Handel Street Projects, 14 Florence Street, London N1 2DX

Graham Gussin: The Mary Jane Paintings

Graham Gussin: The Mary Jane Paintings installation view

Graham Gussin’s The Mary Jane Paintings are illegal. They aren’t illegal in the same way that the art market is increasingly criminal, such as how the sale of da Vinci’s Salvador Mundi was called ‘the biggest art fraud in history’ or how works of art featured heavily in the Panama Papers as vehicles for tax evasion and other financial crimes. Instead, they are directly illegal; made from hashish that has been ground down, mixed with linseed oil and applied to linen and paper. Review by Matthew Turner

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Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, University of East Anglia, Norfolk Road, Norwich NR4 7TJ

Brian Clarke: The Art of Light

Brian Clarke: The Art of Light at the Sainsbury Centre, supported and organised in association with HENI

Stained glass artist Brian Clarke can remember when the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts was merely a sketch on the back of a napkin. The napkin belonged to architect Norman Foster, and the sketch utilised a unique approach - integrating building with landscape - using the style of structural expressionism. Considering this integration, it would seem fitting that the ‘finally-celebrated’ artist should take advantage of the centre’s grand windows. Review by Paul Black

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Tramway, 25 Albert Dr, Glasgow G41 2PE

Laida Lertxundi: WORDS, PLANETS

 WORDS, PLANETS (still)

In a discussion about his work the late Chilean experimental filmmaker, Raúl Ruíz, said that his ‘films would have to be seen many times, like objects in the house, like a painting…’, that ‘landscape is used as a story’ and that he sought to draw upon ‘connections between film, installation, writing, theatre’ that in his extensive body of works, including the theoretical text ‘Poetics of Cinema’, made between 1963 and 2010, could be described as a nesting of stories, residing within each other, and of stories co-existing; of narratives, often fragmented and elliptical, and their layering together. Review by Alex Hetherington

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Chisenhale Gallery, 64 Chisenhale Rd, London E3 5QZ

Paul Maheke: A fire circle for a public hearing

Paul Maheke, A place you only go through (2018). Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery and Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg

When A Fire Circle For A Public Hearing opened at Chisenhale Gallery last April, it was quite frustrating to learn that Paul Maheke was not going to perform live for the whole duration of the exhibition. Despite being completely absent from the stage, Maheke’s body is still present through a video work that plays on a continuous loop. Review by Fiorella Lanni

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Turf Projects, 46-47 Trinity Court Whitgift Centre, Croydon CR0 1UQ

LOW BATT.

LOW BATT. installation view

The exhibition’s text opens with a quote from the film Dawn of the Dead, where a group of survivors find refuge from the zombie apocalypse in a shopping mall. The exhibition seeks to problematize our reliance on technology and looks for alternative forms of survival, asking ‘What tools might expedite shopping mall survivalism?’ For Turf projects, who are being evicted from this space at the Whitgift at the end of the year to make way for a shiny new Westfield, the question of survival has never been more urgent. Review by Amy Jones

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Josh Lilley Gallery, 44 – 46 Riding House St, Fitzrovia, London W1W 7EX

Brian Bress: Another Fine Mess

Brian Bress: Another Fine Mess installation view

Brian Bress has long been casting characters, almost always himself in costume, into videos carefully composed with subtle pathos. In these, the modes have grown more sophisticated with focus on the narrow confines of portraiture of tightly framed figures, their goofy attitude streamlined into more elegant displays with the scale of each character’s body relative to our own. Review by Alex Bennett

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www.barnebys.com/

As Easy as ABC: Contemporary Art at Auction with Barnebys

Image Courtesy of Barnebys/Bukowskis

Attention museum goers, culture vultures and art lovers! For those who understand the power of art and design, the importance of cultural heritage and art in our society, we’d like to draw your attention to the powerful connection between the art world and the auction world of which Barnebys both embodies and emanates.

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Paradise Works, East Philip Street, Salford, Manchester, M3 7LE

Nick Jordan: Mental State Signs

Nick Jordan: Mental State Signs installation view

Alongside his artistic practice, Nick Jordan has spent a number of years filming mental health training videos for the University of Manchester’s hospital teaching unit, encountering many cases of ‘disorder’ as a result. This latest body of work, presented at Paradise Works, on the border between Manchester and Salford, responds to one kind of psychosis in particular: a manifestation of schizophrenia known as ‘thought broadcasting’, whereby patients believe that their thoughts are being transmitted and heard by others. Review by Sara Jaspan

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Hayward Gallery, 337-338 Belvedere Rd, London SE1 8XX

Adapt to Survive: Notes from the Future

Adapt to Survive: Notes from the Future

Adapt to Survive: Notes from the Future is a title that would be as at home on a book by Ayn Rand as the group exhibition currently at the Hayward Gallery. Brought together by Senior Curator Dr. Cliff Lauson, the show contains seven works which each explore potential trajectories from the present. If there is a guiding thread, it is less in the fullness of its visions, than the way it challenges an inability to create alternative futures.

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