A cutting edge attitude to their selection of artists has done Lazarides proud and a testament to this is their excellent group show Grifters exhibiting the Outsider artists at Rathbone Place on till the 16th of Jan.

As an exhibition running alongside street sculptures and paintings put up around London in December, it is a mixture of installation, taxidermy, street art, painting and photography with a witty, fashionable and a distinctly urban feel.

Highlights include Mark Jenkins, The Metro Newspaper’s flavour of the month, who has produced a chilling horror/The Matrix movie style moment in sculpture with eerily real looking bodies mummified in cling-film pods suspended from the ceiling. Invader has created a Dan Flavin space invader light show and Emma Tooth has given the Madonna and Child a Croydon Town make-over.

Door With Tits by Charlie Isoe is a tongue-in-cheek Surrealist installation – a testament to a tortured writer perhaps. Behind a door with fake boobs guarded by a porcelain jaguar with it’s face smashed in, is a chair and desk with typewriter rigged up to a shotgun directly over it – pull the string tied to the trigger in-case of writer’s block.  He seems to be going through a Francis Bacon phase with his dark and moody canvases upstairs.

David Choe is displaying two huge paintings in his typical street art style – combining oil, house paint, spray paint and ink to create a multi layered quilt of pattern and images.

Do not forget to pay attention to the corridors of the two floor exhibition where a large and intricate black and white wall piece has been created by Lucy McLauchlan.

There are many more artists besides, one not to miss!

Contemporary art where you least expect it is what is so great about London, and the little known gallery in the crypt of St Pancras Church which opens for (so short you could easily miss them) group exhibitions is a perfect example.

Magic Carpet is 14 artists’ work based around the theme of Time Travel. Walking among gravestones and bits of broken masonry you can’t help but see references to transience appearing in the works in front of you.

Most of the art is small and spread out quite thinly over the impressive space, a shame as it would have been good to see a bit more from each artist. Near the entrance, Luna Paiva’s manipulated photograph of a woman plucking a bird, perfectly set into a scene of rich and dark  ‘baroque realism’ (if that exists) instantly catches the eye. As does the red velvetine skull skewered on a hat stand in the vault next door by David. A. Smith.

Some basic installations from Michael Murphy are displayed and David Cochrane has exhibited some thoughtful works, a video of a moving ‘still’ of a riverbank projected onto a wall and another using easily found objects. Several painters are exhibiting, including the part figurative part dissembled portrait paintings by Jill Mulleady and Lindsey Bull’s burry visions of a psychedelic world.

For more work by the artists mentioned see here:

http://www.lunapaiva.com/

www.davidasmithart.co.uk

www.jillmulleady.com

www.dacochrane.com

www.michaelthomasmurphy.co.uk

http://www.lindseybull.com/

Covering practically every inch of the rabbit warren like space that is the Shoreditch Town Hall basement, the East End Arts Club put on a varied exhibition displaying a huge array of street art, graphic design led art and work from illustrators.

Including Dan Kirchener’s and Jane Grosvener’s stylised paintings, the manipulated images of Julien Deghy and Kevin Green and Ned Scott’s wooden wall sculptures, sketches and plans. Also Ting Ting Cheng’s astute modern adaptations of traditional paintings; still life fruit and veg with a difference – a Louis Vitton banana and Nike cucumber – and Posh spice playing the role of Queen Victoria in a regal scene attended by Boris Johnson and Simon Cowell.

In a corner by the bar was spotted Amy Hye Jung Shin’s conceptual forest of stitched faces and doll sculptures that had a certain Ernesto David about them.

Dark winding corridors and pokey rooms were perfect for creating enclosed spaces for artists such as Elod Beregszaszi who has lit up his paper creations in UV light. Just from folding and cutting single pieces of plain A4 without any wastage he has made hundreds of patterns and models (photo to come). Taking advantage of the site too were the Kuntists who had created an Emporium of humorous bad-taste. Telling it how is really is Jordan, Peter Andre, Amy Winehouse, Gary Glitter and Nick Griffin were among the condemned in over-painted photos, cartoon paintings and newspaper front pages.

Look out for the next event at http://www.eastendartsclub.co.uk/

Recently Art Sleuth was invited along to the grand opening of a permanent site specific work called Full Circle for Art on the Underground created for the new Piccadilly line concourse as part of the extension to the King Cross St Pancras Underground station. The excitement built as we walked through the open barriers and travelled down two long and shiny new elevators. Eventually we came to the piece itself.
It was a grey wall – with a semi-circular grey panel arranged on top of it.

In fact it was such a similar colour grey to the rest of the station and situated exactly where you might find a wall that if there had not been a crowd of people around it you could have been mistaken in thinking that it was the work of an over-zealous architect using up the few remaining grey panels with a bit of flair. Or perhaps more likely you could walk past it, being cut up by a slow moving tourist cursing the tube you just missed without giving it a second glance. The most excellently named Knut Henrik Henriksen has created an artwork which according to the leaflet is “incognito, yet elegantly obvious”. It will be less elegant in a few years when the heartless general public have stuck bits on chewing gum down the sides of it.

The leaflet also has an example of a previous work by Knut Henrik Henriksen. The aptly named Architectural Doubts is a partition in a hall making one room into two. Surely this is what you would employ a builder to do if you wished to divide a room? You too would be having ‘architectural doubts’ if it was divided by a wall of what looks like laminate flooring. With no door. A case of The Emperors’ New Clothes or work by a genius?

If you are going to see any show out there right now then this is it. Knowing that the artists are offenders gives this exhibition both a unique and hard-hitting edge, but the quality of work shown and the spectrum of ambience from witty to meditative to exceedingly dark makes Art by Offenders a real success.

The eclectic mix of 140 exhibits picked from 6000 entries, as you would expect, has thrown up some incredibly talented artists including the winner ‘Michael’ in the Five pieces showing the scope of his ability and style. Also Joe Barnard’s Elephant painted collage and John Clowes conceptual square formations and the sketches by Anon (see photo Rat Race)

One of the most emotionally driven paintings of the exhibition has to be Yours Sincerely, the Tabloid Press. Depicting a point of view you wouldn’t normally consider; the treatment of a young man and his family by the press once convicted in what obviously was a high profile case. The sky is black and thunderous and ‘ticks and leeches’ is written on the bloody red wall.  Depicting a stomach-turning moment the evil cartoon figures resembling Otto Dix like characters crowd around the young man, sneering and drooling, business cards, microphones and cameras thrust towards him.

Then there’s the humorous work Bug Life, by Patrick John Raggs who collected and framed insects that happen to have made their way into his cell. There is ‘Santa’ – Who came for Xmas and ‘Sid’ – who liked porridge.

The Last Duff is a monumental piece by Steve Langford and Steve Chamberlain, enormous in size this surrealist and symbolic scene remade from Da Vinci’s Last Supper is a fight between god and the devil, the condemned man in the electric chair while the families look on and prison life goes on around him.

Some has a solid message. Like being wrongly convicted, such as the sculpture The Three Wise Judge Masters by Peter Thomas depicting three judges, hands over eyes, ears and mouth respectively. The desperation for freedom; Noel Parker’s One Off a beautifully painted portrait of a man with arms out stretched near the shoreline of a beach. Or just pure anger and desperation like Recession, three black and blood red abstract paintings by Danny Morgan. However escapism plays a big part in the exhibition too, prisoners with imagination.

The poignant thing about this exhibition is that like most (good) art it reaches into the minds of the artists, but in this case it could be someone who is doing time for a serious crime. You get mixed feelings and you wade into a grey area that throws up questions. Should you eliminate the history of the artist from the work in front of you? How would you feel if the work on show was by a criminal who had harmed you in some way? Yet Art by Offenders and the scheme behind it run by the Koestler Trust which was founded in 1962 by writer Aurthur Kostler, a political detainee himself, is one of the best examples of art therapy you could possibly get, and has produced an exceptional exhibition.

All the paintings are for sale at very reasonable prices, from around £50 to £200.

Free and open till 8pm every night at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre. Till the 6th of December 2009.

A windy and rainy night kept openings on Vyner Street rather quiet this Thursday. In the latest instalment in a series of dual Solo exhibitions at Fred Gallery, Martin Brown and Guy Richards Smit had a room each to display their current projects.

Martin Brown is showing a series of beautiful little paintings, a sort of modern day version of Dutch 17^th century domestic images with perhaps a hint of Victorian portraiture in their too. They are highly detailed, capturing faces brilliantly and some so small they are the sizes of a normal photograph print. Having moved from Australia in 2003 perhaps it is his keen eye as more of an outsider to London culture that has given him such a great insight. Snapshots of individuals, perhaps his friends, a group of fairly young Shoreditch types and landscape scenes of local spots such as the canal near Vyner Street and ‘Catch’ the bar on Kingsland road produce a gentle representations a modern (East London) life.

Alternatively Richards Smit’s work is far from realistic or in anyway tasteful. In fact it is totally the opposite. His main project centring on bizarre videos in the name ‘black comedy’ which although mildly amusing could also be filed under misogynistic soft porn with the artist making pouty young women take their clothes off while he oogles and doctors performing some peculiar examinations on young Asian ladies.  You are free to make up your own mind.  Paintings and drawings taken from the videos are also shown and a humming sound track accompanies the odd display. At the entrance to the room is a video and drawings dramatising army troops ‘hot body robbin’ – stealing jewellery off the chard remains of a dead bodies. But any real message (if there is meant to be one) is subtracted by the rather pointless main body of work.

It has to be said that one artist offsets the other which is probably the point of sticking the two together but with mixed results from Richards Smit’s work. Worth going along to see Brown’s little discerning masterpieces though….

Ctrl.Alt.Shift  Unmasks Corruption below:

…..and Lava Colletive puts on a show:

Art Sleuth made it to two excellent openings last night. The first being Control.Alt.Shift’s Unmasked Corruption. Original artwork for Political comic strips have been amassed from all corners of the globe, trailing events such as the Iranian Election, Barak Obahma’s election and the Iraq War.

Some comics tackle dark and little reported human rights scandals; Unspeakable Things by Paul O’Connell gives an account of the African ‘blood diamond’ (and tin, and oil and more) crisis. Black Holes by Dave McKean (with text from an anonymous writer) provides a shocking insight into an alleged scandal involving the suppression of HIV sufferers and vanishing funds for treatment by the Chinese government. Another shocking story is that of the ‘Skin Hunters’ in Poland from 1999 to 2002, a group of paramedics who delayed ambulances and killed off patients in a scam which gave them a cut of the funeral parlour fees of the victims, drawn by Janek Koza.

Some are more humorous, like the portrayal of Margaret Thatcher and her husband draw by Hunt Emerson in 1987. Excerpts from Alan Moore’s new magazine ‘Dodgem Logic’ are ingenious combining drawings and witty, off the wall story boards. A book of the cartoons and artwork from the exhibition is well worth the £5 fee.

The exhibition will be held at Lazarides Gallery, 8 Greek Street, Soho, London, W1D 4DG and runs from 6th – 28th November (Tuesday – Friday 11am -7pm and Saturday 12pm – 5pm).

And on to the Truman Breweries to see Cityscape, the group show comprising some big names in Street and Graphic Art both in New York and London. Well worth a visit if you’re popping down brick lane, it includes a large and varied selection of works and artists including pieces by Obey, Restitution Press, Unknown, Seripop, Swoon, Philip Lumbang and up and coming Ashes 57. The dubstep mash-up after party was banging too. Good one Lava Collective!

Cityscape, Lava Collective, Dray Walk Gallery, Truman Breweries. (5th to the 15th of November 2009).

As things get colder you might be able to drink the impending winter doom away with a free bottle of beer or two at some unsuspecting art show. Here are a selection of some interesting shows in London for the end of October, start of November and beyond. Including private view dates where possible.

 Solo Exhibitions:

Eleven Gallery – Ben Turnbull I Dont Like Mondays Exhibition dates 21^st October to 7^th November 2009

“First solo show with London-based artist Ben Turnbull. Turnbull perverts objects associated with childhood to both reveal a darker side of youth and critique the way it’s often pictured in the media. His new series of works – seven school desks on which images of weapons have been painstakingly carved – is a direct comment on contemporary school life, alluding to the horrific crimes repeatedly splashed out in headlines, from knife murders in South London to the Virginia Tech and Columbine massacres. By whittling the desk down to expose these deadly shapes, Turnbull also hints at a latent feeling of violence, it’s as if the weapons were already there, waiting to be used.”

Fred Gallery: – Brian Montouri – Till 8^th of November. Brian Montouri’s quirky paintings capture a strange moment in American history when in a bid to increase tourism the twin towns of Niagra Falls pushed a raft over the Falls with live animals and human dummies on them. Work by Peter Davis also shown.

http://www.fred-london.com/index.php?mode=exhibitions

Group Shows: 

Fitzrovia Pop Up Space: ‘Unrealistic Expectations’ is a ‘pop up’ exhibition of works by young and emerging Dutch and UK artists: Zakia el Abodi, Marcel Dingemanse, Caron Geary, Roderik Henderson, Alex Hudson, Claire de Jong, Kate Mayne, Stefan Sjouke, Anami Schrijvers, Joke Vrij, Martin C. de Waal.
24 October to 14 November 2009
Private View, Friday 23 October 17:00 until 21:00
Opening hours: Thursdays to Saturdays, 12:00 until 18:00
40 Riding House Street, W1W 7ES

The Vyner Street Gallery – ‘Archaeology of Subject/Object’ – a group show curated by Beata Kozlowska, the exhibition of painting, sculpture and photographs by exciting international and London artists.
Kalyi Amoto, Daphna Alon, Karima Al Shomely, Nandita Chaudhuri, Sivan Cohen, Lucy Cierniak, Beata Kozlowska, Bo Magnus, Agnieszka Pytlik, Margarita Trushina                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Exhibition runs 2nd-8th November 2009 
Private View : Friday 2nd Nov 6.30-8.30
Late Night Opening: November 5th ‘First Thursdays’ until 9pm                                                                                                                                                   
JT Project 09 is: The James Taylor Gallery has invited six local artist-run organisations to each occupy a room within their vast Victorian warehouse organised by Fieldgate Gallery, Five Years, James Taylor Gallery, Katie Guggenheim, Supine Studios, The Centre of the Universe and Transition Gallery. Spread over two floors of a huge building, the project provides the opportunity to see shows by these peer organisations simultaneously.  Exhibition runs 14 October – 1 November

The Lava Collective – ‘Cityscape’ – Focussing on cities and urban culture, Cityscape features works by Cleon Peterson, Seripop, Peru Ana Ana Peru, Ashes 57 plus more TBA.  LAVA Collective [London Audio / Visual Art Collective] was founded in Summer 2009 to provide a platform in London for emerging artists from around the world. At the Old Truman Brewery. Preview on November 5th will be followed by an after party at the Princess Alice pub, 42-44 Commercial Street. LAVA Collective have invited dubstep luminaries Loefah, Mala, Pokes and Skipple to provide the soundtrack for the night.  To get free entry to the after party, just go along to the art show and put your name on the list. Capacity is limited so get there early. 5^th to the 15^th of November. www.lavacollective.com

Cell Project Space – ‘Lobby’ Stefano Calligaro, Karen Cunningham, Charlie Danby, Lieke Snellen, Mick Peter,  Simon and Tom Bloor, Francesca, Nobilucci                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Private View Friday 6th November 2009- 6.30-9.30pm
November 7th- December 6th 2009
http://www.cellprojects.org/ 

Core Arts - ’scare in the community’ – One night event showcasing video, performance, 2D and 3D works by artists addressing issues relating to community care as well as institutional critique both inside and outside the context of art. The theme of the show resonates with current tendencies to prioritise principles of care in the community over extended hospitalisation. The idea of the mentally ill being free to roam the streets and mingle with the general public has caused much fear amongst communities and frequently leads to sensationalist news headlines in the tabloids   Frank Bangay, George Barber, David Blandy, Ian Bourn, Boyle and Shaw, El Vonne Brown, Enda Burke, Leona Christie, CoolTan, Tessa Garland, Julika Gittner, Alex Ingram, IRE-MIND, Stephen Jackson, Terry Jones, Jean-Paul Martinon, Octavia Arts, Jo Panter, Laure Prouvost, Jon Purnell, Natasha Rees, Erica Scourti, Temple of Mithras, Josephine Wood – 109 Homerton High Street - Sat 24^th October  www.scareinthecommunity.com

 Schwartz Gallery – ‘Celestial Contrakt’ navigates through the terrain of the ‘celestial’ and ‘ethereal’ in an attempt to offer different entry and exit points to the theme, to alternate possibilities of experiential environments.
Dominic Allen, Nikos Alexiou, Alex Bunn, Andrew Hladky, Bern Roche Farrelly, Stine Ljungdalh, Christina Mitrentse, Jonas Ranson, Lee Wagstaff, Marc Wayland.,
12 November – 6 December 2009
Friday-Sunday 12-6pm
Private view: Thursday 12th November 2009. 6-10pm
Guest sound Performers: Existjesus , Douce Angoisse,
Artist’s talk 2pm, Saturday 28th November, 2009
 
 December:

Londonewcastle Project Space hosting RareKind London’s ‘3 Decades’ exhibition, celebrating 30 years of London graffiti art.  Running from 5 – 12 December 2009, the artwork will be exhibited according to decade showcasing exclusive art work, photographs and memorabilia from the ‘pioneers’ of the art form in the 80’s, following a linear history through to the 90’s ‘masters’ and on to the 00’s and the ‘new blood’ artists. 3 Decades is the largest and most comprehensive show of its kind to ever be exhibited in London.  It will include canvases and affordable prints by over 30 artists including Eine, Zomby, Prime, Roid, Tox, RT London, David Samuel as well as many more of London’s inimitable artists who have painted, sequestered in the shadows for more than thirty years, yet inadvertently changed the face of London’s urban art scene forever.  3 Decades will be open daily from 5-12 December 2009 from 11.00am to 7.00pm at Londonewcastle Project Space, 28 Redchurch Street, E2 7DP

Five Storey Projects guest-curate a series of events for the David Roberts Foundation in December 2009. 111 Great Titchfield Street London W1W 6RY
Charlesworth, Lewandowski & Mann, Lars Laumann,  Sam Craven, Raagnagrok, Susan MacWilliams and others Dec 03.12.09-17.12.09                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Also 2 October – 19 December 2009 The Object of Attack a series of footnotes and infiltrations parallel to the exhibition Sculpture of The Space Age at the Foundation. Deliberately reacting against a linear approach to interpretation, The Object of the Attack will work as an echo chamber to the main exhibition and raise multiple questions about art production and curatorial engagement, translations and communication, avoiding any fixed answers.
Artists have been invited to contribute to a collective and evolving conversation. The space will be constantly re-installed over the three months, hosting every week a new intervention, performance, artwork, sound piece, discussion, etc.
The set of the gallery will reflect this process, providing a space where the audience will be encouraged to have a more active and creative role. Artists Reto Pulfer and Patrizio di Massimo will create, one after the other, a different interpretation of what this space can be. For the final week, the space will host an installation by Roman Ondak.

Arty Party time:

Hunga Munga Halloween Party – Bethnal Green Working Men’s club on Sat the 24th of October

music, art and making stuff with the usual annual monster mash up that is our halloween party, with fancy dress, party games, competitions and prizes as well as the usual arts and crafts materials… perfect place tp make a halloween card or present or trick or treat costume…with live music from our lovely cabaret of crazy friends SLAPPER and more… and a special trick or treat gameshow for some lucky HungaMungarians…
it’s gonna be SPooOKtacular as always!!!
just £6 on the door!

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=165090580468&index=1

THE DONDON LUNGEON Cosmicmegabrain presents
The horrors of 21st century London this HALLOWEEN Art, Music, Performance EXTRAVAGANZA 31 October from 10pm till late at 31B New Inn Yard EC2A with the support of: Hoxton Loft Society / Wild Life / I May Be Hungry But I Sure Ain’t Weird                   GUEST LIST ONLY! PLEASE RSVP TO: invite@hoxton.net

Yang Shaobin, X – Blind Spot No. 17,, 2008.  176 x 55 x 51 cm.

Celebs were in and out early for the champagne reception at Frieze this year, spotted were regulars Lily Allen and Gwyneth Paltrow. A Frieze worker said she got a radio call from one of her star-struck colleagues outside saying Kate Moss had turned up, and they didn’t know what to do with her! The likes of Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin were there too. Emin’s new work is an exercise especially for the more interactive art buyer. She is offering to make a commissioned work in which (quoting from the instructions) firstly you pay her “10,000 sterling”, before completing a simple questionnaire of 14 questions, then she will make a phrase in neon lights in response to the answers. She asks for a further “45,000 sterling” on completion. Contract signed and framed before of course. It might have been a mirage but was that art media magnate Louise MacBain I saw perusing the stand?

New to the show this year is a more edgy section called Frame displaying the work of younger galleries with more solo focused exhibitions, in part scooping up the littler Shoreditch ones, like Kate MacGarry gallery from a stone’s throw down on Vyner Street. This includes a few that used to reside at Zoo Art Fair. It will be interesting to see what impact this will have on the new look Zoo this year.

The Brazilian and Far Eastern galleries are rocking the international section. Galeria Fortes Vilaca, Sao Paulo stuck hundreds of chess pieces scattered like a misshapen map of the world across a wall and A Gentil Caricoca, Rio de Janeiro has artist Laura Lima performing a strange drawing technique with only one hand coming out from a hole in a white screen. Long March Space, Beijing, is showing among other brilliant works Yang Shaobin’s moving lifesize model of a freakishly flashing miner man and the Kukje Gallery, Korea is definitely worth a visit with Gimhongsok’s Canine Construction – a dog made from cast bin bags in spoof on Jeff Koon’s bunny and Haegue Yang’s mixed media sculptures consisting of blinds, lights, colanders, earth globes, shoes and more.

The big guns like White Cube Gallery have the old crooners out on display such as Gilbert and George and Hirst, but these types of artists seem to have less of a presence this year thankfully. Raqib Shaw a reasonably new artist on their books is a welcome change with his decadent ape-god scenes painted out in painstaking detail with diamantes and marble effects.

It’s hard to stop and look around in the hustle and bustle of the opening night, but Frieze seems to have a fairly decent standard of work this year, with a variety of artists and not an overkill of flash with no substance…. Perhaps best taken-in on a quiet day without the champers…..

Some of the galleries metioned:

http://www.fortesvilaca.com.br/

http://www.katemacgarry.com/

http://www.agentilcarioca.com.br/

www.longmarchspace.com/

http://www.kukjegallery.com/

The cream of new contemporary art I hear you cry! Why yes here it is, the Turner Prize. And this year we have one oldie, a Mr Wright who has given a rather restrained response, Lucy Skaer who has given a mathematical, clean-cut, cultural experience, Ernesto David who will hurl us deep into the dark realms of his subconscious and Roger Hiorns who has continued to nurture his modern day momento mori theme into several distinguished pieces.

An interesting foursome then, and a difficult decision for the judges. Skaer has given us works in a variety of mediums. Brancusi’s ‘Bird in Space’ is reproduced 26 times in coal and resin to create ‘Black Alphabet (2008)’. The sculptures are placed carefully into rows, but some of the individual sculptures are clearly missing from the lines, in a sort of diminishing sequence. The remaining are placed in the corner, stacked up sideways like freshly cut logs hacked away from the regimented cubed forest in front of them. An antique wooden chair is displayed near by. Below the chair is a pile of bank notes with a printed image of glasses of water on them, a red triangular object in on the floor next to them. The chair’s parts have been deconstructed and printed in black ink onto a sheet of white paper forming illegible words, confirmed as such by the use of commas and apostrophes as something you could almost grasp as readable language but not quite. She has also been loaned a real sperm whale’s skull from a Scottish museum which is displayed through small openings in white walls, displacing the viewer’s experience, giving us just a glimpse of something impressive. She is reordering the museum experience and restructuring but not dislocating it from what it was. She has not violently ripped apart culture but has restructured the logic behind it.

Richard Wright’s main piece is a wall painting in gold leaf with detailed rococo swirls and sunsets, divided from the middle outwards creating a mirror image on both sides. It took him three weeks of hard labour to create it and you might suspect there to be a print underneath which he covered over with the hand painted gold, but material described is solely gold leaf, in which case it is an impressive effort. The affect of the whole is sumptuous and detailed but resembles nice bespoke wallpaper which is a little disappointing. Previous works on walls have had more innovation to them. They had movement and they worked with the environment and layout of the space. Here we get a block square. On the opposite wall above the door there are four red star-like shapes which do little to make a further impact to the room. Could he have not at least used a corner? His work since he rediscovered painting seems to be like a picturesque version of street art, but this is not one of his better examples.

Skaer has reconstructed the meaning behind objects but Hiorns has literally ground them down into a pulp. A passenger jet engine has been pulverised into dust, a symbol of what everything in the entire world will become one day. He admits he has a fear of flying and this piece contains obvious connections between airplanes and death. The layout of the dust with peaks and troughs and light and dark patches is reminiscent of an aerial view of mountains you might get from a plane. Hung on the walls are three sculptures, two of which are ivory coloured plastic casts injected with ground-up cows’ brain. They make a free-form grouping that look like slices of vertebrae from an alien animal. The other contains cows’ brain smudged into rectangular openings to create a regimented pattern in a stainless steel frame.

The materials’ previous identity has been removed by the industrial processes Hiorns has put them through. The only thing any of his work now still posses to their past self is the tenuous connotations of death, fatality and perhaps rebirth. Hiorns’ art here is a quiet and thoughtful conceptualism.

Ernesto David who some would describe as a latter-day Surrealist has made a long black stage stretching across the span of the room. A black cloth doll stretches across the entire length, its legs fall over various canvases and props, painted with eerie figures outlined in white and red on black. The doll could represent himself asleep and the props around him his dreams. Papier-mâché balloon men with faces resembling a young pouting George Michael, and a painting of faceless builders showing their arses provocatively are just some of the other motifs involved in creating this semi-nightmare world. It would help you to know that David is ‘in’ to gay pornography if you didn’t already. Inventive and slightly disturbing like all our dreams this piece is totally subjective to the viewers own experiences. If the Turner Prize is a good indication of shifts in trend then you could say that like the other three artists this year, David’s art is not sensationalist, the aim is not to be shocking or commercial, although it is an ‘uneasy’ consumption.

All of which asks the question are we moving into a subtle and more aesthetically appreciative period, with less emphasis on the sensational?

click here to see the video: http://www.oneandother.co.uk/participants/Maya-Shamji

God bless Art Sleuth’s wonderful friend Maya Shamji for her most excellent performance on the plinth. If anything Antony Gormley has revealed that most Brits have little imagination. Reading a book or taking photographs of tourists? Surely there is more you can do in the sole hour of your life you have on this earth as a piece of live art?

I’m sure Nelson would agree.

But we cannot fault Maya on her art in action! She got over one thousand blue, pink and orange glow sticks to dangle in chains off the plinth in an hour! More importantly she got the crowd going. People were making pretty necklaces out of the fallen sticks, there was singing and perhaps a little dancing. We love you Maya!

Richard Tuttle, Walking on Air, C1 2009, cotton with Rit dyes, grommets, thread, 2x panels

Richard Tuttle; Walking on Air, C3 2009. cotton with Rit dyes, grommets, thread, 2x panels

Richard Tuttle’  L’nger than Life, installation view, Photos taken from; http://www.modernart.net/

Now and again there is an exhibition that totally perplexes you because it asks the question; what is art? Richard Tuttle’s exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery does this, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons.

Tie-die, the choice clothing embellishment of the traditional hippy could be the beginnings of a spectacularly different approach to an art exhibition. Here it seems that Tuttle, a well established ‘post minimalist’ artist has attached bits of died cloth together with grommets and then stuck them on the walls. Perhaps he employed young school children to produce them, which is honourable, but all in all the effect is rather disappointing and characterless.

Take ‘Walking on Air, C1’ for instance; an interesting mix of colours to combine and not asthetically displeasing; a sky blue cloth attached to a purple, white and red marble effect cloth. Then we have, (wait for it), ‘Walking on Air, C3”. This perhaps one of the most complex pieces being a green, red and white patterned sheet, joined onto a white sheet with a yellow splodge. But what is the point to it?

Richard Tuttle describes the meanings behind these works on www.artnews.org;

Tuttle describes his new work as being “in a syncretic tradition, where the equal and opposite can co-exist and the abstract and the real are not in a state of ambiguity.” Walking on Air represents for him an “expression of elation for the potential for a new beginning, the possibility to rebuild and discover a harmony for existing in the world today.”

http://artnews.org/gallery.php?i=166&exi=15334

Certainly he is getting at something here, a reconciliation of two seemingly disparate coloured cloths both totally unique and handmade (perhaps the way as humans our DNA is totally unique) united together to create a new start. The beautiful union of two bits of tie-died cloth! With this my friend, we could take over the world. Sorry, sorry, we could bring peace to the world. And the whole association with hippies, well, self explanatory.

But they just don’t speak to me. They are essentially an inspired idea but Tuttle’s most eloquent description does not translate into something tangible.

Am I missing the point here?  I probably I am. The Time Out review raved about how, “With work this good, this cogent and concise, how come it’s been almost 15 years since Tuttle’s last exhibition in this country?”

http://www.timeout.com/london/art/event/157146/richard-tuttle

And fair play to them, it must be me missing the tree hugger for the trees. (Bad joke)

Another year another wicked show set up by Hackney’s huge community of artists. A maze of artist’s studios and exhibitions opened up all over ‘the Wick’ accompanied by lots of fun and frolicking.

Friday was opening night with galleries getting fiesta-like and Saturday saw a veritable array of live bands for the street party. Sunday was more chilled however you could stumble across the odd accordion or banjos being played if you were looking in the right places. Take a look at the photos.

(Some photos taken by Art Sleuth’s most excellent chum Louis Mustill – photographer extraordinaire)

 Hackney Wicked 09:

Painting the town multi coloured – art in the street, White Hart Lane, Hackney Wick.

Ruben Sutherland, from ‘Sculpture’. See live show 27th August at Brixton Dogstar.

Village by Jakob Brondum, A12 Gallery

Simper by Emma Barrow, A12 Gallery (Cardboard, resin, spraypaint)

Blue Ocean by Greg Cox, A12 Gallery

Taken from the Present in Spirit Exhibition, A12 Gallery

The perils of red wine …Untitled by Mark Webb

Stuart Pearson Wright; on an adventure in paint.

Joseph Loughborough; working progress in studio.

 Barometer style collage by Beth Louise Walker

Dana Goldstein, Punk boys

Archival Girls, Richard Kern

Tim Barber’s purple haired muse.

Candid Reich by Nico

Chubs, Jamie Lee Cuirtis Taete

Vice magazine has got some sort of reputation to live up to when it comes to its’ photos. So trendy it aches would be one way of putting it; like Dana Goldstein’s boys in rock star poses; and also a decent amount of nudity, girls snogging and some amusing commentary to undermine it all. Which this exhibition has. But it also includes some rather thought-provoking or technically impressive work too. Like Candid Reich by Nico, if true, the private photos taken by a WW2 photographer for the German army. To be honest they look pretty real. They show scenes from off duty soldiers on the road in their little round glasses and side-parted hair, mainly doing ‘off-the-wall’ type things; one guy has climbed up a tree looking a bit mental, a bunch of solders preparing a dead pig, and a man in long boots and underpants doing a heil Hitler! pose.

Tim Barber’s work both upstairs and down is compositionally beautiful, including a series of intimate portraits capturing his purple haired muse in various times and places. Martynka Wawrzyniak’s close up of kids captures their scruffy, naughty personalities in a single shot. Unfortunately they are slightly reminiscent of the children from the recent swine flu ad campaign. But I’m sure nobody else will notice.

The Chubs series by Jamie Lee Curtis Taete is the best thing about the whole exhibition, bringing a wry smile to peoples faces as they come across five portraits of over-sized men in nude poses; one hiding his decency with a conveniently placed teddy bear, (thank god) another presented rather majestically on his toilet. This is more like the Vice we come to know and love. Bring on ironic sordidness any day.

The VICE photo exhibition will run until Wednesday 26^th August at the theprintspace, 74 Kingsland Road,London E2 8DL

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 as building 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!

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’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

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/

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/

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/