Openings & Exhibitions: October 2016

1^st || Saturday

Tony Cragg, Lisson Gallery

In his fourteenth exhibition with Lisson Gallery since his first solo show in 1979, Tony Cragg will present his latest works in a career-long pursuit in developing specific groups of sculptural themes and forms. Cragg’s radical and experimental approach to making sculpture produces surprising new forms and meanings that add congruently to his already considerable œuvre.

Artist Talk: Guerrilla Girls, Whitechapel Gallery, 3pm

On the first day of the exhibition “Guerrilla Girls: Is it even worse in Europe?”, the seminal anonymous feminist activist group, devoted to fighting sexism and racism within the art world, present a lecture illustrating their work over the past thirty years, and the work that still needs to be done. The event is now fully booked, but a waiting list for returns opens at 11am.

Cindy Sherman and David Salle: History Portraits and Tapestry Paintings, Skarstedt, PV 10am

A new London gallery opens in London at 8 Bennet Street, St James’s. A joint exhibition of Cindy Sherman’s History Portraits (1988 – 1990) and David Salle’s Tapestry Paintings (1989 – 1991) inaugurates the space. Dominant figures in contemporary art, both Cindy Sherman and David Salle were key figures in the influential ‘Pictures Generation’ art movement of the mid 1970s and 80s in New York.

3^rd || Monday

Spotlight On: LI Yuan-Chia, Richard Saultoun, PV 6-8pm

Li Yuan-chia is one of China’s earliest pioneers of abstract and conceptual art. To pursue his artistic vision he had to leave China: emerging under the influences of western artists in both Italy and England, he developed a unique style combining traditional Chinese calligraphy with abstraction. Li’s focus on the spirit of Chinese culture and philosophy, combined with an experimental aesthetic has resulted in a distinctive oeuvre, spanning painting, photography, sculpture and participatory kinetic installations.

PIL PROJECT 2.0: Russia. Be Blinded by an Inner Light, Event taking place on Facebook, Dates 3rd Oct till 29th Oct

PILproject (PIL) sets out to delve into the political value of its growing meme collection following on from the previous incarnation in 2015. Through the acquisition process one particular meme caught the team’s attention, The Putin Rides meme, which pushed them to investigate the politics of Russia and the Internet further, and how the implementation of the countries recent Internet content law had effected artists operating on the net. Traveling to Russia and contacting several local artist groups and galleries in the Moscow area, the PIL team conducted interviews with these parties to attain a first-hand account of this new Internet legislation and its implications on the artistic practice. For the first segment of “PIL 2.0: Russia. Be blinded by inner light,” Rostan Tavasiev commences with an interactive performance via Facebook, which will play with the concept of the artwork within a meme culture. Through this gesture Tavasiev’s work will collage a narrative together with social media users via Facebook, by creating a dialectic exchange with the artwork’s character: Hidden.

To join the performance, go to Facebook.com and friend request Hidden Personally (don’t worry he won’t bite!) for regular updates: https://www.facebook.com/hidden.hikkimori?fref=ts

4^th || Tuesday

We live in the Office : Curators Tour, RIBA, 6.30-7.30pm

In occasion of the exhibition commissioned to Giles Round, he discusses the stories and architectural concepts behind the collection material used. By turning the gallery into a production studio and shop, this exhibition questions the ways in which we collect, preserve and purchase façades today and it explores the increasing tension between the changing interior and static exterior of the architecture around us and our subsequently unreliable understanding of cities and spaces. Tickets are £5.

Beatrice Haines: The Devid in the Detail, Project Space London

Inspired by encounters between forensic science and the domestic environment, in her first solo show in London, Haines explores our relationship with everyday objects and the insight these give into human desire, fear and mortality. Objects that hold a personal resonance are raised to the status of relics despite their interpretation as banal or grotesque by the outsider. This re-appropriation gives them new life and meaning.

PERFECTIONISM (part III): The Alchemy of Making, Griffin Gallery

In the third part of this series, the focus turns towards the idea of transformation of materials. Featuring a range of artists whose practice involves taking materials through a meticulous and carefully planned process in order to change their status or presence.

With Tessa Farmer, Alastair Gordon, Caroline Jane Harris, Darren Harvey Regan, Nikolai Ishchuk, Liane Lang, Onya McCausland, Neal Rock and Piers Secunda.

Strange Atractor, The Agency Gallery, PV 6-9pm

A small late Dada assemblage in ink and watercolour by Man Ray, Les Papillons qui tombent du ciel ont soif (1958), serves as the central reference in a group exhibition featuring female artists whose practice engages with principles of modernism. Man Ray’s piece is part of a series of works made intermittently since 1930, which feature the motif of the butterfly. The butterfly as a signifier can also refer to the mathematical term “Strange Attractor,” or “Butterfly Effect,” which was discovered by Edward Lorenz in 1963 and describes the phenomenon of fractal maths, where minor differentiations in the initial set of calculations can lead to various radically different outcomes over the longer term.

With Ruth Barker, Sovay Berriman, Ulla von Brandenburg, Andrea Heller, Dominique Koch, Zilla Leutenegger and Loredana Sperini.

5^th || Wednesday

The Ulm Model, Raven Row

During its short life from 1953 to 1968, the Ulm School of Design (HfG Ulm) in Southern Germany pioneered an interdisciplinary and systematic approach to design education. For the first time in the UK, it is possible to explore the achievements of the school. From radiographs and weighing machines to traffic lights, petrol cans, bed frames and kitchenware, the exhibition will gather and correlate objects designed for diverse industries. Curated by Peter Kapos.

6^th || Thursday

END-USER, The RYDER, PV 6-9pm

Featuring works by artists Jason File, JonesSmithJohnson, Jonas Lund and Carey Young, the exhibition explores, through videos, internet art and prints, contract law and its far-reaching implications within our lives. Our personal and public life is increasingly influenced by legal and corporate culture, end-user agreements being an integral part of new consumer technologies. These agreements are rarely read by users and we are given no choice but to agree to them if we want to enjoy the product we have purchased.

7^th || Friday

Rosana Antoli: Virtual Choreography. First Gestures Virtual World Map, Arebyte, PV 6-9pm

Rosana Antoli’s practice juxtaposes drawing, performance and moving image to reveal the hidden choreographic commands that structure the everyday, in order to resist the imposition of behaviours, acts and motions. Virtual Choreography is an interactive online platform working as an open database of movements, a ‘world gesture map’ that allows the audience to visualise and upload several recorded motions created by themselves. The Hackney Wick area will work as Antoli’s starting point for a project that will have continuation in different cities and countries around the world.

Alice Theobald – The Next Step, Two Queens, PV 6-9pm

The exhibition centres around a seemingly aimless sprawling conversation about relationships, aspirations and life decisions as a baby and a dog advance towards the audience. Through this conversation, a combination of language play, moving image and installation, Theobald explores conflicted feelings about societal conventions, the repeated cycle of human existence, and the ways that received wisdom about life, love, death, freedom and personal growth feed back into daily life through depictions in film, television and music.

11^th || Tuesday

Shape_Shifters, ARTHOUSE1, PV 6-8.30pm

An exhibition of site-specific work resulting from a residency at Arthouse1 by Sasha Bowles, Rosalind Davis, Justin Hibbs, Evy Jokhova and Gibson/Martelli, who all transform shape, space, environment and experience through their multi-disciplinary approaches. They work collaboratively (though not as a collective); whether through the creation and development of their work in conversation with others, curatorial projects, residencies and exhibition making.

29^th || Friday

Intugue: James Ensor by Luc Tuymans, Royal Academy of Arts

Belgian painter Luc Tuymans curates the first exhibition of Ensor’s work in almost 20 years. Taking a personal view, Tuymans, whose creative practice is similarly experimental,

will look back at Ensor’s singular career through a selection of his most bizarrely brilliant and gloriously surreal creations.

Silvia Meloni