Wednesday || December 2
Inoperative Community, Raven Row, December 2, opens 6-9pm
The Inoperative Community is an exhibition of experimental narrative film and video that addresses ideas of community and the shifting nature of social relations. Encompassing over fifty hours of material, the exhibition can be navigated by means of a printed or downloadable programme. Each visitor will only be able to see a fraction of the works on offer, but connections can be made between works on any particular course through the exhibition, which has been designed to accommodate both prolonged viewing and shorter visits.
Thursday || December 3
IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO #1.1 Georgia Spickett-Jones, opens, 6.30 -8.30
A new project launches at the Cass building’s Window Space gallery. IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO #1.1 starts with an installation of work from artist Georgia Spickett-Jones,
the display will be a further development of her project IS IT ARROGANT TO USE HIS HAT? which was shown earlier this year at Wimbledon College of Art, the project is curated and managed by final year students of the MA Curating the Contemporary course a course taught in collaboration between the London Metropolitan University and Whitechapel Gallery. The programme will run from December 2015 to July 2016.
Friday || December 4
Giacomo Raffaelli, still from ‘With a Relative Uncertainty’ (2014), Courtesy of the artist.
Shadow without Object, Symposium, Chelsea College of Arts, 9.30am- 6.30pm
Chelsea College of Arts plays host to a day of research presentations and discussions around emerging photographic technologies, considering them against the historical context of more marginalised practices. The event is ticketed and speakers include Peter Geimer, Michael Doser, Daniel Rubinstein, Jananne Al-Ani, Sam Burford, Giacomo Raffaelli, Louisa Minkin, Betty Sacher, Duncan Wooldridge and Bernd Behr.
Tuesday || December 8
Voewood, 2011, sunlight on wood with elastic band, 14 parts of varying dimensions, overall 15.5 × 32 × 1.5cm, Courtesy Annely Juda Fine Art
Roger Ackling: Between the Lines – Book Launch, Occasional Papers, 6-9pm
Occasional Papers launches Between the Lines, a book about Roger Ackling’s work and teachings, at 4 Princelet Street, Spitalfields. Written almost entirely by former students and colleagues the book was the result of a successful Kickstarter campaign. On the night there will be a screening of his film Boot Camp, a small display of works and you are invited to participate in Ackling’s favourite pastime: Ping-pong. No booking required, all are welcome.
Thursday || December 10
BYOB @ The Woodmill, curated by KERNEL, Feb 201, Photo: Luke Barcelona Cano
Bring Your Own Beamer, SPACE, 6.30-9pm
Started by visual artist Rafael Rozedaal, BYOB is an international movement of DIY one-night-exhibitions where artists collaborate on site to create a moving image performance. BYOB events have been held in over 40 international cities. Hosted by SPACE and LUX, BYOB London will bring together more than 30 artists to create a collaborative night of moving image work. This immersive environment of DIY spontaneity and experimentation provides artists with a platform for non-formal display and discussion.
Friday || December 11
Rose English, Ornamental Happiness (2006), Photo: Alastair Muir
Rose English: A Premonition of the Act, Camden Arts Centre, opens, 6.30pm
Addressing performance within the framework of the gallery, A Premonition of the Act presents a choreography of objects, a working storyboard and a sound installation that invokes in the imagination of the viewer a yet-to-be-realised presentation, involving Chinese acrobats and eleven musicians performing a 70-minute libretto.
Florian Roithmayr installation view at Tenderpixel, 2015. Courtesy of the artist, Tenderpixel and MOT INTERNATIONAL
Florian Roithmayr: with, and, or, without, Camden Arts Centre, opens, 6.30pm
with, and, or, without is a presentation of an ambitious body of new sculpture works, Florian Roithmayr’s largest solo show to date and his first in a London public gallery. Roithmayr works with moulding and casting in their everyday and specialist applications, imagining and presenting the non-linear imprint, traces and transformations of these processes as unforeseeable gestures occurring in the interstice between mould and cast; the consequence of one surface, material or body yielding another.
Last chance to see || December 2015 –
Exhibitions still able to be seen before the end of the year
Jon Rafman, installation view, Zabludowicz Collection, 2015
Jon Rafman, Zabludowicz Collection, until December 20
For his first major solo exhibition in the UK, Canadian artist Jon Rafman has transformed the spaces of the Zabludowicz Collection into a playful series of new installations that immerse visitors within his video and sculptural works. Emerging from his interest in the relationship between technology and human consciousness, Rafman’s works examine ideas of desire – its simulation and enactment.
Zhang Kechun, A Man Standing on an Island in the Middle of the River Shaanxi, China, 2012
The Photographers 2015, Osborne Samuel and Beetles+Huxley galleries, until December 23
Over 150 prints by old and new masters of photography, from documentary, environmental and war photography, to landscape, fashion and cutting edge works. This major survey split across two galleries has something for every taste, and a lot worth seeing.
Francisco Goya, Portrait of Tio Panquete, 1820-23
Goya: The Portraits, National Gallery, until January 10
Providing penetrating insight into the public and private aspects of his life, Goya: The Portraits traces the artist’s development, from his first commissions to more intimate later works painted during his ‘self-imposed exile’ in France in the 1820s – a career that spanned revolution and restoration, war with France, and the cultural upheaval of the Spanish Enlightenment.
M.C. Escher, Day and Night, 1938
M C Escher, Dulwich Picture Gallery, until January 17
The Dulwich Picture Gallery presents the first major UK show of work by the great master draughtsman, bringing together works which made him one of the most famous artists of the 20th Century. The exhibition will include woodcuts, lithographs, drawings, watercolours and mezzotints, as well as exclusive archive material.
Hannah Starkey, Untitled – October 1998, 1998
Hannah Starkey, Maureen Paley, until January 24
Refining her practice over nearly 20 years within the realm of photographic portraiture and the representation of women, Starkey’s most recent work finds her camera trained on the individual situated within the facades of the city environment. Translating moments of private reflection and social interaction her photographs utilise an almost cinematic language to relay the personal relationships between her subjects and their worlds.
Caterina Berardi
CuratingtheContemporary (CtC) 