Viewing articles tagged with 'Text'

Platform Southwark, 1 Joan St, South Bank, London SE1 8BS

GLF at 50: The Art of Protest

In 1970, a group of students started weekly meetings at the London School of Economics; they called for an end to discrimination against homosexuals in employment, education, the age of consent and in being treated as mentally unwell. Celebrating 50 years of activism, radical protest and positive queerness ‘GLF at 50: The Art of Protest’ at Platform Southwark is part of a sprinkling of events marking half a century of the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) and their core assertion that ‘Gay is Good’. Their manifesto (republished for this exhibition) was a seminal clarion call for equality. Review by Ian Giles

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Austrian Cultural Forum, 28 Rutland Gate, Knightsbridge, London SW7 1PQ

HYPERSURFACE

‘HYPERSURFACE’ at the Austrian Cultural Forum, curated by Caterina Avataneo and Nicole Tatschl, explores the possibilities of making and seeing within relations of complex surfaces and artistic practice. Featuring mostly Austrian artists and a range of mediums including painting, sculpture, text and animation, the show treats surface not as an end but as an active means to accessing various layers of substance and interpretation. Review by Sonja Teszler

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ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH

Cameron Rowland: 3 & 4 Will. IV c.73

Cameron Rowland’s first solo exhibition in the UK, ‘3 & 4 Will. IV c.73’, uses the provenance of objects, language, and laws, to underscore the artist’s research into the afterlife of slavery. Making various references to cultural theorists such as Saudiya Hartman, the work supports the contention that the abolition of slavery was a nonevent. Review by Sarah Hughes

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Cell Project Space, 258 Cambridge Heath Rd, London E2 9DA

Anna-Sophie Berger: A Failed Play

It is fitting that the accompanying exhibition text for ‘A Failed Play’, written by Anna Sophie-Berger herself, opens with a story that leaves out the play entirely. The focus is on everything but - Beckett’s declaration of it as a failure, his begrudging agreement to translate it for publication in English, and the fight that ensued over copyright following his death. Review by India Nielsen

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Marian Goodman Gallery, 5-8 Lower John Street, London W1F 9DY

Allan Sekula: Photography, A Wonderfully Inadequate Medium

‘Photography, A Wonderfully Inadequate Medium’ presents an extensive exhibition by the late American artist and writer Allan Sekula (1951-2013). While the title aims to highlight the medium’s aporias, the show extends across photography, performance, text, and video, contrasting photography’s material mediations with its claim to realism. Review by Hugh Nicholson

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VITRINE, Basel, Vogesenpl. 15, 4056 Basel, Switzerland

If it’s not meant to last, then it’s Performance: A Q&A with Alys Williams

VITRINE, Basel’s current group exhibition explores how transient artworks are challenging the existing systems of value surrounding art. ‘If it’s not meant to last, then it’s Performance’ brings together work by Tim Etchells, Paul Hage Boutros, Sophie Jung, Clare Kenny, Hannah Lees, Wil Murray, and Rafal Zajko. Alys Williams, the curator, talks about how the exhibition came to be and the ways in which performance is reshaping the art market. Interview by Susie Pentelow

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Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham, NG1 2GB

Elizabeth Price: FELT TIP

Elizabeth Price’s solo show at Nottingham Contemporary brings together three new works. Each departs from a moment in late 20th century British history: a period marked by the collapse of the organized Left, the systematic dismantling of union power, and the programmatic reconstitution of the working class. Review by Hugh Nicholson

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Primary, 33 Seely Road Nottingham, NG7 1NU & New Art Exchange, 39-41 Gregory Boulevard, Nottingham NG7 6BE

Hardeep Pandhal: Paranoid Picnic: The Phantom BAME

Nottingham galleries, New Art Exchange and Primary present ‘Paranoid Picnic: The Phantom BAME’, a split-site exhibition of recent and ongoing works by Hardeep Pandhal. A second generation British Sikh now based in Glasgow, Pandhal dissects continuing projects of cultural assimilation and the performance of heritage. Review by Amelia Seren Roberts

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Collective, City Observatory, 38 Calton Hill, Edinburgh EH7 5AA

Affinity and Allusion

‘Affinity and Allusion’, the opening project at the new expanded Collective on Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, does not refer to a group show as such, as one might expect for the relaunch, or remaking and reimagining of an institution like this, but is rather a title of intention, focus and scope around the nature of exhibitions and displays, given to a cluster, or constellation (the theme of astronomy is in abundance here, given that the site is a former observatory), of complex activities. Review by Alex Hetherington

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Transfer Gallery, 1030 Metropolitan Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11211

Rhonda Holberton: Still Life

Contrary to the exhibition’s title, which suggests a state of stasis, Holberton’s work oscillates between analogue and digital, animate and inanimate, in order to destablise the notion of these binaries, and explore the possibility of a third space. Review by Grace Storey

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Cordova, Carrer de Portugalete, 15, 08014 Barcelona, Spain

Siera Hyte: Honey Week

Inspired by ‘The Butterfly’s Evil Spell’ (1920), Federico Garcia Lorca’s first ever play, Sierra Hyte’s ‘Honey Week’ is an invitation to participate in an almost theatrical setting in which humans, animals and creatures alike are welcome to partake of the space. Review by Marta Faria

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Oriel Davies Gallery, The Park, Newtown, SY16 2NZ

Freya Dooley: Speakable Things

‘Speakable Things’, Freya Dooley’s newly commissioned sound and moving image work for Litmus at Oriel Davies, is installed within a room painted a deep pink comparable to the inside of a mouth. It is an intimate colour for an intimate space, measuring less than 2m². The mouth repeatedly appears throughout ‘Speakable Things’, as blank space interrupts out-of-sync close ups and scenes of wild landscape. Freya is interested in the voice as something in-between inside and outside, sound and language, thought and body. Text by Litmus Curator Louise Hobson

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V-A-C Collection, Palazzo delle Zattere, Dorsoduro 1401, Venice

The Electric Comma: V-A-C Collection

Taking its title from Shannon Ebner’s installation The Electric Comma, the exhibition focuses on shifts in language, perception and understanding in the age of artificial intelligence. Through varied practices and from different backgrounds, participating artists deal with the negotiations between the conscious mind and today’s pervasive learning machine, imagining pathways of exchange between human and nonhuman, ranging from the poetic and intuitive to the algorithmical and analytical.

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Edel Assanti, 74a Newman Street, London W1T 3DB

Yoshinori Niwa: That Language Sounds Like a Language

For Yoshinori Niwa's second solo show at Edel Assanti, the Japanese artist presents a series of video works and installations that shine a light on the complex relationship between countries, between governments and their citizens, and between objects and the past. Review by Bobby Jewell

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