Viewing articles tagged with 'Installation'

PM/AM, 50 Golborne Road, London W10 5PR

06

‘06’ is a both an online and physical exhibition, envisioned by the gallery PM/AM, as “a collective status check, a unique opportunity for self-assessment” that came together after the gallery set up a discussion between several artists, offering a form of exchange to collectively examine how the pandemic was impacting their daily lives. But rather than positioning the exhibition as a response to Covid-19, the discussions became a mediation on this new collective moment of re-evaluation.

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Bosse & Baum, Studio BGC&D, Bussey Building, 133 Rye Ln, London SE15 4ST

Miriam Austin: Andesite

In her show ‘Andesite’ at Bosse & Baum (her third with the gallery), Miriam Austin grapples with both her coloniser ancestry and her desire to expose and challenge the damage wreaked on the landscape by colonial extractivist systems. Born out of an extensive body of research and experimentation, this exhibition imaginatively inhabits both the mythical subterranean realm of Selvaga and the New Zealand landscapes ravished by colonial settlement. Review by Anna Souter

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Tate Britain, Millbank, Westminster, London SW1P 4RG

Chila Kumari Singh Burman: Tate Britain Winter Commission 2020

The statue of Britannia that sits atop Sidney Smith’s incomplete 1897 pediment of Tate Britain’s portico has been transformed by Chila Burman for the annual Winter Commission into an avatar of Kali, the voluptuous Indian god of death. Burman delivers some much needed jollity by converting the austere Imperial iconography of the Millbank frontage into a pantheon of her trademark warrior queens. Tate’s comparatively meagre sculptures of a lion and unicorn that flank Britannia are usurped by Burman’s neon figures of Lakshmi and Ganesh−the gods of plenitude and Diwali−who welcome us from the top of the stairs. Review by Piers Masterson

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NiCOLETTi Contemporary, 12A Vyner St, London E2 9DG

Tyler Eash: Loreum

NiCOLETTi re-opened its doors to the public in early December, continuing its programme with ‘Loreum’, an exhibition by American artist Tyler Eash. Having completed an MFA at Goldsmiths, University of London last year, Eash now lives and works in Mexico. His practice encompasses film, painting, sculpture, writing and sound art as a means to disclose thoughts on having, and holding onto, an identity. These works are unapologetically jumbled, or topsy-turvy, as if badly downloaded from the internet, becoming more encrypted as they travel through digital space and enter into the physical world. Perhaps more plausibly, these works in painting, sculpture, film and photography are a figuring of things that Eash has encountered on the internet, in his mind’s eye and in daily life. Review by Olivia Fletcher

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Korean Cultural Centre UK, Grand Buildings, 1-3 Strand, London WC2N 5BW

Jewyo Rhii: Love Your Depot_LDN

The fact that Jewyo Rhii’s exhibition has only been intermittently open to the public due to COVID restrictions seems appropriate for the Korean born artist whose show focuses on the moment of transition between the private and public spaces of the gallery. The conundrum of transposing the meaning or value of an artwork from the private spaces where it is produced to the public arena of the gallery is a main theme of Jewyo Rhii’s work. For ‘Love Your Depot_LDN’, the artist has converted the Korean Cultural Centre’s white-walled space into a functional art store, complete with modular storage racks and packing crates that mimic the interstitial space in which her work can spend so much of its time. Review by Piers Masterson

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Like A Little Disaster, Online

The eye can see things the arm cannot reach

Before the pandemic, Julie Grosche and the collective Like A Little Disaster (founded in 2014 by Giuseppe Pinto and Paolo Modugno) had organised a large group exhibition to take place in a 17th century church in Polignano a Mare, a beautiful town on the coast of southern Italy. Once Italy entered lockdown, the curatorial team reconfigured the show as an online exhibition and I’m glad to say that their commitment has paid off handsomely – ‘the eye can see things the arm cannot reach’, presented by the website Sajetta, is a thrilling cocktail of contemporary video work. Review by Tom Lordan

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Online

Hotel Happiness

We are going through a time when our movement is limited and the notion of hospitality has a very different meaning; our bodies are playing host to a virus, while we are unable to host or be hosted in domestic spaces. Experiencing a virtual hotel that hosts artworks and artists as its guests does something powerful. I realise I haven’t thought about these temporary homes in a long time. And ‘Hotel Happiness’ provides this hospitable space—despite the limitations of the digital sphere. Review by Deniz Kırkalı

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Primary, 33 Seely Road, Nottingham, NG7 1NU, United Kingdom

Rebecca Lennon: LIQUID i

Installed in the generous space of the assembly hall of a former school building, the six-channel sound and three-channel video work lures the viewer into a cacophonic whirl of multiple layers and intertwining currents. The artwork induces a vertiginous split-attention effect—a poetic response to the present condition, which is often characterised by contemporary philosophers as liquid, ever changing and precarious in its instability. Review by Jaroslava Tomanova

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Parafin, 18 Woodstock St, Mayfair, London W1C 2AL

Nancy Holt: Points of View

‘Points of View’ brings together rarely seen photographs, sculpture, installation and works on paper from the late 1960s and early 1970s by pioneering Land and Conceptual artist Nancy Holt, which show the formation of her visual lexicon. This compact exhibition, Holt’s second at Parafin, explores her interest in language, perception and our relationship to the environment. It signals a renewed interest in the artist’s work, ahead of two forthcoming large-scale European shows, and asks questions which feel especially prescient over four decades later, at a moment in which we are acutely aware of our surrounding landscape. Review by Grace Storey

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BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, NE8 3BA

Huma Bhabha: Against Time

There is a distortion of time in BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead; a strange anomaly in the fabric of space. Curious works are in the gallery, they could be from a bygone age, a distant future or a parallel world. In a way, each is true; they are birthed from the mind of Pakistani-American artist Huma Bhabha, whose imagination traverses time, space and genre. Review by Christopher Little

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Marseille, France

Roots to Routes: Manifesta 13

‘Roots to Routes’ is a collaboration between artists, curators and non-profit organisations from the city of Marseille and the Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania). The project invites strangers to encounter the unfamiliar within the urban environment, while exploring concepts of ‘home’, ‘belonging’ and ‘identity’. Distinguishing itself among the 85 projects of ‘Les Parallèles du Sud’- ‘Roots to Routes’ acts like a second festival nestled within ‘Manifesta’. The programme can be seen as two branches - one concerned with the life of the senses, the other, inherited experience. These are united by ‘Same door different street’, a duo exhibition by Evita Vasiljeva (LV) and Antoine Nessi (FR) - and the first part of the programme to open. Review by Rebecca Larkin

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Towner Eastbourne, Devonshire Park College Road Eastbourne BN21 4JJ

Towner International 2020

A new biennial exhibition, with a £10,000 prize, features 24 artists selected from an open call by art world heavy weights: Polly Staple (Director of Collections, British Art, Tate), Turner Prize nominee Mike Nelson and Towner’s own Curator, Noelle Collins. There’s a lot of good things to be said about Towner International, Towner Gallery’s new biennial exhibition. It celebrates artists in the vicinity of Towner’s East Sussex location—10 have been chosen from Sussex, nearby Kent and Hampshire, 10 from elsewhere across the UK and 4 from international locations. Review by Kirsty White

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Ikon, 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, Birmingham B1 2HS

Krištof Kintera: THE END OF FUN!

‘THE END OF FUN!’ is the pertinent title of Krištof Kintera’s (b. 1973) timely solo show at Ikon. The Czech artist is internationally acclaimed for his mechanical sculptures, made from electronic waste, which critique hyper-capitalist systems, especially with respect to ecological concerns. Review by Ruth Millington

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Castor, Enclave 1, 50 Resolution Way, London SE8 4AL

Interview with Grace Woodcock

If you’ve managed to envisage telepathy and sleeplessness, then you’re some way to grasping the substance of my recent conversation with Grace Woodcock. We discussed her retro futuristic solo exhibition at Castor gallery in London, through the lens of Octavia Butler’s equally fascinating and terrifying sci-fi novel ‘Mind of My Mind’ (1977). The book tracks a young, poor and mixed race woman called Mary who goes through a dramatic transition from “latent” to “active”. She supplants her trans-racial, trans-gender breeder Doro by creating a super-race of telepaths, all connected through a universal pattern. Interview by Jillian Knipe

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