Review of Ana Mendieta: Traces at the Hayward Gallery

03/10/13

Ana Mendieta: Traces

Hayward Gallery

Southbank Centre

24 September – 15 December 2013

Despite leaving behind an archive of over 1000 slides and 60 films, as well as myriad drawings and sculptures, Ana Mendieta’s name sadly usually only crops up in relation to the tragic and untimely – not to mention suspicious – circumstances of her death. 

In 1985, aged just 36, when she fell from a window of the 34^th floor apartment that she shared with her artist husband, Carl Andre, whom she’d married less than eight months previously. Given the tempestuous nature of their relationship, exacerbated by her growing success, many believe she was pushed. Andre was charged with her murder but acquitted after the third trial. The suggestion of suicide has been dismissed as unthinkable by her family and friends, but many critics have, regardless, analysed her work, in particular her Silueta series, as a rehearsal for death: uncannily, the way in which she fell on to the roof of the delicatessen below mirrors the outlined silhouette shape, with one arm raised in a stylised pose reminiscent of the Great Goddess, of so much of her work. 

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/ana-mendieta 

Review of Jane Fradgley: held at the Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College

24/09/13

Jane Fradgley: held

SGDP Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Memory Lane, De Crespigny Park, SE5 8AF

10 July – 27 September 2013

Sometimes all a person needs is to be held: when she is scared, when she is sick, when she is lost. In the case of mental illness, it is not uncommon to feel all three of these overwhelming emotions at once, yet the instinct of many is to distance themselves from the patient in need, rather than to reach out and hold her. 

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2013/09/held/

Review of The Birth of Cinema… and Beyond: An Exhibition of Painting and Video at rosenfeld porcini

09/09/13

The Birth of Cinema… and Beyond

An Exhibition of Painting and Video

rosenfeld porcini

3 July – 21 September 2013

Before the invention of cinema in the 19^th century, visual art was one of the primary means for storytelling, alongside oral and written traditions. When Christians entered a church and saw a painting recounting a Biblical episode, they knew the narrative surrounding it so well that they could virtually see the action unfolding in their mind’s eye; similarly, Old Master paintings of Greek and Roman myths could easily conjure up vivid and dramatic denouements in the imaginations of their educated viewers. As the third of their annual themed exhibitions, Fitzrovia art gallery rosenfeld porcini, whose partner gallery, Galleria Napolinobilissima in Italy, regularly shows Old Master works, brings together newly commissioned works by seven contemporary artists and, for the first time, works from the directors’ collections by ten Old Masters, looking at the tradition of narrative artwork, both prior to and since the birth of cinema.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/the-birth-of-cinema 

Review of Christina Mitrentse: MAKE – METALIBRARY at the Women’s Art Library, Goldsmiths, University of London

04/09/13

Christina Mitrentse: MAKE – METALIBRARY / An Interactive Exhibition

Women’s Art Library, Special Collections, Rutherford Building, Goldsmiths, University of London

2 – 23 September 2013 (extended)

It is unusual to walk into a library and find the books laid out across the floor. It is even more unusual to do so in a Special Collections Archive, where the books and magazines in question are normally only available upon special request. But precisely this has happened in the Women’s Art Library, located in the Goldsmiths College Library Special Collections department, courtesy of Greek-born artist Christina Mitrentse (born 1977). 

Originally established as the Women Artists Slide Library in the late 1970s, this artists' initiative developed into a fully-fledged organisation and research resource, becoming part of Goldsmiths College Library Special Collections in 2004. Its holdings include a significant number of early feminist art journals, such as Feminist Artists Newsletter (UK), Heresies (USA) and Matriart (Canada), alongside, of course, the complete nine-year, 92-issue run of what came to be known as MAKE, the library’s own publication of and for women's art, focusing on historical and contemporary women's art practice and highlighting both emerging and established international artists through previews, interviews, and feature pieces. 

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.divamag.co.uk/category/arts-entertainment/art-review-christina-mitrentse.aspx

Review of The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill

02/09/13

The Universal Addressability of Dumb Things

Curated by Mark Leckey

De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill

13 July – 20 October 2013

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend for artists to take on the role of curator, encouraged by a number of high-profile exhibitions, such as Grayson Perry’s The Tomb of the Unknown Craftsman at the British Museum (2012) and Hayward Touring’s series of artist-curated shows, including successes by Michael Craig-Martin, Richard Wentworth, Susan Hiller, Tacita Dean, Mark Wallinger and now 2008 Turner prize-winner Mark Leckey (born 1964). The idea of such exhibitions, according to Hayward Touring, is to open up new and unexpected approaches to exhibition-making, as well as to give special insights into the artists’ own deeper preoccupations. In the case of Leckey, the visitor is treated to a spectacular cabinet of curiosities, ranging across the categories of human, animal, and technology, exploring a mind that is as much scientist as it is artist, as much crazy inventor as it is mad professor.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/the-universal-addressability-of-dumb-things 

Review of Keep Your Timber Limber (Works on Paper) at the ICA

02/09/13

Keep Your Timber Limber (Works on Paper)

Curated by Sarah McCrory

ICA

19 June – 8 September 2013

Turning the corner towards the ICA’s lower gallery this summer, the visitor finds himself entering the target range of an immense, phallic gun. This is sadly somewhat unsurprising, however, given the ICA’s apparent remit to present art which will shock: such extreme efforts to bamboozle have come to be rather commonplace within its walls. Indeed, this whole exhibition, consisting of works on paper by eight artists from the 1940s to today, seems hell bent on creating a scandal. Perhaps it is simply trying too hard, then, since, despite the serious intent of the artists to challenge weighty political issues such as war and feminism, I was left, to be honest, little more than bored.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a belief that as long as it is making a political point, it doesn’t matter whether or not your art is any good; puerile scribbles will suffice. And this is very clearly the case with Judy Bernstein (born 1942), artist of the aforementioned gun, Fuck by Number (2013). The enormous drawing, in black charcoal and red paint, depicts an erect penis/gun, with its testicles as the barrel, shooting an American flag, and surrounded by statistics from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, showing their horror and futility. Around the corner are smaller charcoal drawings, likewise conflating sexual violence and acts of war, and littered with crude verses and scribbles like those you might find as graffiti in a public toilet.

Alongside Bernstein are works by Margaret Harrison (born 1940), recent winner of the Northern Art Prize. Her offerings are less violent, but no less explicit. In Good Enough to Eat (2) (1971), for example, a dominatrix is sprawled between the slices of bread in a sandwich, whilst in Dolly Parton/Allen Jones (2010), she kneels on all fours, supporting a table top, as in Jones’ own subversive sculptures. Turning the gender balance tables, there are also works like Captain America (1997), where the comic superhero stands astride, displaying a tiny penis and larger-than-life strap-on breasts. The graphic novel style of these drawings blends well with their mix of humour and biting critique of male power.

Upstairs is largely male dominated, apart from Marlene McCarty’s (born 1957) detailed ballpoint drawing of a gorilla enjoying illicit sexual relations with two female scientists. Mike Kuchar (born 1942) presents equally fantastical scenarios in his homoerotic phantasmagoria, commissioned for comic publications such as Gay Heart Throbs.

As the “old master” of social and political critique through art, George Grosz (1893-1959) also has a work on display: Stickmen Meeting Members of the Bourgeois (1946), in which a group of grey, lifeless stickmen are shown aimlessly following two fat, ruddy, sweaty members of the bourgeoisie, the contents of their bulging stomachs exposed to show plentiful beer and meat.

Antonio Lopez (1943-1987) has been credited with influencing the acceptance of diverse ethnicities into the fashion world, through his hedonistic drawings for New York magazines, whilst Cary Kwok (born 1975), who also trained in fashion, has filled nearly a whole room with biro drawings of men at the moment of ejaculation. This, to me, far from shocking, is merely mildly nauseating.

The final contributor is Tom of Finland (1920-1991) who achieved cult status for his erotic drawings of homosexual male encounters, in which his characters are uniformed servicemen, sailors, lumberjacks and biker rebels. Again, these are technically well drawn, and perhaps they were shocking at the time, but now, in an age of mass graphic bombardment, they come across largely as if they were pages torn from a comic book.

Indeed, this exhibition considers the crossover between the commercial and the aesthetic via the medium of drawing, as well as looking at how this has been used to voice political and critical opinion. In some instances, there is intricate detail; in others, childish scribblings. Quite why there needs, however, to be such an overbearing focus on the pornographically explicit, I am not sure. I’m all for freedom of speech and expression, and even for art that truly shocks, but, in this case I was just glad to reach the end.

Images:

Judith Bernstein

DICK IN THE HEAD series

2010

charcoal, pastel on paper

41.5" x 29.5"

Marlene McCarty

Group 8: (Karisoke, The Virungas, Rwanda. September 24, 1967. 4:30pm.)

2006

ballpoint pen and graphite on paper

courtesy of the artist and Sikkema Jenkins & Co.

Mike Kuchar

Prehistoric Pets

1980-1990

courtesy of the artist, and François Ghebaly Gallery

George Grosz

Stickmen meeting members of the bourgeois

1946

courtesy of David Nolan Gallery, New York

Antonio Lopez

Gianni Versace Campaign

1984

© the Estate of Antonio Lopez

courtesy the Suzanne Geiss Company

Tom of Finland

Untitled

1963

© Tom of Finland Foundation, Incorporated

Review of Alexis Hunter & Jo Spence at Richard Saltoun

27/08/13

Alexis Hunter & Jo Spence

Richard Saltoun

22 August – 27 September 2013

“We need to use our cameras, tape recorders, diaries, poems, videos – whatever cultural resources we have – to witness our own histories, to learn to protest and share, and to learn to nurture ourselves.”*

When Jo Spence (1934-1992) and Alexis Hunter (born 1948) exhibited together in the 1970s, feminist art was in its heyday and both artists had recently begun to use photography as a means to explore identity, comment upon and criticise society, and bring about change. Spence, herself from a working class background, was particularly interested in exploring cultural and class stereotypes, whilst Hunter immersed herself fully in the women’s movement and produced works questioning gender roles. Inevitably, however, Spence’s work has also been seen, much discussed, and academically pontificated upon from this angle. Both artists use portraiture and self-representation playfully and unsettlingly to tell stories, create narratives, make their viewers cringe, feel shame, feel guilt, and relate – at the level of the id, there is something in each of these artist’s strips of snapshot-style photographs or basic contact sheets where any and every woman can find herself.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.divamag.co.uk/category/arts-entertainment/art-review-alexis-hunter-jo-spence.aspx

Review of 10 at the Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital

11/08/13

10

The Conference Centre, St Pancras Hospital

12 July – 12 September 2013

“Imagination is like the sea. You cannot say how many cups of water are in it – it’s endless.” This was my introduction to the group show currently on display in the Conference Centre at St Pancras Hospital – a chance encounter with a member of hospital staff, who, seeing me standing by Simon Croft’s mirror works, Normal, Natural and Real (2013), came over to ask if I was one of the artists, expressing his awe, and saying how he was “mesmerised” by the works on display. With such eloquent expression, really, he ought to be writing this review, but sadly he had another job to get back to! Nonetheless, his enthusiasm for the works on show certainly opened my mind to enjoy them even more than I otherwise might have.

The exhibition is a celebration of ten years of the Arts Project, which, together with the North London NHS Charitable Fund, has curated 125 exhibitions, involving over 200 artists – both professional and amateur – since 2003. And, indeed, the long corridor gallery space is filled with a sense of celebration – bright colours, kitsch, beads, playful papier mâché animals (by Sheona Josiah), an installation of golden Egyptian wonders (Gold of the Pharaohs, by Sue Kreitzman, 2013, a personal homage to the curator Peter Herbert), collage, ceramics, stonework, photographs, paintings and prints. Portraits hang opposite landscapes, and various thematic threads run throughout, inviting the visitor to pick one at will and start unravelling…

Places and memories figure significantly, with Dominic O’Ryan’s black and white photography montage, There are Places I Remember (2013), creating a travellog of beauty, Paul Herbert’s blue and green acrylics, The Homeland: New Zealand Portrait (2013) and The Homeland: New Zealand Landscape (2013), looking, with their black outlines and stark, effective shapes, almost like woodcuts, and, closer to home, Angela Inglis’s photographs of Kings Cross (taken from her book, Kings Cross: A Sense of Place, 2012), Ana Sedano’s photograph Shard London (2012), and Terry Humphries’ small bluish oil painting, St. Paul’s on the Thames.

Landscapes do not just refer to those of location, either, with Paul Dedelve’s stunning photograph, Landscape (2009), portraying the mere suggestion of the contours of a female body. Echoing this, Sue Smith has created a white stoneware sculpture, Woman at Rest (2012), whose smooth curves evoke hilltops and valleys, every bit as much as hips and shoulders.

Matilda Moreton works with literal maps, printing historical maps of the city of London on to ceramic tiles, and china mugs and plates, whilst Catharine Barcham’s dreamlike fused glass face masks opposite are displayed in a case with a statement taken from Lawrence Gowing (1962), saying:

The map of the face made up of timeless, mysterious, elusive human identities, 

is one, which we can only explore through our own understanding of ourselves, 

and how we map our own lives.

Certainly the question of identity – common to Herbert’s curatorial efforts – is another thread of this exhibition, and a number of artists raise questions as to how we see ourselves. These include Margaret Pepper, whose Journey of Discovery (2007) considers the uncertain territory traversed by the LGBT community; Phil Wildman, whose collaged acrylics bring together features from a variety of sources, compiling the emergent self; Ella Guru, whose painting depicts a woman looking in the mirror and seeing a rabbit’s face (Rabbitt’s Mirror, 2012); and Simon Croft, whom I mentioned at the start, whose three mirrors overlaid with PVA words look at the ways in which language use brings about judgments and affects the way that people, in particular transmen and women, look at their bodies.

Overall, this exhibition is an eclectic and joyous collection, appropriate for its celebratory purpose, and well worth a visit.

Images:

Sheona Josiah

© the artist

Dominic O’Ryan

There are Places I Remember 

2013

detail

© the artist

Paul Herbert

The Homeland: New Zealand Portrait 

2013

© the artist

Paul Dedelve

Landscape 

2009

© the artist

Catharine Barcham

© the artist

For more information, see: https://www.facebook.com/ten.theartsproject 

Review of Conrad Shawcross: Timepiece at the Roundhouse

09/08/13

Conrad Shawcross: Timepiece

Roundhouse

1 - 25 August 2013

Enter the Roundhouse this month, and you will find it pitch black, apart from three starry lights, moving about in the hemispherical dome, casting eerie shadows through the rafters and down across the floor. These lights are actually bulbs, attached to the furthest extended points of three long metallic limbs – arms, each with two joints, moving slowly and steadily, unfurling as they rotate about a central axis, further punctuated by the pinnacle of a tall spike, rising from the floor, part and parcel of this astronomical construct, conceived specifically for the architecture of the venue, by artist Conrad Shawcross (born 1977).

Interested in the crossovers between geometry and philosophy, physics and metaphysics, Shawcross, upon being commissioned to create a site-specific piece for the Chalk Farm location, was struck by the building’s iconic roundness, as well as by the 24 columns circumscribing the round. Relating these to how humankind has come to index the day, breaking it down into 24 hours, Shawcross began his research into the history of clocks – timepieces –  and beyond, into the history of time. The three arms – or, more accurately, hands – are precisely constructed so as to accurately mark the passing hours, minutes, and seconds, and the four-metre spike is intended to act as a gnomon, the shadow-casting element of the old-fashioned timepiece, a sundial.

Standing or sitting down below, gazing upwards, listening to the gentle click-clicking of the mechanism, it is like watching a strange and oversized insect perform a curious and metallic yoga sequence. You cannot help but be simultaneously struck both by humanity’s enormity in its scientific progress and prowess, and by its humbling insignificance in the grander scheme of things. Looking upwards is like gazing out into the night sky, watching the celestial orbits of the stars. Time, although perfectly matched, nevertheless seems to slow down. You are invited to reflect and to be calm, listening to and watching, if not fully comprehending, this reliable constancy of the universe.

Shawcross, who says he wanted, with this work, to make the familiar [the clock] peculiar again, also confesses to finding it more interesting to create problems for the viewer than to answer questions. This is not surprising coming from an artist whose work borders on that of a scientist and philosopher – studying the universe is bound to open those larger questions upon which we, in our mere mortality, can only ponder, filled with deserving awe.

Images:

Conrad Shawcross

Timepiece

(2013)

© Stephen White

Video Interview with Bedwyr Williams

06/08/13

Bedwyr Williams: The Starry Messenger

Ludoteca Santa Maria Ausiliatrice, Venice

1 June – 24 November 2013

and

Implausible Imposters

Ceri Hand Gallery, 6 Copperfield Street

12 July – 10 August 2013

Living in a small village in north Wales, Bedwyr Williams is the first to confess that most people there, including his partner, think he is a little strange. And indeed, there is no straight talking with this polymath-artist-come-standup comedian whose work spans photography, sculpture, drawing, film and performance.

Williams is currently representing Wales at the Venice Biennale with The Starry Messenger. He is also one of seven artists at Ceri Hand Gallery summer exhibition, Implausible Imposters, where we spoke to him about his work.

To watch this interview, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/bedwyr-williams-interview