Abingdon Studios, 14 Abingdon Street, Blackpool FY1 1DE
Exposed pipes from the building’s radiators lead the visitor from the entrance, weaving upstairs and through walls to ‘Slot’, the first solo presentation by artist Rafał Zajko in the North of England, comprised of five wall-based sculptures and accompanying hand-painted murals. Review by Ryan Kearney
The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
December 2020 saw the opening of ‘the engine’, Yuri Pattison’s new exhibition in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery. This was six months later than originally planned due to the closure of cultural institutions in Ireland during the pandemic. Pattison's ‘the engine' features a new body of work highlighting the vast systems that create and shape the realities of modern existence. The elongated timeframe and continuing impact of the pandemic has resulted in two distinct conversations, which will be published as two distinct texts. Below is a transcript from the second of these phone interviews from 23 December 2020. Interview by Aidan Kelly Murphy
The Modern Institute, 14-20 Osborne Street, Glasgow G1 5QN
After a fifteen-year commitment to ceramic sculpture, the New-York based British artist, Jesse Wine, has returned to an overarching concern with motion, composition and stasis, where the conviction found in his earlier works is overturned to make space for reflection. Segregated by bright curtains, spread around the Modern Institute, ‘Carve a Hole in The Rain for Yer’ invites a pause stirred by isolation and confinement. With this note of incompletion and self-questioning comes a distancing from the sculptural subject and a closer contemplation on the process of sculpture. Review by Elaine YJ Zheng
HS Projects, 5 Howick Place, Westminster, London SW1P 1BH
Permindar Kaur’s exhibitions often create feelings of anxiety. Cuddly toys and nursery room furniture would be given abject twists, kid’s dolls and clothes sporting metal claws or daggers and razor wire cribs would speak to the most Freudian nightmares of threat in the domestic family space. The impact of Kaur’s installations is heightened by having the secluded scenes of English family life played out in an institutional gallery setting, with the subsequent unsettling collision of public and private arenas. Review by Piers Masterson
Makina Books, London
Last summer, ‘Strangers: Essays on the Human and Nonhuman’ by the poet Rebecca Tamás had a swarm of anticipation around it. Her poetry collection ‘WITCH’ (2019) and her co- editorial role in ‘Spells: 21st Century Occult Poetry’ (2018) had already established the York St John University lecturer as a critically acclaimed writer, crafting a world of linguistic ritual and transformation around her. With these successes behind her, people were buzzing to read Tamás’ five new short prose essays. Through literary strangeness and its many mystic references, the book presents alternative modes of thinking—ways for us to feel reconnected with each other and the plains, wildflowers, seas and forests around us. While this book does, to some extent, hold a place in my heart specifically connected to the hotly political and momentous summer of 2020, it also marks a new standard for arts, literature and contemporary thought, which promotes a more inclusive future. Review by Nina Hanz
Joya AiR, Parque Natural Sierra María-Los Vélez, Andalucia, Spain
Growing up on the Isle of Wight, Simon Linington was fascinated by the different coloured sands that made up the cliffs near his childhood home at Alum Bay. Here, new colourful strata would sometimes be dramatically revealed when parts of the cliff-face crumbled due to erosion. As a child, he would fill small glass bottles with layers of the sand, producing the typical tourist souvenirs that are still sold in the area today. These early experiences led Linington to an understanding of material and place as inseparably linked. Review by Anna Souter
Bobinska Brownlee New River, Canonbury Street, London, N1 2US
‘Anomaly’ expands and builds on Hicks’ previous preoccupation with the everyday, which he suggests has taken on a different tone since lockdown. His paintings (made in lockdown one) and sculptures (made in lockdown two), feature the same symbols over and over: sun, sky, pylons and city. But the works feel as if they are reiterating a new kind of feeling. There is a suggestion that these idealised structures and symbols around us are in fact what leads us to being susceptible to conspiracy theories; the tight order of our surroundings are settings ripe for myth and ignorance. Interview by Alexander Harding
Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Mall, St. James's, London SW1Y 5AH
Eve Stainton’s dance performances transport audiences to brilliantly enigmatic, sensorial worlds. Anyone lucky enough to have caught ‘Rubby Sucky Forge’ at The Place, London in Autumn 2020 will have experienced a much needed detour from reality—three dancers melting, sparring and succumbing to each other in a futuristic stage ecology of metal and slippery projected visuals.Eve’s upcoming performance ‘Dykegeist’ at the ICA is sure to be just as estranging and endearing. Interview with Louisa Doyle
Hauser & Wirth Publishing
Hurtado’s conversations with Obrist stay true to her character and reveal many of her most admirable traits to the reader. We learn that she was humble and hilarious: at the admirable age of 97, she kept the menu of the Serpentine opening night dinner as a keepsake. She explained to Obrist, “you have to understand, this is one of the happiest days of my life. This will help me remember this wonderful evening once I’m old.” Review by Maximiliane Leuschner
Hauser & Wirth, London
Charles Gaines is a Los Angeles based artist and lecturer who applies systematic and rule-based methods to his unique artistic practice. Gaines’ first solo exhibition in the United Kingdom is currently on view at Hauser & Wirth in London. Due to the ongoing global crisis, Gaines’ show is limited to online viewing. However, it should not be overlooked, as it confronts ideas of race and identity, and raises questions surrounding representation. Across Hauser & Wirth’s galleries on Savile Row are continuations of two ongoing series: ’Numbers & Faces: MultiRacial/Ethnic Combination Series 1’ (1978-) and ‘Numbers & Trees: London Series 1’ (1986-). Gaines’ artistic approach sees systematic colouring combined with overlapping images within a sequenced grid. Review by Sheena Carrington
The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland
Spring 2020 was due to see the opening of ‘the engine’, Yuri Pattison’s new exhibition in Dublin’s Douglas Hyde Gallery and his first solo show in a major institution in Ireland. However, lockdown saw the exhibition delayed and Pattison presented a cross-section of the proposed work via the online screening, ‘sunset provision’ - a work that sees the artist rendered a seascape in real-time via a game engine. The elongated timeframe and continuing impact of the global pandemic has resulted in two distinct conversations, which will be published as two distinct texts. Interviews by Aidan Kelly Murphy
Galerie Charraudeau, 3/4 Rue Bonaparte, 75006 Paris, France
Pepo Moreno is a multidisciplinary artist bringing the intimacy of his bedroom studio to the walls of a Parisian gallery. I chatted to Moreno about his creative process, the importance of queer art in the 21st century, and how 70s porn magazines and Catalonian folklore helped him to tame his ‘demons’ - the title of his new show at Galerie Charraudeau. Interview by Noémi Martini
Profile Books
Seaweed, our collective name for marine algae, seems to gather itself more than any other organism on the shoreline. Whereas other seafaring creatures drift apart, seaweed prefers to tangle, knot and assemble on the sand. Perhaps this is why they so naturally intrigued the artist and writer Miek Zwamborn. In 2018, Zwamborn wrote ‘The Seaweed Collector’s Handbook’ in her native Dutch and revealed how the mysterious qualities of this sea grass have become surprisingly integrated in our lives. Recently it has been translated into English by Michele Hutchison, thus sharing Zwamborn’s practice-based research with a new audience. Interview by Nina Hanz
Bosse & Baum, Studio BGC&D, Bussey Building, 133 Rye Ln, London SE15 4ST
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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
