Anselm Kiefer - White Cube, Bermondsey

Anselm Kiefer, Rorate Caeli Desuper, 2016

Anselm Kiefer: Walhalla is at White Cube, Bermondsey until 12 February 2017

Kiefer’s big themes – German history and mythology, creation and destruction – are fully present in this hugely ambitious show which summons both the Walhalla of Norse myth - the enormous hall to which the dead battle-heroes, chosen by Odin, were led by the Valkyries -  and the 19^th century Walhalla, the marbled-monument to Germanic heroes created by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. However, in place of the gold of myth and the splendid polished marble of Ludwig’s neo-classical temple, Kiefer’s Walhalla is in the colours of concrete and lead.  

Kiefer has transformed the central corridor of White Cube’s huge Bermondsey gallery into a bleak, gloomy, dormitory of steel beds made up with lead sheets and pillows. In the galleries leading off the corridor are sculptures, vast paintings and installations – one, installation, Arsenal, replete with giant lead books fills an entire gallery; the paintings, made of oil, acrylic, emulsion, clay and lead are of ruined concrete towers in a scarred landscape under apocalyptic skies.

Astonishing – a Gesamkunstwerk.

Listen to Kiefer interviewed about the exhibition on Radio 4’s Front Row; read reviews by William Cook, Emily Spicer, Caroline Elbaor and Jonathan Jones.

Listen to Wagner’s Entry of the Gods into Walhalla from Das Rheingold.
See also blog entries on Kiefer's 2014 RA exhibition here and here.
Click on images to enlarge.

Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 1992-2016

Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 1992-2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, Sursum corda, 2016

Anselm Kiefer, Sursum corda, 2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, Arsenal, 1983-2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, San Loreto, 2016

Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, installation view

Anselm Kiefer, nubes pluant ustem, 2016

Anselm Kiefer, nubes pluant ustem, 2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, Gehäutete Landschaft, 2016

Anselm Kiefer, Gehäutete Landschaft, 2016 (detail)

Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, installation view

Anselm Kiefer, from Walhalla, 2016

Anselm Kiefer, Walhalla, 2016

Theaster Gates - White Cube

Theaster Gates, Diagonal Bitumen, 2014 (Wood, rubber and tar.)

Theaster Gates: Freedom of Assembly is at White Cube (Bermondsey) until 5 July 2015.
This is inspiring. Theaster Gates' achievements in the rejuvenation and cultural renewal of derelict areas of Chicago through creative projects are extraordinary. (Watch a TED video of Gates talking about the projects.)
These projects are funded by the sale of artworks principally made from materials salvaged from the derelict properties he has acquired. (He is fully alive to the paradox of the gallery objects functioning as high end commodities for the moneyed classes and funding the developement of deprived urban communities.)
In an interview with Tim Adams, Gates insists, "Biography and geography matter...". So, here is the potted biography: Gates was born in 1973 in the West Side of Chicago to a schoolteacher mother and a father who worked as a roofer - his father bequeathed him his 'tar kettle' and collaborated on the tar 'paintings'; he was the youngest of 9 children and the only boy. He has degrees in Urban Planning and Ceramics (his creative practice is rooted in pottery) and began a career in 'city hall': “I realised it was actually developers who changed cities. It bugged me that the people with the most agency, the most entrepreneurial spirit, were also the people with the least consciousness about the needs of a place. I went after having more agency…”. And so, following the banking crash in 2008 he bought a bungalow in Chicago's South Side turned it into an 'archive'  and 'soul food kitchen' and opened it up to the neighbourhood. So began the Dorchester Projects and the acquisition of many more buildings, including a derelict bank and the contents of closed down bookshops, record stores and hardware stores.
On 23 January 2015 Gates was awarded the £40,000 Artes Mundi prize in Cardiff  - and elected to share the money with the other nominees: "Let's split this motherfucker!"
On 29th June 2015 details will be announced of his first UK public project to take place in Bristol.
Read the interview with Tim Adams; read an interview with Ben Eastham: Theaster Gates on How to Be “The Most Badass Artist in the World”; read a review of the White Cube show by Adrian Searle; watch a TED video of Gates talking about his work.

Theaster Gates, Ground Rules (Free Throw Possibility), 2014 (Wood flooring.)

Theaster Gates, Tiki Teak, 2014 (Wood and roofing paper.)

Theaster Gates, Clearing, 2014 (Wood, rubber and tar.)

Theaster Gates, Gees Removed, 2014 (Wood, roofing substrate and tar.)

Theaster Gates, installation view, White Cube (left: Atlas, 2015; right: Shrug, 2015)

Theaster Gates, installation view, White Cube (Tarred Vessel in foreground).

Contents of hardware store bought by Theaster Gates

Derelict bank bought by Theaster Gates and transformed into 'Stony Island Arts Bank'

Tracey Emin - White Cube

Tracey Emin, Nude awakening: 'Good Red Love', 2014

Tracey Emin: The Last Great Adventure is You is at White Cube (Bermondsey) until 16 November 2014.

Three years on from her retrospective at the Hayward (2011) Tracey Emin is showing an ambitious and substantial body of new work in White Cube's vast Bermondsey spaces. The show includes bronze sculptures, drawings, paintings, large-scale embroideries and neon works and is, in her own words, "about rites of passage, of time and age, and the simple realisation that we are always alone."

Reviews have been (generally) very positive, although Jonathan Jones' five star notice in The Guardian is perhaps a little gushing: "a lesson in how to be a real artist… [Emin] is now clearly the most important British artist of her generation." On the matter of technique, he observes:

"Drawing is a cruel art. Like any skilled medium with a long history, it imposes rules, traditions and standards that an artist cannot simply ignore. To make a drawing is to try to get something right, just as much as playing a piece of music is.
In short, you can either draw or you can’t draw.
Tracey Emin can." (Discuss!)
Read reviews by Jones, Karen Wright, Alastair Sooke, Laura Cumming, J.J. Charlesworth and Ben Luke; read interviews and features by Rachel Cooke, Chris Harvey, Margaret Harrison and Suzanne Moore; read Emin's responses to questions in a webchat.

Tracey Emin, I Want You Because I Can’t Have You, 2014

Tracey Emin, Good Body, 2014

Tracey Emin, So Pretty, 2014

Tracey Emin,  Feel You Coming, 2014

Tracey Emin, The Last Great Adventure is you, 2014