What's On: London Galleries

A monthly update of a selection of exhibitions in London galleries and museums.

February | 2014

Commercial Galleries

Alexandre Singh, "The Humans". Sprüth Magers London
Click here for image URL

- Now Showing (17/01 - 22/02)
Carroll/Fletcher
56-57 Eastcastle Street, W1W 8EQ

- Georg Baselitz: Farewell Bill (13/02 - 29/03)
Gagosian Gallery
6-24 Britannia St, W1K 3DE

- Alex Van Gelder : Meat Portraits (10/01 - 08/02)
- Zhang Enli: The Box (10/01 - 01/03)
- Hans Arp: Change - Form - Language (and Franzwestigation) (10/01 - 01/03)
Hauser & Wirth
196a Piccadilly and 23 Saville Row

- Olivier Richon & Karen Knorr : Punks (16/01 - 22/02)
- Rodrigo Matheus: Coqueiro Chorão (27/02 - 29/03)
IBID.
37 Albemarle St, W1S 4JF

- The Book of Materiality and Making (04/02 - 07/03)
London Gallery West
The Forum, School of Media, Arts & Design, University of Westminister, HA1 3TP

- Emilia Sunyer (17/01 - 07/03)
Maddox Arts
52 Brook's Mews, W1K 4ED

- Dean Hughes: New Works (24/01 - 08/03)
Maria Senfors
Unit 10, 21 Wren Street, WC1X 0HF

- Pamela Golden: Good Morning! Mister Williams (15/01 to 15/02)
Marlborough Contemporary
6 Albemarle Street, W1S 4BY

- Stephen Hannock (05/02 to 01/03)
Marlborough Fine Art
6 Albemarle Street, W1S 4BY

- Luis Tomasello (03/02 - 28/03)
The Mayor Gallery
21 Cork St, W1S 3LZ

- Isaac Julien: Playtime (24/01 - 01/03)
Victoria Miro, Islington
16 Wharf Road, N1 7RW

- Isaac Julien: Playtime (24/01 - 01/03)
Victoria Miro, Mayfair
14 St George St, W1S 1FS

- James Turrell (07/02 - 05/04/2015)
Pace London, Mayfair
21 Herald Street, E2 6JT

- Mark Flood (21/02 - 22/03)
Modern Art
21 Herald Street, E2 6JT

- Out of Site (16/01 - 08/03)
Peer
97/99 Hoxton Street, N1 6QL

- Helen Marten (29/01 - 15/03)
Sadie Coles HQ
62 Kingley St, W1B 5QN

- Paloma Varga Weisz (23/01 - 01/03)
Sadie Coles HQ
69 South Audley St, W1K 2QZ

- Telling Tales (to 08/02)
- David Buckingham: Under the Influence (21/02 - 29/03)
Scream
27-28 Eastcastle St, W1W 8DH

- George Condo (11/02 - 22/03)
Simon Lee

12 Berkley St, W1J 8DT

- George Condo: Ink Drawings (11/02 - 05/04)
Skanderst Gallery London

23 Old Bond Street, W1S 4PZ

- Matheus Rocha Pitta: L'Accordo (30/01 - 15/03)
Sprovieri

23 Heddon St, W1B 4BQ

- Alexandre Singh (24/01 - 08/03)
Sprüth Magers London

7a Grafton St, W1S 4EJ

- Liu Wei: Density (29/01 - 15/03)

White Cube, Mason's Yard

25-26 Mason's Yard, SW1Y 6BU

Museums and Institutional Galleries

Richard Hamilton, "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different?" (1992). Tate.
Click here for image URL

Barbican Art Gallery & The Curve:
- Pop Art Design (to 09/02/2014)
- Unites Visual Artists : Momentum (13/02 - 01/06)
Barbican Centre, EC2Y 8DS

Drawing Room:

- Abstract Drawing: Curated by Richard Deacon (20/02 - 12/04)

12 Rich Estate, Crimscott St, SE1 5TE

Hayward Gallery:

- Martin Creed: What's the Point of It? (29/01 - 27/04)

Belvedere Rd, SE1 8XX

ICA, institute of Contemporary Art:

- David Robilliard: The Yes No Quality of Dreams (to 15/06)
- Richard Hamilton at ICA (12/02 - 06/04)

The Mall, SW1Y 5AH

Saatchi Gallery:

- Body Language ( to 16/03)
- New Order II: British Art Today (to 06/04)

- Richard Wilson : 20:50 (Permanent)

Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, SW3 4RY

Serpentine Galleries:

- Jake and Dinos Chapman : Come and See (to 09/02)
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
- Wael Shawky (to 09/02)
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
- Fischli/Weiss : Rock on Top of Another Rock (to 06/03) 
Outdoor, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA

Tate Britain:

- Painting Now : Five Contemporary Artists (to 09/02)
- Richard Deacon (05/02 - 27/04)
Millbank, SW1P 4RG

Tate Modern:

- Paul Klee : Making Visible (to 09/03)
- Project Space : Inverted House (to 09/03)
- Harry Callahan (through May 2014)
- Richard Hamilton (13/02 - 26/05)
Bankside, SE1 9TG

Work Gallery:

- Joseph Kosuth Re-defining the Context of Art: 1968-2013. The Second Investigation and Public Media (28/02 - 26/04)
10A Acton St, WC1X 9NG

Whitechapel Gallery:

- Hannah Höch : Radical works from the woman behind collage (to 23/03)
- Supporting Artists : Acme's First Decade 1972-1982 (to 22/02)
- Rachel Whiteread: Tree of Life
77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX

Zabludowicz Collection:

- Infinite City (27/02 - 11/05)

176 Prince of Wales Rd, NW5 3PT

Art of the Week: Composition C (No. III) With Red, Yellow and Blue

Piet Mondrian, "Composition C (No. III) With Red, Yellow and Blue" (1935). Tate Modern Collection, Structure and Clarity Exhibtion. Click here for image URL

Mondrian's worked developed into the beauty of the bare minimun. In the series of his more mature compositions, canvases consists of white background, vertical and horizontal black crossing lines, and the use of red, yellow and/or blue. In other terms, rectangles and squares and primary colours. Mondrian believed colours did not need to mix nor lines need to bend in order to achieve pure beauty. He isolated all other artistic techniques in order to provide a pure mathematical study of the beauty of art.

The essence of Mondrian’s ideas is that painting, composed of the most fundamental aspects of line and colour, must set an example to the other arts for achieving a society in which art as such has no place but belongs instead to the total realization of ‘beauty’.*

* 2009 Oxford University Press. MoMA, the collection - about the artist Piet Mondrian.

http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=4057

Cassat, Schendel and Emin: Life and Art

Until the mid nineteenth century, the art world constituted mainly of men. Very few women are known to have gained recognition before then. In the end of the 1800's Mary Cassatt left the United States to go to France in search of artistic education.

Mary Cassatt, "Breakfast in Bed" (1897). Click here for image URL

Cassatt worked alongside with Degas, Manet and other Impressionist artists of the time. Though happily received in the group, she was still an outsider, given the fact she was a foreigner and a woman. The intense relationship she had with her Mother was also a factor in her difficult transition. She was mostly famous for painting portraits of Mother and Child.

"By developing her talent, she communicated her wish to be a mother, and expressed the need to find, if only on canvas, a more truly empathic mother."* Mary Cassatt expressed her personal feelings through the arts. Painting became a form of communicating her past and her desire for the present and future.

Mira Schendel was a Brazilian artist born in Zurich, who was raised a Catholic in Italy. Given her Jewish background, she fled from Nazis, moving from Italy, to Bulgaria, Austria and Sarajevo. It was not until 1949 where she decided to create a new life in São Paulo. She started her practice as an artist, becoming a distinguished figure in the Brazilian modernist movement.

Mira Schendel, "Graphic Object" (1967).
Mira Schendel Estate
Click here for image URL

Throughout her developing work, there is always a sense that she never found her identity. "With Mira, it was never a simple story".** She dwelled on the ideals of religion and language. Her conflicting cultural background is ever present in her works. The choice of materials, such as the partially see-through rice paper, reflect on the idea of a mid point of every aspect of her life. 

"The contradictory nature of her character (loving but argumentative); of her work (delicate but profound); and of her identity (European but Brazilian; Jewish but also Catholic, or atheist, or maybe all of the above)."***

Tracey Emin, "Sleep" (1996).
Click here for image URL

In present day, I believe Tracey Emin would be a comparable artist to both Schendel and Cassat. Her own life most clearly remain the biggest motif in her works. Her neon signs, her drawings, her installations are all records of her personal memories. She explores universal emotions through her own experiences, and blurs the partition between art and life.

"Using experiences from her own life, Tracey Emin often reveals painful situations with brutal honesty and poetic humour. The personal expands to the universal in the way Emin takes a feeling about her life and forms it into a genuine expression of a human emotion."****

Women subjected their own history to produce art. In many ways, they establish their views of society and the world by understanding themselves. Cassat, Schendel and Emin, use their works as a way to find an identity for themselves. 

*Zerbe KJ. "Mother and child. A psychobiographical portrait of Mary Cassatt". 1987. Abstract.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3112829

**Barson, Tania. Curator for the Tate Modern Exhibition, "Mira Schendel" (2013).

***Barnett, Laura. "Mira Schendel: the refugee from Nazi Europe who settled in São Paulo". 2013. The Guardian.

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/sep/13/mira-schendel-tate-modern-profile

**** Saatchi Gallery. "Tracey Emin - Tracey Emin Exhibited at the Saatchi Gallery"
http://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/tracey_emin.htm

What's On: London Galleries

A monthly update of a selection of exhibitions in London galleries and museums.

Novermber | 2013

Commercial Galleries

"Model for a Mahogany Plug, Scale B" (1969), Claes Oldenburg. Re-view : Onnasch Collection.
Hauser & Wirth. Click here for image URL

- Peter Burke : Shadow Factory (20/11 to 21/12)
Andipa Gallery
162 Walton Street, SW3 2JL

- Felix Gonzalez-Torres | Damien Hirst : Candy (to 30/11)
Blain|Southern
4 Hannover Square, W1S 1BP

- Daido Moriyama : Silkscreens (07/11 - 20/12)
Hamiltons Gallery
13 Carlos Place, W1K 2EU

- Re-View : Onnasch Collection (to 14/12)
Hauser & Wirth
196a Piccadilly and 23 Saville Row

- Nostalgic for the Future (15/11 - 11/01/2014)
Lisson Gallery
29 Bell Street, NW1 5BY 1BP

- Power and Pleasure (05/11 - 05/01/2014)
London Gallery West
The Forum, School of Media, Arts & Design, University of Westminister, HA1 3TP

- Not So Original (to 11/01/2014)
Maddox Arts
52 Brook's Mews, W1K 4ED

- Bioptic (15/11 - 21/12)
Maria Senfors
Unit 10, 21 Wren Street, WC1X 0HF

- Sarah Raphael : Paintings and Works on Paper from the 1980's-2000 (06/11 to 30/11)
Marlborough Fine Art
6 Albemarie Street, W1S 4BY

- Mingei : Are You Here? (to 14/12)
Pace London, Soho
First Floor, 6-10 Lexington Street, W1F 0LB

- Wolfgang Tillmans (to 24/11)
Maureen Paley
21 Herald Street, E2 6JT

- Danh Vo (to 07/12)
Peer
97/99 Hoxton Street, N1 6QL

- Reflections from Damaged Life : An Exhibition on Psychedelia (to 15/12)
Raven Row
56 Artillery Lane, E1 7LS

- Richard Prince: Protest Paintings (to 20/12)
Skanderst Gallery

23 Old Bond Street, W1S 4PZ

Museums and Institutional Galleries

Pop Art Design, Barbican Art Gallery.
Click here for Image URL

Barbican Art Gallery & The Curve:
- Ayse Erkmen : Intervals (to 05/01/2014)
- Pop Art Design (to 09/02/2014)
Barbican Centre, EC2Y 8DS

Saatchi Gallery:

- Body Language (20/11 to 16/03/2014)

- Richard Wilson : 20:50 (Permanent)

Duke of York's HQ, King's Road, SW3 4RY

Serpentine Galleries:

- Jake and Dinos Chapman : Come and See (29/11 to 09/02/2014)
Serpentine Sackler Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
- Wael Shawky (29/11 to 09/02/2014)
Serpentine Gallery, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA
- Fischli/Weiss : Rock on Top of Another Rock (to 06/03/2014) 
Outdoor, Kensington Gardens, W2 3XA

Tate Britain:

- Meet Tate Britain (from 19/11)
- Art Under Attack : Histories of British Iconoclasm (to 05/01/2014)
- Painting Now : Five Contemporary Artists (12/11 to 09/02/2014)
Millbank, SW1P 4RG

Tate Modern:

- Mira Schendel (to 19/01/2014)
- Paul Klee : Making Visible (to 09/03/2014
- Project Space : Tina Gverovic & Siniša Ilić (22/11 to 09/03/14)
Bankside, SE1 9TG

Victoria & Albert Museum:

- Club to Catwalk : London Fashion in the 1980's (to 16/02/2014)
- Pearls (to 19/01/2014)
- Tomorrow : Elmgreen & Dragset (to 02/01/2014)
- Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700-1900 (to 19/01/2014)
Cromwell Road, SW7 2RL

Whitechapel Gallery:

- Sarah Lucas : SITUATION Absolute Beach Man Rumble (to 15/12)
- Supporting Artists : Acme's First Decade 1972-1982 (to 22/02/2014)
- Contemporary Art Society : Nothing Beautiful Unless Useful (to 01/12)
- Artists in Residence : Annette Krauss : Hidden Curriculum/In Search of the Missing Lesson (to 01/12)

77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX

Tate Modern: My favourite London building

A picture of the Tate Modern from the Millenium Bridge, September 2013. by Gabriela Davies

Designed by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, built between 1947 and 1963, as an oil-fired power station, the building at the margin of the river Thames on Bankside has now become home to one of the most incredible museums of all history: Tate Modern.

                  In 1994, after an architecture competition, Herzog and De Meuron were announced the winners to reform the building which would become home for innumerable modern and contemporary masterpieces from all over the world. The company was announced winners after claiming “their respect for the original architecture, with subtle alterations rather than grand gestures, and the introduction of more light via the enormous roof light box, combined to create an interior both functional and modern” (“Archive Journeys: Tate History | Tate” 2013).

The building, after its opening in 2000 has most definitely gained attention of the public, having contradictory effects on its viewers. “The effect is ugly and intimidating, and one thinks of Auschwitz.” (Sewell) and “The hanging of the Tate Modern’s augmented collections is a nightmare of over-curating and is all the more oppressive for being exceedingly tasteful, intelligent, and inventive.” (Schjeldahl) both state critical views of the building.

Yet, in contradiction to these statements, the building makes a statement of “we were here” (Parker 2000) because it impacts for the passer-by and the admirers of the Southbank skyline. Since the 19^th Century, “London was too large to be dominated by any one style or standard” (Ackroyd 2000). I believe this city is one of the few in the world that can take in any style of personality. This is clearly translated through its design clearly emphasizing how Tate was planned: a combination of styles, which recycles a space to fit a different purpose.

A view from the 14th floor of a building in King's Cross - London Syline, October 2012. by Gabriela Davies

My first assignment at the Criticism, Communication and Curation course at Central Saint Martins.

Concluded on the 21st of October, 2013.

Bibliography:

JONES, Rennie. "AD Classics: The Tate Modern / Herzog & de Meuron | ArchDaily.” 2013. Newspaper Webpage. Arch Daily. September 17. http://www.archdaily.com/429700/ad-classics-the-tate-modern-herzog-and-de-meuron/.

SCHOENBERG, Lisa P. “Æ - The Tate Modern and the Future of the Art Museum.” 2013. Accessed October 15. http://www.uqtr.uquebec.ca/AE/Vol_9/nihil/shoen.htm.

“Archive Journeys: Tate History | The Buildings, Tate Modern, Building | Tate.” 2013. Accessed October 18. http://www2.tate.org.uk/archivejourneys/historyhtml/bld_mod_building.htm.

Herzog & De Meuron. 2013. “Archive Showcase | Herzog & De Meuron Proposal for Tate Modern.” Accessed October 15. http://www3.tate.org.uk/research/researchservices/archive/showcase/item.jsp?theme=1&subject=409&view=detail&parent=2137&item=2155.

“History of Tate | Tate.” 2013. Accessed October 15. http://www.tate.org.uk/about/who-we-are/history-of-tate#modern.

ACKROYD, Peter. 2000. “London: The Biography.” Book. 2013. Accessed October 19. http://moodle.arts.ac.uk/pluginfile.php?forcedownload=1&file=%2F%2F84593%2Fblock_quickmail%2Fattachment_log%2F3297%2FLondon.pdf.

PARKER, Alan Michael. 2000. “A Trip to the Tate Modern.” Internet Article, July 11. http://www.salon.com/2000/07/11/tate_modern/.