Ruin Lust - Tate Britain

Jane and Louise Wilson, Azeville, 2006

Ruin Lust is at Tate Britain until 18 May 2014.
What a great subject for an exhibition; and a good title, too - it comes from the German coinage 'Ruinenlust'. The exhibition surveys artists' fascination with ruins from the seventeenth century to the present. The list of works exhibited suggests an enticingly eclectic and idiosyncratic approach including, amongst others, works by Turner, John Martin, Gustave Doré, John Latham, Jane and Louise Wilson and Rachel Whiteread. Highlights include:
- Joseph Gandy's drawing, commissioned by John Soane, showing the architect's new Bank of England building as it might look in the future as a ruin!  
- Tacita Dean's 2006 film Kodak (a 16mm film documenting the ending of production of 16mm film at the Kodak factory in Chalon-sur-Saône)
- Gerard Byrne's 1984 and Beyond (2005-7) - a filmed restaging of a a discussion between 12 science fiction writers, including Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, about their visions of the future, originally published by Playboy in the 1963 (see also below).
Watch a short Tate video featuring a reading extracted from Rose Macaulay's Pleasure of Ruins.
Read reviews by Laura Cumming, Alastair Sooke and Jonathan Jones an essay by the exhibition curator Brian Dillon, and an article by Frances Stonor Saunders.

J.M.W. Turner, Tintern Abbey: The Crossing and Chancel, Looking towards the East Window, 1794.

John Martin, The Destruction of Pompei and Herculaneum, 1822

Joseph Gandy, John Soane's Bank of England as a Ruin, 1830

Paul Nash, Swanage (Steps in a Field), c1936

Jon Savage, Uninhabited London, 1977

Leon Kossof, Demolition of the Old House, Dalston Junction, Summer 1974, 1974

Rachel Whiteread, B: Clapton Park Estate, Mandeville Street, London E5; Bakewell Court; Repton Court; March 1995. (From Demolished)

Gerard Byrne, from 1984 and Beyond, 2005–7

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

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