Openings & Exhibitions: April 2016

1^st || Friday

Lisson Gallery, Spencer Finch: The Opposite of Blindness

The edge of perception is explored in Spencer Finch’s third solo exhibition at Lisson Gallery. The American artist tests the limits of objectivity, pursuing poetic ends with scientific clarity. Through a new installation, light-boxes, watercolours and pastels, Finch analyses the points at which conventional vision vanishes to become something else and examines the subjective lens of each individual through discrete bodies of work. His subjects are the ineffable and evanescent, such as the human condition of remembering or the quality of light at a given moment. Open until the 7th of May.

Rob Crosse, Clear as a Bell, Kingsgate Workshop, PV 6-9pm

The first solo exhibition in London for Rob Crosse, that showcases new film work created during his time as artist-in-residence at Kingsgate Workshops.

Rob Crosse lives and works in London. and recently completed a residency at the Bemis Center in Omaha, Nebraska, U.S.A and Mall Walking, a film shot during this residency, is part of a touring programme at the ICA London.

7^th || Thursday

It Is Probably Better to Start from Zero, #1.2 Georgia Spickett-Jones, Window Space Gallery, PV 6:30pm to 8:30pm

IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO is a long term curatorial and artistic project taking place in the Window Space, at the Cass Faculty of Art, Architecture and Design, London Metropolitan University from December 2015 to July 2016.

After marking its mid-point with #0.2 Workshop, IT IS PROBABLY BETTER TO START FROM ZERO presents a second intervention by each of the four artists exhibited previously, over the next four months. By coming back into the Window Space, the artists present the progress of their ongoing research and practice, taking into account the effects of their relation with the curators, the other artists and the space itself. For her second manifestation, Georgia presents Form for Amber, a further reflection upon the concepts that underline her work. Exploring form in a material and bureaucratic sense, the artist interrogates the value of official procedures in establishing and maintaining authenticity. Through her work with amber she invites the viewer to question the nature of the objects on display and, in doing so, questions the very processes by which truth is manufactured and assigned.

8^th || Friday

Dolly Mixtures, Nunnery Gallery, Bow Church

Dolly Mixtures is Notting Hill Housing’s biennial art exhibition, the fourth exhibition to present artwork from their tenants. Dolly Mixtures – cockney rhyming slang for pictures – plays on the Nunnery Gallery’s east end location and the roots of the original Londoner. Dolly Mixtures presents work by tenants of all ages from hugely varied backgrounds, all of whom express themselves through art. Many of the artists create to relax or escape, using creativity as a response to life’s difficulties and as a vehicle to express themselves in an increasingly isolating and lonesome world. Until June the 12th.

12^th || Tuesday

Magical Surfaces: The Uncanny in Contemporary Photography, Parasol Unit, PV 6.30-9pm

An exhibition that explores the uncanny as exemplified in the works of seven artists from two generations, all of whose work includes in different forms the use of photography as a medium. They are: Sonja Braas, David Claerbout, Elger Esser, Julie Monaco, Jörg Sasse, Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld. The mastery of each of the exhibiting artists has over their own process of manipulating the photographic image invites us to marvel at the many ways the uncanny can occur in photographic works. As early as 1835, the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling wrote of “das Unheimliche”, the uncanny, as ‘everything that ought to have remained hidden and secret and has become visible’. In his influential essay ‘The “Uncanny”‘, 1919, Freud saw there was a common thread to everything that arouses our sense of the uncanny: it ‘is that class of terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very familiar’.

13^th || Wednesday

Francis Bacon / Darren Coffield, Herrick Gallery

The gallery presents works on paper from the Italian Drawings of Francis Bacon together with new paintings by Darren Coffield. Although there is an age difference of sixty years, both artists moved in the same demi-monde of the louche drinking clubs of Soho, specifically the infamous Colony Room Club. In 1949 Bacon was retained by its founder Muriel Belcher to bring in paying customers, and frequented the club until his death in 1992. Coffield belonged to a new generation who beat a path to the Colony in search of Bacon, and made it their home in the late ‘80s. Coffield met Bacon and his close friend and sole heir John Edwards there and is currently completing his next book on the infamous Colony Room Club. Both artists do figuration with a twist: Bacon’s reinterpretations of the human form are some of the most ground breaking and influential images of the twentieth century, while Coffield’s equally disturbing images evolve from painstaking and logical pursuits to non-predetermined ends, becoming paradoxical puzzles playing with perception. Until the 21st of May.

14^th || Thursday

Edgelands, Cross-arts exhibition at St. Marylebone Parish Church Crypt

Six artists, twelve dancers, one viola player and the roar of the Marylebone Road traffic; this line-up promises to be one of the more unusual cross-arts performances hitting London this spring.

The work of Day Bowman, Dan Coombs, Marguerite Horner, Barbara Howey, Lee Maelzer and Sean Williams explores and documents the wastelands and the neglected environs to be found on the margins of urban living.

Twelve dancers will explore the spaces in and around the steps of the magnificent St. Marylebone Parish Church portico during the evening rush hour with the accompanying sound of a solo viola. Moving down to the crypt there will be a quiet coming together of sound and space and paintings. Until the 30th of June.

18^th || Monday

Photography, Critical & Analytical Theory

This eight-week, Monday evening course provides students with an introduction to some of the major ways of thinking about photography from the interwar period to the contemporary.

Each week a specific writer or thinker of photographic theory and/or history will be introduced and students will examine visual examples in the light of their concepts.

The course works up to the present day and encourages contemporary thinking around photography, and the many ways of encountering the photographic image in all its forms. On the 18th and 25th of April; 2^nd, 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th of May; and 6th of June from 6.30 to 8pm. Booking required.

23^rd || Saturday

5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours, Chisenhale Gallery, Symposium, 11am-6pm

Chisenhale Gallery presents 5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours, the first solo exhibition in the UK and a new commission by Berlin-based artist, Maria Eichhorn. 5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours is a two-part work examining contemporary labour conditions.

The exhibition opens with a one-day symposium exploring ideas raised by the project.
 At Eichhorn’s request, the gallery’s staff will then withdraw their labour for the remaining five weeks of the exhibition. None of Chisenhale’s employees will work during this period and the gallery and office will be closed, implementing leisure and free time in the place of work. The symposium features lectures by Isabell Lorey and Stewart Martin and will be chaired by Andrea Phillips. The afternoon will be devoted to a discussion with the audience, in which Maria Eichhorn will also participate. Tickets: £10 / £7 concessions including lunch and refreshments.
 Booking required.

26^th || Tuesday

White Cube Bermondsey, Georg Baselitz – Wir fahren aus, PV 6-8pm

White Cube Bermondsey presents a major exhibition of works by Georg Baselitz, including new large-scale paintings, sculpture and works on paper. This exhibition draws together two familiar strands within the artist’s practice: portraiture and the process of ‘remixing’, whereby images are repeated and reinterpreted over time using different techniques and mediums.

Silvia Meloni