The Wyer Gallery is a small oasis of throat-grabbing contemporary art in the midst of the ordinary streets of ‘Clarm’, South London, famous for Sloane-starter-families, Australians and ASDA.
Past exhibitions include a line up of forward-looking artists such as the brilliant Richard Galloway.

Hung side by side in this exhibition is the work of two stylistically diverse female oil painters. One scandalous, one monumental but feminine.

The Scandal comes in the form of Elinor Evans’ bold subject matter in her series of scantily clad, masked women posing with various animals. A ‘harem’ consisting of a horse, a Dalmatian, a cat and naked women.
Bestiality is a word that hangs in the air. Anyone watch that documentary where the man married his donkey?
And yet the crudeness of it all seems to be blurred by the thick brush strokes and stylized painting technique.

Behind the Scandal is a well thought out series of references that go back (n.b. read in a deep voice) through the canons of Art History.
For instance masks – the ultimate barrier between the viewer and the painter, putting you at a tasteful distance. Also refers to Picasso and further to primitive art.
Then there’s the difference between the acceptable nude with no clothing (apart from perhaps drapery) and the cheap prostitute championed by Renoir’s Olympia. High heels and knickers and a pose of a page-3 girl equal good old-fashioned prossy.
Then there’s Demoiselles d’avignon, again Picasso, the Harem idea, the stylized angular figures of the women, the thick brush work, the flat uncomplicated backgrounds.
And even going back further, the use of the horse – any equestrian portrait, the black theatrical backgrounds – Caravaggio. What a feast of historical legacy.
All of this makes the paintings somehow actually quite tasteful. (Possibly).

Christine Aerfeldt is a contrast in her fluid painting style and her living, breathing portraiture. Huge therapeutic portraits of women either knitting or ironing framed in miniature landscapes in turmoil, a thundery sea, an avalanche a forest fire. They seem to be at the center of this activity, like Greek gods (Poseidon in the sea for instance) moving with the nature around them. They do not repel ‘women’s work’ they are not 70’s feminists, it seems they are quite content in their actions. They are possibly at one with the earth, themselves, their femininity etc etc?
Unlike Evans’ work these paintings are open questions rather than being a code or hook pulling you back into references from bygone art, although allusions to 17th Century Dutch domestic images are there. You are not searching for answers so much. It is the emphasized use of modern clothes and jewellery, the fact the women are young, that they are full of movement and the landscape around them is active, that gives a feeling of vitality. What is depicted is the aura of these women, a confident aura as they are the commanding force over the land that surrounds them, and a peaceful mood in their contentment.

The brilliant art collective ‘Le Gun’ has opened up their world for one week only (so get down there sharpish!) to celebrate the release of their 4th illustration led magazine. In an old Shoreditch school, not far from their workshop within SPACE studios (as one of many collectives and individuals that SPACE support), they have created a three-part spectacle of illustration and installation.

A salon style hanging on the first few walls gives an overview of the paintings and drawings of the separate Le Gun artists and their encompassing mind-blowing surrealist style.

The next section is a set of huge, some 10 meter long, ‘murals’ (in search of a better word). The collaborative artists have put their black pens to white canvas to create an unruly narrative. Crocodiles with cigarettes in their mouths, London scenes mixed in with jungle scenes, seascapes, drunken people, all are illustrated in the most incredible detail and with grim humour.

Climb through a cardboard door cut into a blank wall and you have entered the arts club made entirely out of cardboard. Walls, ceiling and floors, a mini grand piano, arm chairs, lamps, book-shelves EVERTHING! All illustrated by the collective in black marker pens, down to rugs and wooden floorboards. So cosy, and yet so cardboard!

This exhibition includes events that run each evening. Short films curated by the Independent Cinema Office, music nights including Strangeworks performance collective, and Soup session hosted by Jessica Antwi-Boasiako which is apparently ‘a cooking up of people, word artists and vegetables’, are just some of the goings on.

Last night a merry band of mistrals with trumpets led the parade from the opening to the after party in Cargo, so who knows what crazy goings-on to expect for the next week.

Possibly check the website I would imagine:
http://www.legun.co.uk/

Don’t miss this! You will regret it!

More pics coming. Hopefully of the cardboard paradise!

27th of Aug till 1 week later
Club row, Rochelle School,
Arnold Circus
Shoreditch
E2 7ES

Ominously called the House of Pain, and nothing to do with the Irish hop-hop band, Rousson has created a shed constructed out of individual canvases.
Most of the canvases are paintings done in the typical style of a different iconic artist, Picasso, Warhol, Pollock etc. Fontana, for instance has a slash through it, which ironically creates a smiley face. Or they are a painting which someway depicts the artist’s character or stereotype. As Rousson explained, taking drugs or having affairs with their models is the stereotype these artists have.

The blurb to the exhibition states that Rousson, ‘ironically debunks’ these modernist artists, ‘casting them as self-obsessed bricoleurs’ (‘DIYs’?? to the non-cheese brigade) ‘who’s great works echo the “low” aesthetics of amateur home improvement projects.’

But if this is really what Rousson has set out to prove this is not an aggressive enough a way of presenting it. It comes across as more of a pleasant pastiche, and Rousson’s own painting style is submerged within his subject’s style making it difficult to see whether the imitation is his own progression of the style or a direct take-off.
I overheard someone mentioning that ‘House of Pain’ could mean ‘House of Bread’ which the stable at Bethlehem was referred to at some point. This is going a little far for a collective collage of modernist paintings, some vaguely soft porn, but still, a nice idea.

The house has a slightly underwhelming appearance, and the concept is a little vacant, but still, perhaps this is the whole idea.

For anyone out there who is looking for arty things to go and see in September….

Don’t Miss

HOMELESS GALLERY 13th-15th Sept (weekend) three day event in the basement of Shoreditch town hall.

A spontaneous and free to all, exhibition of photography and related media.

Organisers have told me it will be a chilled out party atmosphere. Dj’s to play during the duration of the event.

The idea is that everyone (within the photography’s interest) will be able to hang their work there. So if you are a keen photographer, participate! There is no theme and no curator. A democratic event that offers an alternative to a carefully curated shows in a white clinic spaces. Here the presentation and interaction with the author is as crucial, Everyone will have to choose their own place and choose how to present it. It will be more an experience of a creative atmosphere, photographers can share ideas and an experience of an exhibition. All is in the hand of the artists!.

Photographers already set to participate include Jerwood prize winners and those who exhibited in the Photography’s gallery earlier this year.

Hanging will happen on the 12th (which is Friday). Saturday will be an opening/party/private view opened to all. Sunday and Monday will be still on. Participants will have to sign a registration form and agree to the terms and conditions.

Dates are: 13, 14, 15 September. Posters and flyers will be distributed around Shoreditch.

DATES AND LOCATION

12 - 15 September 2008

Friday 12 September, 10am - 9pm: hanging of the exhibition
Saturday 13 September, 12am – 10pm: open to public, private view 6-10pm
Sunday 14 September, 12am – 6pm: open to public
Monday 15 September, 10am – 8pm: open to public, take down exhibition 5-8pm

http://www.polishdeconstruction.org/node/225/

Basement Gallery
Shoreditch Town Hall
380 Old Street
London EC1V 9LT

This event is linked to Polish Deconstruction (see link to the right

Don’t miss

SEVENTEEN GALLERY’s new exhibition of Susan Collis’ work if you like minimal what are they REALLY trying to say, in a state of construction ‘de-instillation’, art.

10th Sept - 18th Oct - Preview on the 11th. 17 Kingsland Rd, E2

Don’t Miss

SPACE. Thomas Raat. 12 Sep- 26 Oct - Preview on the 12th. In ‘MUMU: Malice and Misunderstanding’ Raat explores the belief structures surrounding art manipulating them through plagiarism and prankster behaviour.

On a large black plastic sheet held together with tape, Raat constructs an anti-neonist pamphlet, its text lifted from an anti-neoist internet site. Large monolithic ‘T’ shaped sound sculptures play KLF music backwards. 101 black and white plastic paintings have been lifted from a neoist internet site and reconstructed in the gallery
space.

129-131 Mare St, Hackney.

Don’t Miss

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chararin - The Day Noboday Died. PARADISE ROW. In June of this year Broomberg and Chanarin traveled to Afghanistan to be embedded with British Army units on the front line in Helmand Province. In place of their cameras they took a roll of photographic paper 50 meters long and 76.2 cm wide contained in a simple, lightproof cardboard box. In response to each of these events, and also to a series of more mundane moments, such as a visit to the troops by the Duke of York and a press conference, all events a photographer would record, Broomberg and Chanarin instead unrolled a seven-meter section of the paper and exposed it to the sun for 20 seconds. The results - strange abstract passages and patterns of black, white and variegated hues - all modulated by the heat and the light - deny the viewer the cathartic effect offered up by the conventional language of photographic responses to conflict and suffering.

St Matthew’s Hall, 2 Wood Close, E2.

Don’t Miss

Evren Tekinoktay at THE APPROACH, E2. A slightly pregnant man, her last exhibition here was good. An artist with depth.

6th September - 5th October 2008

Don’t Miss

at the TRUMAN BREWERY in September:

Ben Frost - Crapitalism. Pop art, street art combo in exhbition by artist who once faked his own death. 26th to 30th September. Preview on the 25th.

Sonia Blair - Playing with myself- 26 September – 5 October 2008. Preview on the 25th.

An exhibition of new paintings and drawings by Sonia Blair on childhood, memory and self-sabotage, on show.

Dray walk Gallery, Truman Brewery
(by entrance to Sunday Upmarkets)
Hanbury Street
Spitalfields
London, E1 6Q

Don’t Miss

THE BIG DRAW - Free festival combining artists and scientists exploring what it means to be human. Good for kids. In association with UCL uni. See http://www.thebigdraw.org/

include illustrator Steven Appleby drawing in response to the live music of beatboxer Nathan ‘Flutebox’ Lee, and workshops where participants can draw graphic scores for the premiere of a new choral work that will then be performed by members of the public together with Exaudi, one of Britain’s most exciting young new music groups.

The Campaign for Drawing, UCL and Bow Arts Trust present ‘Drawing on Life’, 26-28 September

Fake Moon trajecory - Simon Faithfull

The Big Chill Festival has made the most concerted effort out of any festival to include a comprehensive and well-organised cultural program alongside the music. Stages in collaboration with the ICA and projects with the Roundhouse Theatre are new this year, comedy is central to their program and for many years they have had an Art Trail. And this year it was awarded a grant by the Arts Council.

Which is why, sent on a mission to inspect the art, Art Sleuth ended up going to two festivals in two weekends. Fine. Apart from an unfortunate camping location next to a bunch of 30-somethings who had clearly never been to a festival before and were making up for lost time by playing very crap house music loudly until 6am.

It is also unfortunate then that with all this efficient cultural programming there was little of what we would call ‘free-spirit’ about the whole thing, apart from the unscheduled Ibiza music in the campsite area. With the Secret Garden Party still fresh in the mind, which was a health and safety officer’s nightmare, but in a good way, it couldn’t compare.

The Art Trail was only open at night probably because most of the works were film or light based. The darkness hinted at a certain ambience, with the trail laid out in the woods - but it was almost too well laid out. There was no feeling of ‘stumbling’ across art in the woods, more of a feeling of being shunted round a museum exhibit. But perhaps this would have been different if you were there at two in the morning without crowds of people.

Highlights included the Fake Moon by Simon Faithfull, which made a path across the main stage each night and was visible from the art trail perched on a hill facing it. The angry house was a nice touch too. It got noisier and louder as you approached it. But they could have made it a bit angrier looking, as it was, it looked like something you could buy straight from Homebase to keep you lawnmower in.
‘Stable’ was a brilliant film by Kathleen Herbert documenting horses left to free to roam at night around the silent corridors of Gloucester Cathedral. At first the horses seem superimposed in the unnatural environment. Then you start to see that in their total grace and calm about the whole situation, grazing on the stone hallways and clopping up stairways, that their ‘monastic’ personality seems to fit well with the ethereal environment. Spiritual even, some might say.
Elsewhere there was the House of Fairytales associated with Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis which included a puppet show which was a take on a Becket Play, swapping Duchamp, Joseph Beuys and Warhol for the main characters.
Juneau Projects’ interactive instillation was a great piece of theatre in itself, as it had been overtaken by children thoroughly enjoying themselves playing band instruments connected to a computer game in a sort of amalgamated version of Guitar Hero and Zelda. Incredibly harmonious as you can imagine.

The ICA was running the show in the Mixed Media tent on Sunday with a documentary on gipsy music donning colourful costumes, a random shouting woman that was not very captivating until people started getting involved with the shouting. The main act Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry doing ‘dub action painting’ while Adrian Sherwood laid down some heavy beats, was totally awesome. The paintings are going to be auctioned for Amnesty international so keep your eyes peeled.

Aside from the art Bill Bailey was absolutely hilarious. And as you will hear from anyone, The Mighty Boosh were a little disappointing apart from the Moon’s rendition of “99 problems but the Bitch ain’t one”. A healthy proportion of Dubstep and the incredibly chilled Leonard Cohen, who really is the dude, finished off the weekend nicely.

Damien Hirst’s conceptual one liner is a tool that he uses to create work with a high selling value. A thin verneer that he uses to hide the real reason he creates art these days. He is like an aged rock star who keeps producing crap singles long after the other band members have given up. And it is all most probably fueled by a burning desire to expand the conservatory in his mansion to encompass a football pitch or something.

The news that Hirst has decided to cut out the middleman by exhibiting his work at Sotheby’s and therefore going straight to sale is no surprise to me.

According to the Art Newspaper (http://www.theartnewspaper.com/article.asp?id=8164): Sotheby’s Senior International Specialist Oliver Barker claims that the sale has “the wholehearted support of Damien’s dealers…who recognise his rulebreaking charisma.”

Eh hrmm. Does someone smell a dissected rat preserved in formaldehyde?

Bet the galleries ain’t too happy either.

What Hirst is doing these days is not art. It is making money. And possibly a little bit of a PR stunt too. Yes Hirst’s art was rulebreaking. But now it is money making.

It is also ‘old hat’, as my grandmother would say (possibly, although it could be so ‘old hat’ she might actually like it). I guarantee that this new exhibition will be a slightly jigged-about repetition of his other work. There will be little refreshing, original or exciting content about it. Okay okay, I might have to eat my hat (enough about hats). But this is my prediction.

The diamond skull that I viewed in a private setting alongside Jeffrey Archer, (woops name dropping again!) is a perfect example of this.

And now my rant is over, back to the art.

cartoon: http://www.chrismadden.co.uk/

© Stuart Semple

A LOVER I DON’T HAVE TO LOVE
Acrylic, Paint marker & Household Gloss on Canvas
179 x 122 x 8 cmNote: all hand paintedNO silkscreen

© Nathan James 2008. Super Duper Oil on Canvas

Stuart Semple has curated a group show aptly named MASH UPS that opened on Tuesday night with The Subliminal Girls playing indie rock and wine flowing in the Kowalsky Gallery, the DACS gallery space in Farringdon.

Showcasing young artists with a similar message of late-noughties anxiety towards mass culture, using a mish-mash of different media, their art ties in nicely with Stuart Semple’s neon pop-art revival paintings. Two of which are exhibited here.

The new artistic generation of today like all mid-twenty-odds are the generation teetering on the edge of the new ‘communications world’. As Semple explains, “this generation is unique as it’s the last generation that will remember before the home computer, mobile phone, music video, mass marketing and instant archive that is the internet.”

Casting a nostalgic eye on a simpler time, when lime green cycling shorts were all the rage, Nicky Carvell uses life-size cutout images of East 17 boy band supreme as the focus of her work. Poor Brian who’s tragically humorous act of running over himself by his own Merc is immortalized in her work Peace from the East (Brian ran himself over).
Here, posing with hand on goatee, with his oversized baseball hat Brian is laid flat on the floor half covered by a large asymmetrical shape distinguished as the car by a Mercedes sign.

Heartthrob Tony is the subject of another work, where he can only be described as having been disemboweled – that is if multi-coloured tubes descending from his mouth are his internal organs. Nice. Who knows maybe this is what his insides really look like?
Smash hits would probably have something to say about this if it was still going.

Elsewhere there are the spaced out digital videos from Adham Faramawy, the industrial collages of Piers Secunda and the ‘post’ pop art paintings of Nathan James. All have used neon colour, which is a noticeable trend for artists right now, especially used in paintings. It is as if neon paint had just been discovered, like when day-glow fabric was invented – suddenly everyone wants to use it. Certainly this must have a connection to the nu-rave fashion trend, although it is just about coming to an end (well certainly if you live in Shoreditch it must be) it is alive and well in contemporary art. And as a 80s’/early90s revival, nu-rave brings us nicely back to what this exhibition is all about.

Secunda’s work uses only molded household and floor paint. Here the chunky pieces, bright pink, green and blue, are hung up on what look like coat hooks. Suggesting the absence of a core substance - the bits of paint being the veneer to something no longer present, his work suggests loss, but also a release from the normal restraints of painting. Interestingly Racheal Whitread has some of his work in her collection and you see a connection between their thought processes.

Nathan James’s paintings have the graphic design details in some areas like Fiona Rae’s recent stunning work, with stylized portraits of pouting women (perhaps Koons?) and Lichtenstein-esc cartoon letters running in the foreground. Very now.

A group show which sings to today’s generation of retro loving cyber hippies.

MASH UPS

16 July - 12 September 2008
Post pop fragments and détournements
Curated by Stuart Semple

Monumental outdoor sculpture from the Hannah Barry Gallery.

Opening tonight (Monday 14th July- 6-8pm):

14 - 20 JULY, open daily 12noon - 6pm
Level 10 , Peckham Rye Multistorey Car Park, 95A Rye Lane SE15 4ST

Michael Allen, James Balmforth, Tom Barnett, Thomas Brock, James Capper, Nathan Cash
Bobby Dowler, Christopher Green, Oliver Griffin and Henry Stringer, Nicholas Jeffrey
Shaun McDowell, Robin Shepherd, Matthew Stone, Edward Wallace

Ernesto Caivano has mastered the art of the understated. His sketches on canvas or paper are simple white backgrounds with thousands of fine lines etched in minute detail using ink or pencil. This is a guy with a lot of time on his hands.

His large works, taking over three panels, could quite easily be made by him having put a massive load of iron filings on the canvas and then drawing round each tiny little one of them. It looks like this too because the patterns they form are created in a way as if a magnet has been dropped at the center, splaying them outwards in a circular form. In order to take them in properly you are required to go right up to the canvas and peer at each little spec.

Japanese influences are clear in his work, although in his previous works it is more apparent as there are more figurative forms, more birds and plants and so on. In this exhibition it seems there is a reduction to bare pattern, lines and linear shapes.

Colour comes into play only in one series of works. Here six or so inky multicoloured thin lines cross the white canvas at diagonals forming triangular shapes where they meet.

There’s something really sublime about his work in a way, but the thing is with Caivano is that there is not much excitement to it all. All would look very nice in my minimalist kitchen (once I buy it) don’t get me wrong, but there is something a little bit too inoffensive about it all.

Maybe I am not getting the big picture. The description which accompanies this exhibition talks about “two tragic lovers…separated and transported into a woodland realm….Versus (the Knight) and Polygon (the Princess)”. I am, however, leaving this exhibition a skeptic.

Ernesto Caivano
Caressing Future Polygon
2008
Ink and graphite on paper
9 3/8 x 6 3/8 in. (23.8 x 16.2 cm)
© the artist
Courtesy Jay Jopling/ White Cube (London)

Interesting art matter over the next month in London - All sites for galleries to the right.

198 Contemporary Art:

Exhibition at the moment
Maria Kheirkhah The Psychology of Fear

13 June– 15 August 2008
Opening 12 June 2008, 6:30 – 9:30pm at 198

A series of talks and events will accompany the exhibition:
19 June 2008, 2:00 pm - Artist Matia Kheirkhah in conversation with Predrag Pajdic
25 June 2008, 7:00 pm - Panel discussion with Oreet Ashery, Matia Kheirkhah and Keith Piper
28 July 2008, 7:00 pm - Film Screening of Frankenstein by James Whale, 1931`

Iceberg Enters Obelisk @ Whitechapel Gallery
Friday 13th June 2008, 8pm -11pm £6/£5 concs.

A night of out-there music/film/performance plus 2D and 3D art featuring visual curation by the East End’s rising stars, Elevator Gallery, plus live performances from Charles Hayward of This Heat, Blood Stereo and Bolide Awkwardstra. Media partnership project with The Wire magazine A night of out-there music/film/performance plus 2D and 3D art featuring visual curation by the East End’s rising stars, Elevator Gallery, fresh from recent Arnolfini shows. Among the extensive list of participants there will be screenings from Heidi Kilpelainen and Matt Lippiatt in the auditorium, performance from Phoebe Davies and large inflatable work by Jeni Snell throughout the gallery. Live performances from Charles Hayward of This Heat, Chris Corsano and Sonic Youth collaborators Blood Stereo, plus astral jazz trance from Bolide Awkwardstra.
Whitechapel Gallery
Angel Alley Entrance
80 - 82 Whitechapel High Street
London, E1 7QX
Rokeby Gallery:

Exhibition at the moment

Bettina Buck.
Flexing Brown 27.06.08 – 31.07.08

If you like totally out there contemporary industrial sculpture take a look at this!

Banksy Tunnel: Still there by Waterloo Station! And will be for the next 6 months so you got to take a look – on Leake Street

Tate Modern: ‘Street Art’ extravaganza – First ‘major’ exhibition of Street Art, the Tate gets graffed up. – See pic at top.

Bonkerfest!:

at Camberwell Green
Sat 19 July, 12-9pm

BonkersFest! is a free one-day mad arts and music festival illuminating and celebrating madness, creativity, individuality and eccentricity; combating stigma and promoting good mental health. Dance like a loon to live bands in the big top, get dizzy at the fairground, take part in live arts, witness peas on earth, free your mind in the world’s first ‘de-normalisation room’ or simply relax and re-connect in the healing tent.

Hotel Elephant Gallery:

To do with the Reuben Powell Gallery- located inside the beautiful architectural masterpiece that is the Elephant and Castle shopping mall.
Open to public indefinitely: Mon-Fri, 11am-6pm, Sat 1pm-4pm

Reuben Powell is the Artist in Residence in The Elephant and Castle Shopping Centre. Documenting the regeneration of the area.

Lisson Gallery:

Perplexed in Public – a series of performance art and exhibitions outside around London:

Allora & Calzadilla
Claire Fontaine
Lara Favaretto
Sharon Hayes
Santiago Sierra
Friday 13 June — Sunday 20 July,

SHARON HAYES
In the Near Future, 2005 – ongoing
Performance Schedule
Friday 13 June, 4 — 5pm
St Martin’s Place, North
of Trafalgar Square, WC2N
Saturday 14 June, 2 — 3pm
Brixton Oval, SW2
Sunday 15 June, 12 — 1pm
Southeast corner of Hyde Park,
by the statue of Achilles, W1
Exhibition
Tuesday 17 — Saturday 21
June, 12 — 6 pm
Preview
Sunday 15 June, 7 — 9pm
LUX 28, Shacklewell Studios
28 Shacklewell Lane, London E8 2EZ
020 7249 7606, lux28@lux.org.uk
SANTIAGO SIERRA
4000 Black Posters, London, 2008
Friday 20 June — Friday 4 July, 2008
Brick Lane and Shoreditch
London E1 EC2 and N1
CLAIRE FONTAINE
Capitalism Kills (Love), 2008
Friday 27 June — Sunday 20 July, 2008
Lisson Gallery
52–54 Bell Street
London NW1 5DA
ALLORA & CALZADILLA
Balance of Power, 2007
Tuesday 8 — Friday 11 July, 2008
2 — 2.30 pm, daily
Trafalgar Square, London WC2N
LARA FAVARETTO
The Poor are Mad, 2005
Friday 11 — Sunday 13 July, 2008
Preview
Friday 11 July, 6.30 — 8.30pm
Artist Talk
Friday 11 July, 7 — 8pm
Parade Ground
Chelsea College of Art & Design
16 John Islip Street
London SW1P 4JUIn the Near Future, 2005 – ongoing
Performance Schedule
Friday 13 June, 4 — 5pm
St Martin’s Place
North of Trafalgar Square, WC2N
Saturday 14 June, 2 — 3pm
Brixton Oval, SW2
Sunday 15 June, 12 — 1pm
Southeast corner of Hyde Park
by the statue of Achilles, W1
Exhibition
Tuesday 17 — Saturday 21 June
12 — 6 pm
Preview
Sunday 15 June, 7 — 9 pm
LUX 28, Shacklewell Studios
28 Shacklewell Lane, London E8 2EZ
020 7249 7606
lux28@lux.org.uk