2011

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions. This is a photography 'special' supplement to the previously posted April list (see below).

Wim Wenders, Street Corner, Butte, Montana, 2003

Wim Wenders: Places Strange and Quiet is an exhibition of nearly 40 images made by the filmmaker between 1983 and 2001 at Haunch of Venison until 22 April.

Vera Lutter,  Pyramids, Giza, April 12, 2010

Vera Lutter: Egypt is at Gagosian, Davies Street until 21 May. When Lutter visited Egypt she turned her suitcase into a pinhole camera: "I packed all my clothes, suntan lotion, developing trays, and photographic paper. The suitcase doubled as my luggage and a camera. Then of course I had to empty it all to create an optical device... It's basically an old 'trunk' style suitcase with a hole to let the light in that is opened and closed by hand to control the exposure. I got some very strange looks from tourists as I placed my suitcase on the sand in front of the pyramids. The sun is very strong and it took about a minute for an exposure. Then I dashed back to the hotel to develop it into a print, before I could reload the suitcase for the next exposure."(Quote from article by Charlotte Cripps in The Independent) See also Guardian "Artist of the Week".

Dieter Roth, from Reykjavik Slides, 1973-75/1990-98 

Dieter Roth: Reykjavik Slides (31,035) Every View of a City is at Hauser & Wirth until 30 April and will present 31,035 slides shown on multiple projectors operating simultaneously.

Figures & Fictions: Contemporary South African Photography is at the V&A until 17 July. The exhibition features 17 South African photographers, "all of whom live and work in the country and whose images were made between 2000 and 2010. Each photographer is represented by one or more projects that are linked by the depiction of people and a self-conscious engagement with South Africa's political and photographic past." (From the V&A website). Read review by Sean O'Hagan. The following images are selected from the work on show:

David Goldblatt, Blitz Maaneveld (from the Ex-Offenders series), 2008

Jodi Bieber, Gail (from the series Real Beauty), 2008

Hasan & Husain Esso Night Before Eid, 2009

Kudzanai Chiurai, Untitled I, 2009

Guy Tillim, Petros Village, Malawi, 2006

Nontsikelelo Veleko, Lesego, Miriam Makeba Street, Newtown, Johannesburg, 2007

The National Portrait Gallery is currently featuring two photography exhibitions: Hoppé Portraits: Society, Studio and Street (until 30 May) and Ida Kar: Bohemian Photographer, 1908-1974 (until 19 June). Read review of Ida Kar by Sean O'Hagan, and article by Margaret Drabble.

E.O. Hoppé, Dutch West Indies, 1921

Ida Kar, Bridget Riley, 1963

A contemporary portrait photographer, Nadav Kander, is the subject of an exhibition at The Lowry: Nadav Kander: Selected Portraits, 1999-2011. Read article by Sandy Nairne.

Nadav Kander, Erin O’Connor as Millais’s Ophelia, 2004

Magnum photographer Ian Berry, was commissioned by the Whitechapel Gallery, in 1972, to document life in the local streets. Now the gallery is showing more than 30 pictures from that commission, This is Whitechapel, until 4 September.

 

Ian Berry, Whitechapel, 1972

Also at the Whitechapel, until 19 June, is Paul Graham: Photographs 1981-2006. Read interview with Sean O'Hagan and writings by Graham at American Suburb X; see also review by Adrian Searle.

Paul Graham, from A1-The Great North Road, 1981-2

Graham is also showing Films at Anthony Reynolds until 4 June. The work is described as follows by the gallery: While examining his work of the past 30 years for the major survey exhibition arriving at the Whitechapel Gallery this month, Graham became enraptured with the base material of his craft and began to reflect upon the physical substance with which his images were made. Scanning the negatives for the exhibition, he began also to scan the blank film ends and unexposed frames from each body of work. What Graham gathered in the process he saw as a ‘negative retrospective’ of his practice. These luscious and beguiling abstract images are nothing more than greatly enlarged images of raw film emulsion, the colour dye clouds formed in the exposure and development of film. Kodacolour, Fujicolour, TriX;Ektacolour, Kodachrome – all have gone for good or are fading fast. So here is a homage to the history of film photography…

Paul Graham, from Films

Finally,  The Deutsche-Börse Photography Prize exhibition is at Ambika P3 until 30 April. See below for discussion and pictures.

Exhibition Roundup - April 2011

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

 

Joan Mirό, A Star Caresses the Breast of a Negress (Painting Poem),1938

The big opening of the month is Mirό at Tate Modern, 14^th April – 7^th September. This is the first major retrospective of Joan Mirό in the UK for 50 years! Read Joan Mirό: A Life in Paintings, by Tim Adams. Links to reviews will be added later.

Antoine Watteau, Nude Man Kneeling, Holding some Fabrics in his Right Hand, c.1715-16

Two exhibitions are currently celebrating the sensuous and virtuoso drawings and paintings of Antoine Watteau: Esprit et Vérité: Watteau and His Circle is at the Wallace Collection until 5th June, and Watteau: The Drawings is at the Royal Academy also until 5th June. Read Laura Cumming's review.

 

Oscar Wilde, photographed by Napoleon Sarony,1882

The Cult of Beauty: The Aesthetic Movement 1860-1900 is at the V&A until 17th July. The exhibition examines the romantic and bohemian world associated with the Pre-Raphaelites and the ideals of 'art for art's sake' and examines a wide range of media in both the fine arts and the decorative arts. Read The Aesthetic Movement by Fiona MacCarthy, and Beautiful Rebels: the Daring art of the Aesthetic Movement, by Jonathan Jones.

Paul Graham, from A1- The Great North Road, 1981-82

Paul Graham: Photographs, 1981-2006 will be at the Whitechapel Gallery from 20th April - 19th June. Paul Graham was one of the 'new generation' of British photographers of the 1980s whose adoption of colour photography arguably transformed the documentary tradition. Read interviews with, and articles by, Graham at American Suburb X and Paul Graham Archive, and an interview with Sean O'Hagan in The Guardian.

 

Brian Griffin, Trotters Reaching Out, from "The Black Country"

Brian Griffin, a near contemporary of Paul Graham, is showing photographs of "The Black Country" at The New Art Gallery, Walsall, until 18th June.

Roman Ondák, Time Capsule, 2011 (preliminary documentary photograph for installation)

Time Capsule, work by Roman Ondák,is at Modern Art Oxford, until 20th May.This is the first major British showing of this Slovakian artist. The gallery website describes the exhibition as follows:

Ondák’s work has a conceptual and performative focus and at its core, an interest in transferring real life experiences into the context of art… Time Capsule, makes direct reference to the incident at the San José mine in Chile in 2010, in which 33 miners were trapped for 69 days.… Stampede, reflects on the movement of people through spaces. For this work, Ondák will stage a performance involving a large crowd of people prior to the exhibition, the traces of which will be left evident in the Gallery.

Alfred Wallis, Schooner Approaching the Harbour, c.1930 

Compton Verney is showing Alfred Wallis and Ben Nicholson, until 5th June. Nicholson (with Christopher Wood) famously ‘discovered’ Alfred Wallis the retired seaman in St Ives. Following the death of his wife, Wallis took up painting ‘for company’. Using scraps of of drift wood and cardboard his untutored representations of ships and the St Ives struck the sophisticated Nicholson as the ‘real thing’ and influenced his own work. 

E.H. Dixon, The Great Dust Heap at King's Cross, 1837 

The Wellcome Collection has been responsible for a fascinating series of exhibitions drawing on its resources in the history of medicine. Recent examples have included Skin, Madness and Modernity, and Exquisite Bodies - an examination of the anatomical model. The current exhibition promises to be equally engaging: Dirt: The Filthy Reality of Everyday Life is on until 31st August. Read review by Laura Cumming.

 

Official poster for the First International Hygiene Exhibition staged in Dresden, Germany, during 1911

Exhibition Roundup - March 2011

An occasional, and highly selective, pick of current and forthcoming exhibitions.

George Shaw, Ash Wednesday: 8.30am, 2004-5 (see exhibition details, below)

I noted, in the February Roundup, a flurry of exhibitions which hark back to the 1970s: John Stezaker (Whitechapel Gallery until 18^th March), Susan Hiller (Tate Britain until 15^th May) and Anti-Photography (Focal Point Gallery, Southend, until 2^nd April); now a further range of exhibitions: suggests that a full-scale reassessment of that period is under way:

Mary Kelly: Projects 1973 – 2010, at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester until 12^th June, is the first major UK retrospective of an artist whose feminist practice has been hugely influential. Kelly is probably most famous for her extended study of the mother-child relationship, the Post-Partum Document (1973-79), but infamous for an exhibition of part of that project, at the ICA in London in 1976, which included her son’s soiled nappies.  The exhibition at the Whitworth includes examples of work from all stages of her career to date.

Mary Kelly, Post-Partum Document, Documentation VI, Pre-writing Alphabet, Exergue and Diary, 1978.

 

A major exhibition at the Barbican revisits the 1970s in New York: Laurie Anderson, Trisha Brown, Gordon Matta-Clark: Pioneers of the Downtown Scene, New York 1970s. Adrian Searle’s review in the Guardian gives something of the flavour of that period:

Back in the day, [Trisha] Brown had dancers performing on the flat roofs, fire-escape ladders and water towers of Manhattan. … [Laurie Anderson] photographed strangers who had assaulted her with sexual remarks in the street. … [Gordon] Matta-Clark… covered himself in shaving foam while roped to a huge clockface high above the Manhattan street... He devised dances in trees, imagined floating islands in the Hudson, and started slicing up buildings, excavating floors and hacking through walls in the Bronx.
Those were the days. The exhibition continues until 22^nd May.
Trisha Brown, Woman Walking Down a Ladder, 1973

Completing the 1970s fest is the first major UK show of the politically engaged and sometimes angry work of the late Nancy Spero at the Serpentine until 2^nd May. Read Laura Cumming's review.

Nancy Spero, Female Bomb, 1966

Just missing the 1970s is ‘… a multitude of soap bubbles which explode from time to time…’: Pino Pascali’s final works 1967-1968, at Camden Arts Centre until 1^st May. The first UK show dedicated to this Italian artist associated with Arte Povera; Camden Art Centre will host an Arte Povera Symposium on March 12^th.

Pino Piscali, Atrezzi Agricoli, 1968

The National Gallery is presenting a ‘complete re-examination’ of the work of the relatively little known Jan Gossaert (active 1503-1552) Gossaert (aka Jan Mabuse) is credited with transforming Flemish art by melding the technique of Jan van Eyck with Italian Renaissance conventions of the nude. Generally, this exhibition has received ecstatic reviews (eg Jonathan Jones, Richard Dorment), but Laura Cumming’s response in the Observer was distinctly cool. Jan Gossaert’s Renaissance is on until 30^th May.

Jan Gossaert, Venus, c1521

Other big shows in London include Watercolour at Tate Britain, until 21^st August, (see reviews by Laura Cumming and Adrian Searle) and British Art Show 7: In the Days of the Comet at the Hayward Gallery until 17^th April (see below for reviews of its first showing in Nottingham).

Anthony McCall is showing Vertical Works an exhibition of his intriguing ‘solid-light’ installations, at Ambika P3 until 27^th March. McCall has been commissioned to make work for the 2012 ‘Cultural Olympiad’: his proposal is for Column, sited in Liverpool, which should (on a calm clear day), comprise a spiralling column of mist rising to the height of a cruising jumbo jet and visible from 60 miles away!

Anthony McCall, installation, 2009

Two versions of the sublime are on show in Newcastle and Gateshead: John Martin: Heaven and Hell is at the Laing Art Gallery until 5^th June. Martin (1789 – 1854) is probably best known for his giant, apocalyptic triptych of ‘Judgement’ paintings in Tate Britain. The Laing show is the first major examination of Martin for more than 30 years and brings together more than 80 paintings and prints and will travel to the Tate in September.

John Martin, The Great Day of his Wrath, 1851-3

Across the Tyne, in Gateshead, the Baltic is showing the work of George Shaw: The Sly and Unseen Day – a contemporary version of the sublime?. I first came across Shaw at Tate’s 2003 ‘triennial’: Days Like These, and was impressed by his atmospheric, photo-realist scenes of unprepossessing urban scenes – specifically the Tile Hill estate in Coventry – all painted in Humbrol enamels. The exhibition continues until 15^th May.

George Shaw, Scenes from the Passion: Late 2002

Larry Clark’s Tulsa, published in 1971 opens with the following statement: i was born in tulsa oklahoma in 1943. when i was sixteen i started shooting amphetamine. i shot with my friends everyday for three years and then left town but i’ve gone back through the years. once the needle goes in it never comes out. L.C.  
Tulsa has been cited as one of the most influential photobooks of recent times, its autobiographical, intimate and seemingly authentic representation of drug addiction seen as groundbreaking. Clark went on to make Teenage Lust (1983) and A Perfect Childhood (1992), both controversial for their explicit representations of youthful sex, but achieved wider notoriety with his film Kids (1995). What do you do for fun? is a selection of vintage and new work at the Simon Lee Gallery until 2^nd April. See feature by Ryan Gilbey.

Larry Clark, from Tulsa, 1971

Other current photography shows, include:

PEOPLE IN TROUBLE LAUGHING PUSHED TO THE GROUND, new work by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin at Paradise Row until 26^th March

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin, culture 3, sheet 72, 2010

Sohei Nishino: The Diorama Map Series at Michael Hoppen Gallery until 2^nd April. The making of the monumental Diorama Map of London, below, is described on the gallery website as follows: When photographing London, Nishino walked the entire city on foot for a month, wandering the streets and recording from every possible angle, from building tops to get an overview of the Gherkin, to shooting in step with the Queen’s Guard marching on the Mall. In total he used over 300 rolls of black and white film and took over 10,000 pictures.

In the following three months Nishino selected some 4,000 of these photographs, hand printed in his own dark room, which he then meticulously pieced together with scissors and glue in his Tokyo studio. The result was an aerial view of London, which was then reshot as a completed collage to produce a final image in photographic form.

Sohei Nishino, Diorama Map London, 2010

Slinkachu: Concrete Ocean is at Andipa Gallery until 2^nd April. Slinkachu creates miniature installations in urban street which he photographs and then abandons.

Slinkachu, Chicken Tikka Disasta

The Format 11 photography festival in Derby (see also below) includes a host of exhibitions with an enormous range of international photographers represented. See the festival website for details. The event continues until 3^rd April.

Finally, Construction & its Shadow is a display in the sculpture galleries of Leeds Art Gallery, curated by Andrew Bick. Andrew is a long time friend and associate of art and design at the University of Gloucestershire where he is currently a tutor on the MA Fine Art course. The display draws on the collections of Leeds Museums and Galleries and the Arts Council Collection and examines the Construction and Systems groups of British artists active in the1950s and 60s. It is an outcome of research Andrew undertook during a Henry Moore Institute Research Fellowship in 2008. The display will continue until 5th June; a symposium on Construction & its Shadow, co-hosted by the Henry Moore Institute, will take place on Wednesday 11^th May 2011.

 Construction & its Shadow, installation shot