Nettie Horn and other East London group shows…..

Pop along to the group show at Nettie Horn to see the likes of Emma Mcnally who has created large scale paper-on-pencil works of ‘geometric calamity’. With the use of protractors and compasses she has created a cosmic mapping system which displaces the notion of scientific diagrams for artistic purposes. Good use of your typical school maths stationary.

Also in this show Rosie Levington’s tower block of over 2000 novels, such classics as Jilly Cooper are used asbuilding bricks. Her sculptures are made from recyclable material. In the past she has cut the shape of a B52 into woods see: http://stevegray.com.au/blog/rosie-leventon-artist/rosie-levetons-b52-kings-wood-stour-valley-arts-project-uk/.

Abigail Reynolds uses photos from retro London tourist guides which are partly dismantled and re-structured into triangular compositions.  Perhaps reflecting the way memories get reordered at time goes on.

Gordon Cheung also makes an appearance with one of his signature creations using a rainbow of mixed-medium-paint on a background of stock-listings newspaper. This one is a gorgeous piece, created in admiration of Le Corbusier’s masterpiece of modern living.

Just finished was the The Sensationisnt exhibition at the Empire Gallery down the road, a 3D wonderland. 3D specs were issued at the door. Paint by numbers and twister just some of the activities provided!

Close by Monika Bobinska is exhibiting a group show called Mill concentrating on works on paper, akin to Nettie Horn, but perhaps just a coincidence. A mixed bag of an exhibition, highlights include art on paper cups and a sketch of a Henry Moore sculpture military tank. A good idea on paper needs to get along to these exhibitions!

Other exhibitions to see:

are Fred gallery: 2 x 2: Renie Spoelstra /Juliette Losq /Nina Bovasso/ Tatyana Gubash.

And coming up; Stolenspace’s Group Show 09, looks like a large one in the Old Truman Breweries, private view July 2nd.

MORE PHOTOS COMING SOON!

Hollywood In Cambodia Gallery, Buenos Aires.

Walking along the backstreets of Bs As equivalent to the Kings Road the Barrio Palermo, the last thing you would expect to find is a bar totally covered from wall to ceiling in stencil art. Over 1,600 stencils apparently. And at the back of this fantastic drinking den, a gallery full of contemporary and urban art. Unfortunately it seemed that on a Friday night when the main bars are packed with preened young Argenians, checking out each other´s dress-sense, ´´Claro!´´, this bar is not as popular.

If only this was a bar in East London. It would be totally over run with skinny jeaned Londoners.

Started in 2006 by The Run Don´t Walk collective the art both ín the bar (named Post Street Bar) and the gallery (Hollywood in Cambodia) are totally on par with London´s urban art scene. You get the sense that Street Art truely is a worldwide phenomenom. Take a look at some of the permanent collection in my photos. Nice use of a electrical box and car bonnet (Gavin Turk at Vauxhall Car Boot Sale similarities) some real nice peices.

The HIC gallery also runs a program of temporary exhibitions in it´s top rooms. Tirame de la lengua or ´Pulling of the Tounge´ is this bimonthly show by German born, now living in Spain, Sam3. The works are linear drawings on paper, suggesitvely trippy and sexual in feel. Like graphic designs on 70´s album covers. It has a more feminine, gentle feel in contrast to the surrounding street art. You can´t totally get away from the terratorial element even in this off-shoot of graffiti, however far removed.

Also check out the photo of the dude who runs the show. He is totally committed to the Bs As scene and up for any wanted stencil feind to come and ´renovate´ a section of his bar. That is if you can find any room left.

One final point, it is damn hard to take photos of any gallery art in Bs As without the owner forcing you practically at gunpoint to delete the photos. Sluething is hard work. So thank you for the permission HIC!

Alexander Hoda. The Arts Gallery, University of the Arts, London.

Alexander Hoda’s animals delve deep into the realms of a twisted imagination. Like something out of a fantasy novel they possess Predator style teeth, teats growing out of their backs and armed with weird objects of indescribable weaponry. These are potential killer creatures. Many are in chains. Suggesting a tension, a threatening danger.

Hoda varies the textures of his sculptures. Some are a matt rubber finish smoothing over any clear features. Some use Polyurethane (also used by Sterling Ruby) to create a glossy finish and a marble effect of mixed colours. This lends itself to creating morphed or melted appearances, like they are swamp monsters. Intricate features like long bony fingers come out of the blur of dripping slime that obscures most of the features. This recognition of parts but leaving the whole unspecified feeds on our fear in the unknown. Their blurry faces like a Francis Bacon painting, also de-personifies these creatures, making them more likely to be cold-blooded killing machines, whose only actions are to bread and to hunt. Like Bacon said `We live, we die and that’s it, don’t you think?”

These animals feel alive, truly solid, three-dimensional things as tall as humans. Hoda wants us to believe in these things, to see them as something that could exist and that with the lack of clear definition we can build on our own concepts of terror like in a nightmare where we can only partially make out the monster that is chasing us. Ironically having said all of this, ‘Backlash’ a grouping of what resembles two distorted walruses twisted together in a sort of mating pose has a certain likeness to Rodin’s ‘The Kiss’, and perhaps shows that even evil slayer animals also have a capacity for tenderness.
Thursday 20 November – 9 January

At: The Arts Gallery, University of the Arts London, 65 Davies Street, W1K 5DA

Opening times: Monday – Friday 10am – 6pm and Saturday 11am – 4pm

More info: http://www.arts.ac.uk/events/hoda.htm

Check out more blogs at http://www.openmagazine.co.uk/blog

5 Storey Projects, group show ‘Matter of Time’

Last photo – artwork predating the 5 Storey takeover you would suspect.

5 Storey Projects, has concentrated mainly on two things, site-specific installation, something old dilapidated warehouses lend themselves too very nicely and art which reflects some type of ’critical sculptural aesthetic’.
By this rather loose and also poncey term I cobbled together I mean a lot of geometric based stuff. Wooden inlaid sculpture based around circles and lines by Paul Mart, glitter on the floor to mark out unfinished rectangles like a tennis court gone wrong, parts of the parquet flooring painted in by Alastair Levy.
The site-specific art came in all shapes. Such as the three coloured tyre swings, by Elisabetta Alazraki hanging from one of the iron girders in the ceiling. Unfortunately they broke when people used them. No so Turbine Hall then, however the artist did point out that they were for art purposes only and would not take responsibly for people’s safety. Fair play, I guess she’s no swing technician.
‘Supernatural,’ 2008 by Kim Coleman, Haroon Mirza and Jenny Hogarth, created an effective use of the space, with a dark room lighted at each end by projectors moving slowly through changing blue hues in circular patterns, accompanied by sound of radio interference. Kinda spooky.
Phil Smiley, used found tyres and palettes and clay pigeons. Splattered white paint from the birds onto the makeshift base, links the objects together. A comment on London perhaps, animals, humans intertwined with the environment around them. Possibly.
Sculptural ‘comment’ also, in the form of white plinth boxes, usually used as the stand for sculpture with painting things left around them as if forgotten, perhaps conveying displacement? IS art really ever finished? The eternal and perhaps wasted question ‘What IS art?” etc. etc.
The space is probably the most impressive thing about this show, and you can tell the artists have worked to incorporate their respect for the building and its history (built during the industrial revolution) perhaps more profound as it will be demolished shortly.
Nice to see tags on the walls too. A good indication the factory building had another use since its’ ‘official’ closure ……

9th-18th of December 12-6pm, Free entry
James Taylor Gallery,
Collent Street (off Well Street)
Hackney
E9 6SQ

Artists:
Elisabetta Alazraki | Craig Andrews | Cecile Azoulay | Jacqueline Bebb | Clive A Brandon | Bianca Brunner | Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth in collaboration with Haroon Mirza | David Raymond Conroy | Kathryn Ferguson | Jesús Jiménez | Alastair Levy | PaulMart | Phil Smiley | Sunshine Republic | They are Here | Adam Thomas |

Art Sleuth is part of www.openmagazine.co.uk check out the main blog site at http://www.openmagazine.co.uk/blog/

The Subway Gallery. A Subterranean Oasis

Subway Gallery is possibly THE coolest gallery in the world. Just because of what it is and where it is. Totally at random you could be walking through the dank, dreary streets of Edgware Road, past the maximum security police station and down into the pedestrian subway by the Bakerloo line station and there out of nowhere is a little subterranean oasis of creativity.
The guy who runs it is an artist himself, he wrote the Him Book, the book that accompanied the wax works of Charles Saatchi (shown in various exhibitions including Zoo Art Fair last year if anyone remembers) one of which has taken up semi-permanent residence in the gallery. Subway attracts a unique crowd from one visit there to an opening you can tell there are certain regulars, all rather quirky figures which form part of what seems to be little community. A completely different vibe from the white cubed space of the Lisson Gallery, the closest gallery to it, or any other mainstream gallery for that matter. And thank god for that.
This month’s exhibition is a solo show of Charlie Baird’s work. It comprises some strange paintings centring on the theme of chance and fate. Some are like rather unfashionable early 90s style murals with tarot card imagery, a sort of painted version of a Phil Collins album cover. However, other paintings have a sense of modern anxiety and purpose. Scenes of urban apocalyptic turmoil, burning cars in the sky, flyovers (very much like the Westway directly above Subway) are now playgrounds for disaster.
Subway exhibitions change each month and vary from contemporary instillation, to more conservative paintings to documentary photography and much in-between. Keep you ears peeled for the new exhibition opening around the first week of December.

Art Sleuth is part of www.openmagazine.co.uk check out the main blog site at http://www.openmagazine.co.uk/blog/

8 of the best at Zoo Art Fair

sorry for the delay guys, technical issues! I am moving to another site, so this will be the last blog on this site. From now on I will be part of the www.openmagazine.co.uk blog see here:

http://www.openmagazine.co.uk/blog

This year photography and painting stole the show at the Zoo Art Fair, and some funky installation pieces. Here are 8 of the best:

Peter Funch – En Passant, 2008 – Superimposed figure upon figure, Funch has documented the social environment and more particularly the people inhabiting different corners of Manhattan streets, deciphering patterns forming from around 14 days of photographing in the same spot. This is one in a series of 28 images. Dog walkers or smokers (or here what looks like ‘Carrie Bradshaw style’ women) give a fascinating mixture of reality and fiction. Taken from his ‘Babel Tower’, solo exhibition at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen.

http://www.v1gallery.com/

Milton Marques, Livro Teoria Microeconomica 2007.
A Brazilian artist, Marques, uses second hand motors, cameras, scanners and mechanisms defunct from their original use to produce illogical but thought-provoking art works. A trick on your mind, here, what looks at first like a pile of flies (on a turd), is actually iron fillings constantly moving because of some sort of electric magnet placed inside the book. Humorous and ironic, most likely you would expect it to actually be flies on a turd these days rather than this rather more pleasant alternative. Highlighting the uselessness of some modern technology and perhaps pointing to certain trends in Contemporary art. Galeria Leme, Sao Paulo -
p.s (worth checking out website looks like interesting space in Sao Paulo)

http://www.galerialeme.com/

Lisa Manner has recently finished her masters in Sweden and seems to have produced a huge body of work already of a very original and eye grabbing nature. She paints with such an impeccable hand, a real fine art student, it almost looks like print. Swimfeilds, typical of many of her recent paintings use certain icons, here chairs and fans repeated within these surreal worlds of eternal stair cases, buildings and fairground rides. What is brilliant is the switch from one mode of painting to another. Inside one window is a completely different image and style from the rest of the painting. Quirky and wonderful. And perfectly presented, like most Sweeds
ALP/Peter Bergman Gallery, Stockholm.

http://www.alpgallery.com/

Never a disappointment, Paradise Row, London, pulled one out the bag with their dark brooding space painted black and with random material strewn on the floor. Totally in keeping with the get up was Douglas White’s Totem 2 – a conversion of man-made and natural objects into something quite perplexing, close to something you would see in an abattoir but made from tree trunk and metal chains. Perplexing.
Jean-Charles de Castelbajac found an old 16th century portrait, got someone in China to reproduce it and send it back, then he painted the Pizza Hut symbol on top. Comments on consumerism welcome.
On the back wall were animal skulls drilled to the wall with the symbol for ‘um’ liturally ummmmmmm, as in meditation painted in red on their foreheads. By Shezad Dawood, The Wasteland (Detail), 2008, was inspired by the content and fragmented structure of Eliot’s poem by the same name, and the world (according to the blurb).

See links on right

Madonna and Children, framed with museum glass, 2007
Liane Lang – Xanadu T1+2 Gallery , London – delicate feminine artist. Here wrapped around this famous Michelangelo wood carving. All is not as it seems. This is actually a lifelike wax image of herself, and the wood carving is a cast. And it is a photograph. Three stages away from reality.
In the same series is a model of her becoming an addition to the Lacoon and also Theseus. Embracing the heritage (literally) of Renaissance/Roman sculpture rather than Bai Yiluo’s more demoralizing vision in the Saatchi Gallery right now.

See link to right

David Ellis – Roebling Hall Gallery, New York.
Takes printed pages, from old books or the like and uses them as a base. On top he paints flowing graphic layers partially obscuring the under coating. Perhaps representing architectural build up in cities? On an aesthetic level eye catching stuff.

http://www.roeblinghall.com/

Robert Dowling: – Alexandre Pollazzon LTD, London
Here Dowling has cast and made fiberglass molds from canvases based on only 2 polygon shapes. They have then been placed back into the form of a basic rectangular canvas. This is one of a series each in a different monochrome colour in grey, black and purple.

see link to right

Anna Sew Hoy – Renwick Gallery, New York.
Work has got her noticed for all the right reasons in magazines such as Art Forum. Her projects are mainly to do with relationships with friends and family. They grow organically, most of the material coming from found objects. Here her friends signed this cast, (a model copied on one her surgeon farther made of her arm) as part of a live exhibition in LA. The whole of Renwick’s stand at Zoo Art Fair was dedicated to this artist and included other works such as a ball of jeans and electric cables tied together all of which had been donated by friends. Also ceramic wall pieces with old t-shirt material tied through them.

http://www.renwickgallery.com/

Frieze – it’s all about the Art or the buy sell buy sell?

Going to Frieze Art Fair is a bit like shopping at TK Maxx. You sift through the good, the bad, the humorous and the downright bizarre-what-is-that-actually-meant-to-be-anyway? And leave after three hours (you have lost the exit) feeling confused. Your own idea of taste has been so diminished by the sheer amount of stuff you have been bombarded with in a short amount of time you leave with a pair of purple leather trousers that you will never wear (ok that’s just TK Maxx).

The difference with TK Maxx, on a Thursday afternoon is that Hugh Grant is not milling around with a French Brunette on his arm.

This year the good stuff was great.

The bad were shocking. The photos of strategically naked Japanese women tied up with rope were really quite rank.

And there was a lot of indifferent.

Talking of the good, Dirk Skreber’s incredible painting Air Force 4.0 at Gallery Luis Campana was excellent to get up close to and see in the flesh.

Arndt and Parter Gallery, Berlin, had some really cool stuff, including one of those tattooed pigs that have been making the headlines recently. Unfortunately it was a stuffed one. They also had exciting work by Reena Kallat. Stamps (as in the librarian type) had been arranged inside a glass container to create the impression of a face. Doesn’t sound that special but was really well done.

Sterling Ruby ’s work seemed cropped up twice, impressive sculptures made out of Formica, a type of plastic, melted and reformed into huge dripping sculptures that resemble a wax. It was nice to see a Tomory Dodge, a sublime rainbow-on-black abstract painting typical of his most recent work at the CGR Gallery, from New York.

Talking points this year were parrots that had apparently been taught to bark like dogs. Although this seemed highly dependent on the parrot’s mood. And singular glass smoking booths, a working installation, each smoker entirely exposed to an audience as they puff away on the most public fag they will ever have.

Sadly little of the renowned London galleries stood out from the pack. The White Cube for instance displayed Damien Hirsts we have all seen a thousand times before and not much else of any interest. It could have been the exactly the same works as lasts year. Damian could have preserved the whole thing in formaldehyde for this year. Nobody would have noticed.

The thing is, when it boils down to it, Frieze is a fair and the galleries are here to sell.

Curatorial concerns are not top of the list. Most galleries play it safe; they exhibit one or two works from each artist they represent including the ones they find it difficult to sell so that a passing collector can see the full range.

Those that had guts, and treated their space like they were putting on their own exhibition centering on a theme, separated them from the rest.

A gallery based in Old Street, Cabinet, covered the top of their room to create a darkened, quiet atmosphere, and exhibited caricatures and projections. You could put headphones on and listen to Tris Von-Michelle as he jabbered away in stunted conversation whilst taking in the rest of the works. The black and white theme also pulled it all together.

Appetite Gallery from Buenos Aires, billing themselves as ‘radical and contemporary’ lived up to their name. Their space from top to bottom was a controlled mess of art and rubbish, used paper coffee cups lining the sides. A crazily dressed Argentinean lady was asked whether you would like an appointment with ‘the Cotton Man’. Most people survive this meeting apparently, but not with all their clothes in the state they arrived in.

It is just a shame that with this lack of concern for cohesion and the huge concern for the big sale, the galleries have lost sense. They have no interest in producing something for the rest of us, the little people. The ‘general public’ has to pay 20+ pounds to see this hyped jumble sale. Grow some balls galleries! Put on a show next year please!

The Future Can Wait, Kounter Kulture and Saatchi – 4 Sensations

The Truman Breweries’ triple art fair extravaganza: Kounter Kulture, Saatchi – 4 New Sensations and The Future Can Wait, are most definitely worth a visit and more so as they are exactly zero pounds entry.

The Future Can Wait stands out as being something special due to the diversity of content and the vast warehouse setting lending the perfect space for mind-bending installations.

You are greeted by a huge statue of Bert from Sesame Street (by Christopher Davies) rotating continuously, creating what can only be described as a perpetual mono-brow. Genius.

Janak Odedra’s clever ‘Project KA’ is an assemblage of found car-parts recreated into the shape of a car. The parts now defunct from commercial purpose are transformed into useful objects of artistic purpose.

Aisling Hedgecock is another artist who uses human debris as a material for her work. ‘Saracen’ is a group of hefty structures made up of mini polystyrene balls which now resemble a futuristic coral reef. Their appeal is their transient state, unlike Project KA their form is not fully complete, a live organism.

‘Licking Dogs’ by Angela Bartram is beyond the bizarre, but apparently not beyond the realms of contemporary art, as it is a video of a woman snogging a dog. Snogging; defined by full tongue on tongue action. The dog, it must be said, is now probably very confused about human interrelations.

Among other gems are Andrea Gregson’s ‘Borrower-sized’ fantasy worlds. Peep through wooden boxes taken from her Headspace and Wonderland exhibition in 2006. Also Kim Rugg’s intricate collages made from the front page of The Guardian. Each letter down to the very smallest type has been painstakingly cut and re-arranged so that they are in alphabetical order and stuck back on the page.

And Gordon Cheung’s enormous triptych, ‘Death Cuts Full 1’ with his signature background made from stock listings, draws you into a fantasy landscape of trippy perspective.

Kounter Kulture centers on themes of sub-culture; heavily concentrating on the ‘Street Art’ genre, kitsch, cartoon and pop art legacy, print and graphic design trends.

Pieces from old favourites such as Eine put up a minor appearance alongside the main body of less established artists, there also a few pieces being flogged from high ranking artists such as a David Hockey print and a spot painting print signed by Damien Hirst going for around 25k. Probably the most highly priced art work in the whole fair.

William Tuck, is exhibiting a very Koons-esq series of oil paintings, smoothly painted to the point of giving the impression of lamination. They consist of porn-star women recreating Bottichellian style scenes. Questioning how the original paintings might have been received in the Renaissance by some, along with presenting a merge of high art with newsagent top-shelf literature. Interesting, but perhaps something not particularly ground-breaking.

Snuck into a corner are Laurie Hodgekin’s Vanitas paintings of evil technicolor monkeys, intricately painted so each hair on the monkeys has a spiky realism. Although small paintings, these are significant as they push against the mainstream with their heavy gold frames, Dutch master painting style and warped Gremlin figures.

Stephen Dryden’s, ‘Undo‘ and ‘What About My Mother‘ are rather more removed from the central theme of the fair. They are faceless figures made out of woollen threads which unravel past the shoulder into a woollen mess, as if they are melting into the floor. Very Antony Gormely in a fresh and inspiring way.

Works from Stuart Semple and Nathan James including paintings from the MASH UPS exhibition are also present (see earlier review on Art Sleuth).

And Wang Zhi Jie series ‘ Little Girls’ portraits with blown up heads and popsicle colours twist the Manga genre.

Unfortunately 4 New Sensations, an art competition in collaboration with Channel 4 was not entirely sensational, but showed the budding possibilities of fresh out of college artists. Which is the whole point.

Definitely worth a jaunt, among the four winners, Mark Davey’s moving rotary contraptions and the paintings Robert Sherwood stand out.

Photos all from The Future Can Wait in order from top to bottom:

© Aisling Hedgecock, Gordon Cheung, Kim Rugg, Angela Bartram, courtesy of The Future Can Wait www.thefuturecanwait.com

 

Brilliant gallery exhibitions opening this week

Is everyone gearing up for art week? Here are a couple more exhibitions that look to be the best and most out there stuff running alongside the big art fairs.
Look out for much coverage towards the end of the week, Art Sleuth is getting out the Miss Marple glasses, smoking a Columbo style cigar, wearing a Dick Van Dyke stethoscope, donning a Poirot-like moustache and pinging away on her typewriter like Jessica Fletcher after a hat trick of murders in Maine.

‘All This Time’ The Vanity Group’s second show at The Crypt – St Pancras Church:

Site-specific art in the crypt of a church. Sounds exciting!

Artists are: NATASHA STANBRIDGE, TREVOR TAYLOR, CORNELIUS BRADY, AGATA CARDOSO, SHARLENE CHANNER, LORNA MACMILLAN, MARK METCALFE, LUCY CAREW, JON GABB, SARA GRAHAM, GILES HINCHCLIFF, JON SOLOMON, ZOE CROSS, MATT BLACKLER, JANE BURNHAM, GARY MEYNELL, TOMOKO SAKANISHI, NICHOLAS LOCKYER, JENNY JOHNSON, SAYSHUN JAY, SRDJANA SARCEVIC, NATHAN GORDON, DILYS REES, GEORGE WILLIAMS, JI YOUNG PARK, DENIZ UNAL

The next week it its the turn for No Place Projects, a project group that exhibits in traditional spaces who hold an interest in drawing to sound and installation, and “are united by a common interest in responding to issues and ideas concerning place and space.”

All This Time: 11 – 19 October 2008

No Place Projects: 24-30 October 2008 12-6h

The Crypt, St Pancras Church, Euston Road, Kings Cross NW1 2BA

http://www.stpancraschurch.org/index.php?id=53

Julian Opie at the Lisson Gallery:

Julian Opie Antonia with evening dress, 2008 Inkjet on canvas 120 x 86.5 cm Installation view: © JULIAN OPIE. Recent Works, MAK, Vienna, 10 June – 21 September 2008 Photo: Dave Morgan Courtesy of the artist and Lisson Gallery

Major exhibition showing 40 of Julian Opie’s works from LED installation to painting. Opening is tomorrow night Tuesday the 14th Oct.

15 th October – 15 th November

Lisson Gallery
52-54 Bell Street
London, NW1 5DA

Elevator Gallery 1st Birthday Bash – this Friday 17 th October

Game for a bit of a shindig? I’d pop along to Elevator it looks like fun:

Live Art, Music, Art, Film, Installation and DJs including a live performance from HK119 AND there will be a one eyed psychic!

Check out the blurb:
Musical performance also from the French sensation Douce Angoisse, Random Connection Quest, and lots more. Meet a one eyed Psychic and receive a free art gift and reading. Artist Mark Mcgowan will breakdance before your eyes. The Singing Darlek will perform a rendition of Happy Birthday. Play traditional party games and win prizes! Fun for all. Party into the night….

A bar will be available and vegetarian canapés will be offered throughout the evening. Entrance is free

*S*T*A*R*R*I*N*G*

HK119, DOUCE ANGOISSE, RANDOM CONNECTION QUEST, GILES CORBY (The Singing Darlek), MARK McGOWAN, RUSSELL HERRON AND THE RUSSELLETTES, CAPSTAN STRING, THE PSYCHIC OF HEXAGON & OSCAR MURILLO, JON PURNELL, PIL & GALIA KOLLECTIV, MATT LIPPIATT, LAURA WILSON, SNOOZIE HEXAGON AND ADELINE BATTISUTTA’S MAGICAL PASS THE PARCEL, CRAIG COOPER, SIMON REUBEN WHITE, NATALIE SANDERS, LISA FLYNN, ANTOINE CATALA, KAREN RUSSO, JOANNA FILIPE, SOME GHOST, ROMANY DJ, DJ SPECTRA PET & DJ ETCHYSKETCH….and more acts/artists to be confirmed.

Vegas Gallery – Fake ID group show:

International group of artists. Preview on Saturday the 18th

Jemima Brown Morten Viskum Michelle Deignan Anne-Mie van Kerckhoven Risk Hazekamp Simon Willems Angie Reed Deborah Schamoni Caron Geary

Somebody needs a wax.

Another Roadside Attraction Gallery. Richard Owen – Moods for Moderns

“Richard Owen’s work uses Modernism as the starting point for investigation. He uses the visual language of the 20th century ‘movement’ to produce a series of motifs, reliefs and semi-functional objects that examine our relationship to design, art and consumerism.”

18 October – 15 November 2008
Open Friday to Sunday 12 – 6 pm
Preview 17th October 6.30 –9pm

Surpine Studios – Cian O’Neil. Meat Works

Solo exhibition by the Irish painter of goulsome paintings influenced by Dutch painting school, anatomy and Michaelangelo.

Preview: 17th of October (6-9pm) open for only the Saturday and Sunday after 12-6pm.

Surpine Studios – 255 Amhurst Road, London.

ALSO ALSO ALSO!!! 1st Xmas Art Xposure 08 – Those of you who loved Hackney Wicked, word on the street is there will be a Christmas collaboration, which will be a merge between a ‘Victorian freak show and a German Christmas Market, with a touch of eccentric English jumble sale thrown in’. Fantastic!

Concrete and Glass opening night

At Heart of Glass exhibiton (all images Francis Ware, courtesy of the artist.)

Richard Bullock Everything’s Not Going To Be OK 2008 Wood, wax, acrylic, animal remains 11 x 2.5 x 2.2 m

Alistair McClymont The Limitations of Logic & the Absence of Absolute Certainty 2008
Fans, humidifier, scaffolding 300 x 200 x 230 cm

Adam King Curiositas (Cave of Terror) 2008  Mixed media  Dimensions variable

Orlando Mostyn Owen Cerberus 2008 Mixed media Panel 200 x 250 cm, installation variable dims. (Look through the bears eyes if you dare…….!)

Rebecca Nassauer’s installation room in Cordy House. Some Way Home

last photo by Matthew Brindle for Beach Blanket Babylon, Shoreditch

Heart of Glass is set in the maze of dark hidden basement rooms in Shoreditch town hall, had a queue going round the block last night, and for good reason. It is an ideal environment for installation-based shows and this one showing 33 progressive artists’ work is a must see. Alistair McClymont created a mini cyclone from fans, scaffolding and a humidifier, Kate Terry had used a room to attach fine threads crossing diagonally from ceiling to floor, Adam King hung the weird and wonderful ‘Cuirositas (Cave of Terror)’ structures made from plastic household items and mutli-coloured patterns. Everything from the taxidermy of Polly Morgan to a forest of trees and wax created by Richard Bullock has made this exhibition an incredible experience. Be prepared for the disturbingly creepy Cerberus by Orlando Mostyn Owen. All in all an exploration into the darker side of art.

The Saatchi Online opening was buzzing with the likes of Russell Brand mincing around the show and a man with a certain similarity to Russell dressed in a long black robe, white mask and huge black hair. Just a coincidence I suspect.

Highlights from the show included Murizio Anzeri’s Late at Night. Real hair has been sculpted into a faceless ethereal being. Also by Anzeri are old 50’s family portraits, sewn into with ‘spyrograph’ patterns leaving isolated bits of the face, an eye or a mouth. Elements in these works echo the Chapman Brothers’ defacing of old Victorian portraits.

Sarah Douglas, explored personal subject matter through her subdued pastel paintings with stylistically blurred figures and domestic settings.

Sam Zealy melded art with science in his installation made from two huge magnets attached to posts by wire raised horizontally so that at least an inch of pure air separated the two in the middle.
Continuing to support up and coming artists through the Saatchi Online program, this exhibition shows the promising potential of these young artists.

On Curtain Rd I stumbled upon Rebecca Nassauer’s installation room in Cordy House. Some Way Home is a floor structure of circular lamps connected by wires with mini cities made out of thin plastics on top. Concerned with the placements of refugees and their precarious journeys, this structure seems to expand on Mona Hatoum’s Undercurrent, 2004 made from electrical wire and light blubs. Binoculars are provided to view each, which puts a physical distance between the viewer and the object, perhaps suggesting our own mental detachment as UK citizens to the plight of refugees.

Favella Descending at Village Underground is a film installation made up of huge screens facing around a central viewing point. As the name suggests you are taken through favellas with each screen showing a different perspective on the architecture and people that make up the Mineira in Rio, one of the most dangerous and poverty stricken favellas.

Concrete and Glass art exhibitions continues free from Saturday onwards for around a month. This is just a selection of exhibitions from 35 open galleries.