Michael Craig-Martin - Serpentine Gallery

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (light bulb), 2014

Michael Craig-Martin: Transience is at the Serpentine Gallery until 14 February 2016.
It's been a busy year for Michael Craig-Martin: in the spring his excellent book On Being an Artist was published, in the summer he was co-ordinator of the Royal Academy Summer Show and now he has an exhibition of his distinctive paintings at the Serpentine spanning the years 1981to 2014.
Craig-Martin has been making his crisply-delineated drawings of common-place, manufactured objects since the late 1970s and has assembled a lexicon of archetypes. In On Being an Artist he explains that he chose "objects so familiar that they had become invisible" and he set himself a rule  that "I would never draw something that could not be recognised instantly". (p171)  However, along the way many of those consumer objects which were once so familiar have become obsolete as new technologies and social habits have emerged. Transience charts a cultural transition from the days of clipboards, portable TVs, audio cassette tapes and Palm Pilots to the digital world of laptops, smart cards and smart phones - all rendered in his signature black outlines and clashing hyperactive colours.
Read reviews by Adrian Searle, Alastair Sooke, Laura Cumming and Waldemar Januszczak.
Read an interview with Tim Adams on the occasion of the publication of On Being an Artist. (Click on images to enlarge.)

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled battery), 2014

Michael Craig-Martin, Cassette, 2002

Michael Craig-Martin, Eye of the Storm, 2002

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (watch), 2015

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (xbox control), 2014

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (iPhone purple), 2013

Michael Craig-Martin, Untitled (laptop turquoise), 2014

Michael Craig-Martin, Biding Time (magenta), 2004

Michael Craig-Martin, installation view of Transience, Serpentine Gallery 2015-16

John Hoyland - Newport Street Gallery

John Hoyland, Advance Town 29.3.80, 1989

John Hoyland: Power Stations: Paintings 1964-1982 is at Newport Street Gallery until 3 April 2016.
When it was announced that Damien Hirst was developing a gallery to exhibit his collection, who would have guessed that it would open with a show dedicated to John Hoyland? Not me, for one – but so it has, and what a delight it is. The gallery is fabulous and the show is a knockout.

Hoyland (1934-2011) was a major figure in British abstract painting and this exhibition includes work made at the height of his powers. Hoyland and his peers were, perhaps, never fashionable: British abstract painting was at its most vital when American Abstract Expressionism had been displaced as the last word in avant-gardism by Pop, Minimalism and Conceptual Art; as a result the work effectively went underground and  Hoyland and others have not generally won the attention and respect they deserved.

This exhibition is thus both a pleasure in itself and a valuable opportunity to rediscover a great painter.

My favourites here are the early large-scale pieces dominated by reds, oranges and greys and the later works keyed to blue; personally I find some of those featuring a rather sharp and acid green a little ‘difficult’ and the gold and pink ‘experiments’ of the early 1970s lacking in both the cool, solid structure and the intense colour of the best work.

The gallery, designed by Caruso St John, has been developed out of former warehouses and presents a beautiful sequence of large exhibition spaces over two floors connected by beautifully finished and detailed spiral staircases. Hirst is on record saying how impressed he was when, as a student, he visited Charles Saatchi’s original gallery at Boundary Road, in St John’s Wood (1985-2003); I, too, recall that gallery as a revelation: in the 1980s there was nothing like it in the UK either for the scale on which it displayed the likes of Judd, Kiefer, Serra, Twombly, Warhol and others, nor simply for the literally dazzling huge white spaces it presented.  Whether it is inspired or not by Boundary Road Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery is a wonderful addition to London’s art scene.

Watch a short video of a conversation between Damien Hirst and Tim Marlow about the Hoyland show and featuring some views of the gallery spaces; read exhibition reviews by Waldemar Januszczak, Mark Hudson, Emyr Williams and John Bunker (Abcrit); read an architectural review of the gallery by Oliver Wainwright; don't bother to read a grumpy Jonathan Jones dismissing Hoyland as 'second-rate'! 

John Hoyland, 29.12.66, 1966

John Hoyland, 9.11.68, 1968

Installation view of 9.11.68, 1968

John Hoyland

John Hoyland (detail of painting above)

John Hoyland

Installation view

Caruso St John (architect) Newport Street Gallery, 2015

Caruso St John (architect) Newport Street Gallery, 2015 - detail of staircase

Matt Collishaw - The New Art Gallery, Walsall

Matt Collishaw, Insecticide 24, 2006

Matt Collishaw is at The New Art Gallery, Walsall until 10 January 2016.
This is a terrific exhibition in a very fine gallery.
Matt Collishaw is an artist who works in a variety of mediums, employing whatever means most effectively manifests his generally rather dark and disturbing vision. This exhibition includes dark and intense photographs, sculptures, videos and a jaw-dropping zoetrope featuring 300 3D printed resin models. The whole exhibition is beautifully installed and lit.
The earliest work is a black and white photograph Narcissus (1990) showing the artist, cable-release in hand, lying in an urban street staring at his reflection in a muddy puddle. This witty reworking of a classical theme sets the precedent for his sustained, intelligent engagement with the history of art. Last Meal on Death Row is a series of rich still life photographs which have the gravitas of C17 Dutch vanitas paintings; the deeply disturbing Children of a Lesser God revisits the theme of Romulus and Remus in a photograph of two naked babies on an old sofa accompanied by two large dogs - one child sprawls contentedly while the other appears to suckle on one of the animals. Albrecht Durer is revisted in the beautiful and transfixing Whispering Weeds in which grasses gently sway in the breeze and water ripples. The Insecticide series presents enormous images of squashed butterflies which appear like cosmic explosions; For Your Eyes Only is a tryptych video of a pole dancer - images and soundtrack slowed - with the appearance of an altar piece.  
All of the above - and more - is excellent. However, the pièce de résistance is All Things Fall: a circular domed building containing some 300 figures representing the Massacre of the Innocents. This object begins to rotate: when it hits full speed, stroboscopic lights kick in and the figures suddenly come alive! Babies are tossed in the air as the infanticide is enacted - it is a sight that is both horrific and grimly hilarious. The magic spectacle of the bodies coming alive before your eyes is pure delight. This, alone, is worth a trip to Walsall. (Watch a video of the zoetrope in action here.) Read reviews of the exhibition by Waldemar Januszczak, Louisa Buck and Jonathan Jones. Click on images to enlarge.

This was my first visit to the New Art Gallery in Walsall - though it has now been open for 15 years! - and what a fine building it is. Designed by Caruso St John (who have also designed Damien Hirst's Newport Street Gallery - opened this week (8 Oct. 2015) and to be visited shortly) it is an impressively solid and generously spaced gallery.

Matt Collishaw, Narcissus, 1990

Matt Collishaw, Last Meal on Death Row: Bernard Amos (detail), 2011

Matt Collishaw, Last Meal on Death Row: Gary Miller (detail), 2011

Matt Collishaw, Children of a Lesser God, 2007

Matt Collishaw, Whispering Weeds, 2011 (View moving version here)

Matt Collishaw, For Your Eyes Only, 2010 (View video here)

Matt Collishaw, Insecticide 13, 2006

Matt Collishaw, All Things Fall, 2014 (View video here)

Caruso St John (architects), The New Art Gallery, Walsall - opened 2000

Works in Print Graduate Art Prize 2015

Ira Hoffecker- University of Gloucestershire, Marx Engels Forum III, Acrylic and resin on wood board

Great to see 2015 University of Gloucestershire Fine Art graduate Ira Hoffecker shortlisted for the Works in Print Graduate Art Prize. Other art schools represented include Goldsmiths, Camberwell, the Royal College of Art and Falmouth. A selection of the shortlist is shown below, see all 20 selected artworks here. The winner will be chosen by public vote - link to the voting tool here.

Joanna Hulin- Falmouth University, Osiris II, Graphite and mixed media on watercolour paper

Kyounghee Lee- Goldsmiths, University of London, Pieces from ‘A’ Computer: Line Drawings, Framed computer components

Hanqing Ma- Royal College of Art, 143 Second Street, Silver gelatin handprint

Ally McIntyre- Goldsmiths, University of London, Sweet Like Cinnamon, Acrylic on canvas

Scarlet Müller - Royal College of Art, Second Space III, Unique hand printed woodcut 

Jinyong Park - Royal College of Art, Yellow, Pencil and crylic on paper 

George Rouy - Camberwell College of Arts, Untitled, Paintings 

Cosmonauts - The Science Museum

Iraklii Toidze, In the Name of Peace, 1959

Cosmonauts: Birth of the Space Age is at the Science Museum until 13 March 2016.
1957 - launch of the first artificial stallite, Спу́тник-1 (Sputnik-1)
1957 - first dog to orbit the Earth: Лайка (Laika)
1961 - the first man in space: Ю́рий Гага́рин (Yuri Gagarin), the first cosmonaut, orbited the Earth in Восток-1 (Vostok-1)
1963 - the first woman in space: Валенти́на Терешко́ва (Valentina  Tereshkova) orbited the Earth in Восток-6 (Vostok-6)
This exhibition brings together many of the artefacts associated with these pioneering days of the Soviet Union's achievements in the Space Race with the United States, including the Vostok-6 capsule flown by Valentina Tereshkova. There is also a splendid display of Soviet posters (see below).

Dr Valentina Tereshkova with Vostok 6 in The Science Museum

Read reviews of the exhibition by Rowan Moore and Lucy Davies,  Read an article about Valentina Tereshkova in which she reveals that the engineers on her mission had forgotten to programme the craft to descend as well as ascend!

Konstantin Ianov, The road is open for humans!, 1960

Boris Staris, The fairy tale became truth, 1961

Boris Berezovsky, Glory to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!, 1962

Artist unknown, Our triumph in Space is the hymn to the Soviet country!, 1963

Boris Berezovsky, Glory of the Space Heroes - Glory of the Soviet People!, 1963

U. V.Kershin and G.P. Nadezhdin, Glory to the first woman cosmonaut, 1963

Miron Lukianov and Vasily Ostrovsky, Through the Worlds and Centuries,1965

Artist unknown, Soviet Man, Be Proud! You Discovered the Path to the Stars!, n.d.

Lynn Chadwick - Lypiatt Park

In 1958 Lynn Chadwick bought the house and grounds of Lypiatt Park near Stroud in Gloucestershire. According to Wikipedia, Chadwick commented, This place was the same price as a three-bedroom house…and nobody wanted it, so…I borrowed the money and came here. It was sort of wonderful, making another room habitable every year. Later he also acquired more of the surrounding valley in which he placed his work to create a sculpture park. Chadwick died in 2003 but the valley remains as a private sculpture park. A splendid opportunity to visit was offered this weekend through the auspices of the Stroud Civic Society as part of the annual Heritage Open Days scheme.

Click on images to enlarge.