3rd || Tuesday
Installation view of Leonor Antunes: the last days in Chimalistac, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, 2013 [detail]. Courtesy Leonor Antunes. Photo: Nick Ash.
Straight lines and flat planes morph into looping and twisting volumes and sculptural reliefs in the new commission by Leonor Antunes (b. 1972, Portugal). Weavings, geometric patterns, artisanal techniques and utilitarian designs are sources of inspiration.
Taking its title from British architect Alison Smithson’s description of how young people bring together elements of style to define their identity and social allegiances, Antunes gathers references to overlooked figures in the history of 20th-century architecture, art and design, particularly women. Her commission has been informed by two artists who lived in London — Mary Martin (1907–69, UK) and Lucia Nogueira (1950–98, Brazil). While both were known for their sculpture, Martin also created works on paper and weavings and Nogueira made jewellery.
Still from Seth Price, “Painting” Sites (2000), Courtesy the artist
A survey exhibition of film and video works by American artist Seth Price.
‘There’s a question to which no artwork has an answer, to which every artwork is susceptible, which is, so what? There is no answer. You ask it of yourself, as an artist, and there’s only silence. It’s not a nihilistic question, or pointless skepticism, because the silence produced is actually useful. This silence records an echo: the artist has made a noise and prepared some kind of recording device to capture the echo that comes back. Your utterance now has a shadow that cannot be cast off. This shadow is the work.’ – Seth Price, Redistribution (2007 – ongoing).
Idris Khan in his London studio, 2017. Image Courtesy of Victoria Miro.
The exhibition marks an important departure for Khan, who will show works in bronze for the first time along with an entirely abstract painting. Uniting aesthetic and metaphysical questions, Khan has often employed techniques of layering and repetition to realise fragmentary experience or disparate ideas as a single image or solid form. In these new works, two- and three-dimensional forms are triggered by a desire to ascertain how scale, mass and volume are perceived, measured or remembered in times of sensory deprivation or through compromised and fragmentary accounts.
Geumhyung Jeong. Photo: Tae Hwan Kim.
Coinciding with her solo exhibition at Delfina Foundation, Private Collection: Unperformed Objects (Delfina Foundation, 28 September – 11 November 2017), during Frieze Week Tate Modern will present 7ways, a solo performance by Geumhyung Jeong in the form of seven ‘duets’ with everyday objects that take on an unsettling life of their own. The two ticketed performances at Tate Modern will punctuate a week-long free presentation of Jeong’s work in the Tanks.
Tickets: £12
5th || Thursday
Lungiswa Gqunta, Lawn 1, 2016 (Detail). Wood, broken bottles, and petrol. 242 x 122 x 28 cm. Image Courtesy of KELDER.
Opening of ‘Poolside Conversations’, KELDER. Exhibition running: 5 October – 17 December 2017
Lungiswa Gqunta creates installations, sculptures and audio-visual work revealing the hidden structures that perpetuate the legacy of colonialism in South Africa as presented to us in the quotidian form of the suburban garden and the leisure activities that takes place there.
Poolside Conversations, the first solo presentation of Gqunta’s work in London, will be hosted by KELDER this autumn together with a programme of talks and events that further explore notions of decolonisation, landscape and protest.
Kesh Angels photograph © Hassan Hajjaj. Courtesy of the artist.
Coinciding with the launch of his new exhibition Hassan Hajjaj: La Caravane (Somerset House, 5 October 2017 – 7 January 2018), join the visionary photographer as he explores his career so far.
Born in Larache Hassan Hajjaj moved to London aged 12, his distinctive work combines the cultures of these two global cities as well as aesthetic influences of commercial brands, identity and youth culture. His bold portraits draw on the personalities of the subject through his trademark visual prism using patterns, fabrics and recurring motifs to create works that are both familiar and unfamilar while being wholly unique.
Hassan will be joined by writer, cultural commentator and award-winning broadcaster Ekow Eshun who has also contributed text to the exhibition catalogue which will be available to purchase on the night. The two will discuss the new solo exhibition, Hassan’s first in the UK in seven years as well as his working process, the underlying themes and influences within the world of contemporary photography.
Tickets: £10/12
© Haroon Mirza; Courtesy of Lisson Gallery. Photography: Jack Hems.
Performance ‘In Residence: Studio Wayne McGregor’, Zabludowicz Collection, 7–9pm (Free)
As the first in a series of four onsite public residencies, Catarina Carvalho and Neil Fleming Brown, dance artists from Studio Wayne McGregor, spend three days in the gallery. During this time, they use the space as a studio and the works as collaborators, exploring the crossover interest of long-term collaborators Haroon Mirza and Wayne McGregor. The new interaction produced in response to the installation is presented within, and as part of, For A Partnership Society (Zabludowicz Collection, 28 September – 17 December 2017).
Booking required.
6th || Friday
Image Courtesy of SCAN Spanish Contemporary Art Network.
SCAN is please to present ‘Shaping time’, a satellite project by Isabel Hurley Gallery at the SCAN Project Room.
The exhibition brings together works by three artists who explore the relationship of image and time. Integrating ideas about regeneration and transformation in art, ‘Shaping Time’ reflects on the aesthetic appreciation of nature and questions about loss, fading, contemplation, and migratory processes in art. It gathers a selection of pieces that vary from video to painting, from sculpture to performance, narrating personal stories about displacement and settlement processes. The exhibition addresses themes about the transient and the discontinuous, as well as messages that persist and perish in nature and art.
Artists: Javier Artero, Daniel Silvo, Sophie Mackfall. Curated by Paula López Zambrano.
7th || Saturday
Roland Hagenberg, Jean-Michel Basquiat painting, 1983 © Roland Hagenberg.
Event ‘Too Young for What?’, Barbican Centre, 12 – 7pm (free)
An innovative programme of free events, installations and special performances and celebrate the creativity of Jean-Michel Basquiat. Too Young for What? provides opportunities to develop young people’s creativity and showcases a range of new work with and by young people from across east London and beyond. The day explores what Basquiat and his practice means to young and emerging artists through a range of art forms including music, performance, street art and poetry.
The day includes free entry to John Akomfrah’s installation in the Curve and, if you join the Young Barbican scheme, you can pre-book entry to Basquiat: Boom for Real, the first large-scale UK exhibition of his work for just £5. In the evening, Young Barbican members can also catch legends of downtown New York’s 1980s scene Kid Creole & the Coconuts and Arto Lindsay in the Hall for a tenner.
14th || Saturday
Image Courtesy of Virtuality Mortality.
For this project, XAP have brought together an international group of artists and technologists, combining multi-sensory installations, interactive robotics, paint, machine learning, dance, sculpture, video, print, audio and performance.
We explore communications, tensions and potentials between the realms of the Real and Virtual, depicted as an intense ecology of digital, organic, human and machine; living, decaying, reborn and undead. Experience the moment of Unoriginal Sin via QR code; see the unseen ‘Last free NHS bed’; let an AI ransack your email and create a ’zine all about you; taste the Big Heap of decaying technology; notify The System of the Final Wishes for your online self. Visit through the eyes of The (hu)Ma(n)chine; prepare yourself to forget and remember; follow the elusive trail of messages from an other place.
18th || Wednesday
Robert Montgomery Portrait by Cindy Sasha. Courtesy of Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art.
Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art is delighted to present Robert Montgomery’s POEM IN LIGHTS TO BE SCATTERED IN THE SQUARE MILE, 2017, the latest addition to the Parasolstice – Winter Light series and the first light poem to be commissioned by a public London institution.
The starting point for Montgomery’s site-specific work on the terrace at Parasol unit, is a consideration of place. Responding to its location and surrounding neighbourhood in contemporary time, Montgomery’s light poem, constructed in wood, metal and LED lights, illuminates aspects unique to this area of Shoreditch and its history, such as the now demolished Eagle Music Hall and ‘Grecian Salon’ that stood on the corner of City Road and Shepherdess Walk very near Parasol unit.
Artist Talk: 7 pm
19th || Thursday
Untitled (FoxGlove) © Thomas Hensher, 2016. Image Courtesy of CUNTemporary.
Between the supernatural and teratological, this symposium opens up debate on how the magickal and the monstrous in live art offer perspectives on queer-feminist ethics, post-colonial resurgences and anti-capitalist resistance by embodying, displaying and practising the perspectives of outcast and monstrous ‘others’.
Presentations by FoxGlove, Ivan Monteiro, Mette Sterre, Martin O’Brien and keynote lecture by Professor of Continental Philosophy Patricia MacCormack (Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge). Moderated by Giulia Casalini and Diana Georgiou (co-directors at Arts Feminism Queer). The event will be followed by a drink reception.
21st || Saturday
Tituba from Taboao da Serra © Ivan Monteiro, 2017. Image Courtesy of CUNTemporary.
Deep Trash is back with a reincarnation of a to-die-for night of live art! Punk witches, cruising and cursing, afro-futurist Voodoo, leaky rituals, feminist sigil magick, queer zombies, camp vampires, anti-capitalist hell-raising, blood-spilling… and many other supernatural experiences!
The venue will be open from 8pm, with a 1 hour curated screening on loop, an exhibition area, interactive installations and all-night performances reflecting occult themes. Dressing up, skin shedding or shape-shifting highly encouraged!
Tickets: £6/8 (adv.) – £8/10 (door)
23rd || Monday
Image Courtesy of the artist and Deptford Lounge.
This free photography and film exhibition shows the stories of a selection of strong and inspirational women, mostly from the Northern Region of Ghana. This exhibition has previously been shown in Hoxton, Goldsmiths University and Houses of Parliament! So now is a great opportunity to come and see this special event at The Albany in honour of Black History Month.
The images and stories were captured by photographer Anisha Patel, who had the privilege to meet these women whilst volunteering with the UK Government funded International Service and International Citizen Service Programme in Ghana. The women featured have taken control over their lives and worked hard to achieve their ambitions, overcoming hardships such as poverty, low levels of literacy or just simply being a woman.
Anisha will also be holding a special talk on Thursday 26 October where she will discuss the photographs and the women she met. Book tickets for the talk (donation).
Miriam La Rosa
Featured Image: 7ways, performance, 75 min, 2009-17, by and with Geumhyung Jeong. Photo credit: Wooshik Lee.
CuratingtheContemporary (CtC) 