Sunday, 2 March 2014

Abstract Drawing - Drawing Room

Richard Serra, Untitled, 2009
Abstract Drawing is at Drawing Room until 19 April and features an impressive list of artists (see below). Curated by Richard Deacon this exhibition makes for an interesting complement to the show of his work currently at Tate Britain (see below). Deacon will discuss his approach to drawing and his selection for this exhibition at Drawing Room on 6 March.
Read a review of the exhibition by Adrian Searle.
The following text is from the Drawing Room website:

“One of the things that has interested me in making this selection – aside from the intrinsic delight at looking at so many drawings – has to do with ideas about what or where is the real… This exhibition has no ambitions to be a universal survey, but in selecting a show around the idea of abstract drawing, these various strands – inscriptive, calligraphic, ornamental, generative, individuating and identifying – have all featured.”

The earliest works exhibited here are drawings made in 1906 by Swedish artist Hilma af Klint, recently heralded as producing the earliest forms of Western abstraction, and in 1917/18 by Kazimir Malevich,  regarded as the father of abstraction. There is a rare blot drawing by Jackson Pollock (1951) that exploits the quality of working with fluid mediums on porous paper. Works made in the 1960s include those by Eva Hesse, Mira Schendel, Dom Sylvester Houedard (well known for his concrete poetry), and Frederick Hammersley (an American artist who pioneered computer drawings).

Two works on paper by Sol LeWitt, a One-second drawing by John Latham,  works by Indian modernist Nasreen Mohamedi, and Romanian artist Victor Ciato were all made in the 1970s. Works made in the 1980s include rarely seen drawings in relief by Anish Kapoor and works by artist and historian John Golding whose Paths to the Absolute (2000) is a key text on abstract art.

Watercolours on paper by David Austen represent the 1990s and works from the 2000’s include senior Iranian artist Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian, Turner prize winner Tomma Abts and nominee Alison Wilding (the latter the subject of a major Duveen galleries display at the newly renovated Tate Britain, London), London-based artists David Batchelor,  Emma McNally and Sam Messenger and International artist Susan Hefuna, who has German-Egyptian heritage.  Another highlight is a newly commissioned wall drawing by US-based artist Victoria Haven.

Bob Law, Cross for Me, Kiss for You CCCXVII 03.01.00, 2000
David Batchelor, Magic Hour Drawings, 2013
Eva Hesse, No Title, 1965
John Latham, 1 Second Drawing, 1971
Roger Ackling, One minute is long enough, so it's a second, 1977
Richard Deacon, 14-11-11, 2013

Friday, 21 February 2014

Photogram Open 2014 - Silverprint

Lisa Lavery, Lunaria
Lisa Lavery (University of Gloucestershire) is featured in the Photogram Open 2014 exhibition at Silverprint until 15 March. 
The exhibition presents an impressive variety of approaches to making photograms - cameraless images which exploit the creative potential of light sensitive chemicals. See the examples above and below and the online catalogue.
Claudette Chin-Jones,  Fierefly

Evan Thomas, Untitled Composition 003
Guy Paterson, Used Nails
Hannah Biscombe, Original Baby Rats
Lucy Telford, Butterflies

Wednesday, 19 February 2014

Masters of the German Renaissance - National Gallery

Swabian,  Portrait of a Woman of the Hofer Family, c 1470
Strange Beauty: Masters of the German Renaissance is at The National Gallery until 11 May 2014.
What fabulous paintings these are and what an amazing collection the National Gallery has. It does, however seem a little cheeky that the National Gallery is charging £7.00 for visitors to see a show which includes so many masterpieces which it normally shows for free!
Still, you can't have too much Holbein, Cranach and Dürer!
Read a review by Alastair Sooke.
Hans Holbein the Younger, Erasmus, 1523
Hans Holbein the Younger, A Lady with a Squirrel and a Starling (Anne Lovell?), c 1526-8
Hans Holbein the Younger, Jean de Dinteville and Georges de Selve ('The Ambassadors'), 1533
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Cupid complaining to Venus, c 1525
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Portrait of a Woman, c 1525
Lucas Cranach the Elder, Saints Christina and Ottilia, 1506
Jan Gossaert, A Man holding a Glove, c 1530-2