This week, i’m trying something new. Cramming into a quick post the exhibitions i’ve seen over these past few days in London. Only the ones worth a mention, though.
Starting with Mark-ing which brings side by side works by British and Japanese designers. There are all sorts of pieces of furniture to sit on, a brain lamp and an ipod speaker but there’s also Yuri Suzuki’s Sound of the Earth and Moritz Waldemeyer’s Wushu Sword. The Sound of the Earth is turned on so you can listen to it in the gallery. The super impressive (on video) kung fu LED weapon, however, just lays glowing on the floor.
Moritz Waldemeyer, Wushu Sword
Hurry up to Gallery Libby Sellers because the show closes on 25 January.
Next is The Uncanny at the Ronchini gallery. Berndnaut Smilde is showing Nimbus clouds suspended within empty rooms. The artist uses a fog machine and carefully balances the temperature and humidity to produce the clouds. He then quickly photograph the result before the cloud evaporates. So there wasn’t any cloud to gape at in the gallery, just the stunning images hanging on the walls.
Berndnaut Smilde, Nimbus II, 2012
Now for something completely different, i finally visited the Grant Museum of Zoology. Mostly because i had read about the jar of moles which was as creepy as i had hoped. I hate to link to the journalistic disgrace of this country but the Daily Fail has a nice photo series.
The other night, i went to a talk by Chrystia Freeland at the London School of Economics. The title was the one of her recent book Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich. Highly entertaining and informative (only thing is that i will never understant why it is more acceptable to mock Russian oligarchs than US or UK billionaires.) The podcast is online.
On my way to the lecture, i stopped by The Strand Gallery. They are showing the winning series of the Terry O’Neill / TAG Award, it’s an international photo competition. I like photo competitions. I’m giving you the third prize, Marc Wilson’s series The Last Stand which aims to document the physical remnants of war in the 20th century in the UK and northern Europe, and the shifting landscape that surrounds them, focusing on some of the remaining military defense structures situated around their coastal areas.
Portland, Dorset, England, 2011
I’m picking up this series because it’s in line with what the blog usually covers but the first prize Youth Denied: Young Immigrants in Greece, by Alessandro Penso, is stunning. As was this gentleman portrayed by Mimi Mollica for a series about Sicily.
Last Friday, i tried the London Art Fair. The press desk was supremely rude, the location horrid but the fair is promising. Prices were almost affordable and i discovered a couple of exciting galleries. Tiny selection of the goods:
Peter Blake, Piccadilly Circus- The Convention of Comic Book Characters, 2012
Sarah Hardacre, For the Man of the World, 2012. At Paul Stolper
Aboudia, Daloa 29, 2011 (Jack Bell Gallery)
El Hadj Hamidou Maïga, Tailoring scene, Bamako, 1973 (Jack Bell Gallery)
El Hadj Hamidou Maïga, Untitled, 1973 (Jack Bell Gallery)
Revolvers shooting at each other:
David Cotterrell, Protoptype II, 1998. At Danielle Arnaud
Finally, if the quest for the philosophers’ stone keeps you awake at night, do check out Signs, Symbols, Secrets: an illustrated guide to alchemy at the Science Museum.
Le trésor des trésors, 14141. Courtesy of the Science Museum, London