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

Review of 9 Ways To Say It’s Over at 20 Farringdon Street

24/07/13

9 Ways To Say It’s Over

20 Farringdon Street

12 July – 4 August 2013

Henri Cartier-Bresson spoke of “the decisive moment” – the instant when an image is captured, and the fraction of a second in which an event is fixed. Nothing in this life, however, is ever truly fixed. Nothing is constant; everything is in a permanent state of flux. The seven international artists in this exhibition, the first in a programme to be curated by collaborative partnership Inland Offshore, examine this proposition from various angles. Firstly, lens-based media have changed significantly over recent years, with digital threatening to replace analogue, and moving image becoming as prevalent in galleries as stills. Secondly, nothing is ever seen or processed out of context: from a physical point of view, our interpretation of an image varies according to our vantage point; from an emotional point of view, our associations and empathies vary according to personal histories and even just our mood that day. The works hanging in this eerily empty, disused office block invite the viewer to deconstruct and reconstruct, to imagine at will, and to build narratives.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2013/07/9-ways-to-say-its-over/

Image: 

Stefan Zeyen 

Farewell 

Film still 

2009 

Document Scotland: an essay

23/07/13

Document Scotland

Scotland has a long tradition of documentary photography, reaching back as far as Thomas Annan (1829-1887), John Thompson (1837-1921), and Hill and Adamson (partners from 1843-1848). Amongst others, these pioneers set out many of the founding principles of the genre which pertain to this day. In addition to these Scottish natives, many a celebrated international photographer has also paid homage to the country and its inhabitants, including Paul Strand (1890-1976), with his timeless images from the northwest fringes in the 1930s, and Martin Parr (born 1952), with his more recent work along the A8 Corridor, west of Glasgow.

It is against this impressive backdrop that, in 2012, four contemporary Scots-born documentary photographers – Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Colin McPherson, Stephen McLaren and Sophie Gerrard – came together to form the collective, Document Scotland. 

To read the rest of this essay, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2013/07/document-scotland/ 

Review of 5 Under 30 at Daniel Blau

18/07/13

5 Under 30

Daniel Blau

5 – 31 July 2013

For a gallery specialising in vintage photography, a competition open to young contemporaries – specifically those under 30 years of age – might not seem like the most obvious step, but, with its London space located in the thriving hub of Hoxton Square, Daniel Blau is not shy of the modern, and so, keen to become involved in current critical discussions in the world of photography, 5 Under 30 was born. Open to all young photographers internationally, on the proviso that they could bring their works to the gallery in person, this competition, for which the prize, aside from a boost in kudos and esteem, was to take part in the resulting group exhibition, where works are also on sale, attracted just under 100 entries, from which the winning 5 were selected by Blau and his staff. As it turns out, all five winning entrants are based in London, but only one of them is native British. As such, there is an international flavour to this varied and experimental exhibition.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.photomonitor.co.uk/2013/07/5-under-30-2/ 

Video review of Dennis Hopper: On the Road at Museo Picasso Málaga

18/07/13
Dennis Hopper: On the Road
Museo Picasso Málaga
29 April – 29 September 2013

Before joining the leagues of his subjects, entering into the world of celebrity as a cult director and actor, Dennis Hopper was a successful photographer who captured the anti-establishment, countercultural spirit of the 1960s through images of such iconic figures as Andy Warhol, Jane Fonda, and Paul Newman.

Born in 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper used a Nikon camera with a 28-millimeter lens given to him by his first wife, Brooke Hayward, in 1961. His candid images remain uncropped, following the early advice of movie heartthrob James Dean to use his hobby of photography to practise framing movie shots, saying “you’re probably going to want to direct films someday, and you can’t crop film.”

Dennis Hopper: On the Road at Museo Picasso Málaga displays a selection of 141 black and white photographs, the majority of which were taken between 1961 and 1967, alongside clips from his movies. Also on display are three 1964 screen tests by Andy Warhol, a set of posters for movies in which Hopper was involved, and contextualising documentary material such as photographs by other artists, books, magazines and records.



To view this video review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/dennis-hopper-on-the-road 

Review of Broughton & Birnie: Berlin, The Forger’s Tale: The Quest for Fame and Fortune at WW Gallery

11/07/13

Broughton & Birnie: Berlin, The Forger’s Tale: The Quest for Fame and Fortune

WW Gallery

22 May – 13 July 2013
***extended to 20 July!***

It is 1930s Berlin. Georg Bruni, the son of two artistes in a travelling circus, is a youth amidst the city’s burgeoning cabaret scene. A dubious character, his talent lies in producing accurate artistic forgeries. Following the revelation that a purportedly rare Blue Period Picasso, sold by Bruni to the obsessive Nazi art collector Fritz Niemand, is, in fact, one of his fakes, Niemand puts a price on Bruni’s head, and the delinquent flees to Paris. Here he meets and falls in love with Fritzi Scholtz, apparently also on the run from the Nazis. All is not as it seems, however, and, when Bruni’s hat and blood-soaked coat are found on a path by the Seine in late 1937, it transpires that Scholz was in fact a Nazi assassin.

How much of the above is true is for you to decide, but, regardless, a visit to WW Gallery during the run of artist duo Broughton & Birnie’s fantastic (in the true sense of the word) show, will take you back in time to the Weimar Republic and on a whirlwind journey through the life of Bruni, from the puppet film showing in the foyer’s cinema kiosk, through the collector’s dimly lit, closely hung bureau, the glittering Regenerate Art Room (an amalgamation of the International DADA Fair of 1920 and the Degenerate Art Exhibition of 1937), and the small telephone kiosk replete with calling cards, to the cabaret salon at the back, decked out with posters and masks, and, if you time your visit appropriately, thrilling live performances.*

The detail of these installations is intricate, and you really must allow yourself time to look closely at each and every work. For, as you do, the web of fact and fiction will start to unravel, and you will see what a brilliant masquerade all of it actually is. A laptop between the stockinged legs of a Schiele model, a blackberry (phone) in the fruit bowl of a Courbet still life, John Malkovich photographed in the company of Marlene Dietrich… The Regenerate Art Room becomes the stage for an unlikely episode of the X-Factor, daringly written with the swastika symbol, and Simon Cowell, Ant and Dec, Alan Sugar, and Davina McCall all make an appearance amongst the text speak comments (LMAO, OMG), punk band lyrics, and layered contemporary and vintage images and banknotes.

Politicians are not spared either, with David Cameron making multiple appearances in various guises, including as a Nazi, and Boris Johnson, recalling the instance of his being suspended on a zip wire in Victoria Park during the Jubilee celebrations, hanging like a pig from the ceiling, a sash branding him both “Antichrist” and “Anarchist”.

Broughton & Birnie, who have been working together for over 10 years now, try to make their art out of whatever they can find. “It’s all about trying things out, experimenting, and having fun,” they say. “That’s what keeps things fresh.” And this enthusiasm can certainly be felt. This is an exhibition not to be missed.

* There will be three free live cabaret nights, on Saturdays 1^st, 15^th, and 29^th June, 6-9pm, and a closing night of performances, for £5 entry fee (unless suitably attired), on Saturday 13^th July, 5-10pm.

http://www.wilsonwilliamsgallery.com/berlin.htm

Images: 

Installation shots © the artists

Review of Collection Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: Have you seen me before? at the Whitechapel Gallery

06/07/13

Collection Sandretto Re Rebaudengo: Have you seen me before?

Whitechapel Gallery

18 June – 8 September 2013

Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo has enjoyed the status of one of Europe’s most prominent collectors of contemporary art since acquiring her first Maurizio Cattelan work in 1996. This past year has seen the Whitechapel Gallery share some of the highlights of her collection, otherwise rarely publicly seen, in four neatly curated quarterly displays. Following on from A Love Meal (19 March – 9 June 2013), which focused primarily on 3D works, Have you seen me before?, the fourth and final display, contains considerably more 2D works, a couple of sound pieces, and a whole host of glittering names: it’s almost like roll call for contemporary art’s A-stream.

To read the rest of this review, please go to: http://www.studiointernational.com/index.php/collection-sandretto-re-rebaudengo-have-you-seen-me-before