Ai Weiwei – The Liberty of Doubt

Back in 2020, the internationally acclaimed Chinese artist and activist Ai Weiwei bought a number of Chinese antiquities at an auction in Cambridge, a city in which he retains a base having lived here for a few years, and where his son still goes to school. Some of the pieces are more than a thousand years old, dating from the Northern Wei and Tang dynasties. In his new solo show at Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard, he is showing them alongside his own new and existing work.

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February 14, 2022 0

Kovet.Art – Delineating Dreams

One of the effects of this current pandemic is that many of us are wondering what changes the virus will have wrought upon our society after it goes away (if it ever does go away!).

In a broader sense, this zeitgeist has been taken up by Kovet.Art, a new arts organisation designed to help collectors discover the best emerging talent in the UK and to harness and mentor that talent. Its inaugural online exhibition, Delineating Dreams, invites eight of its artists to delve into a dream world expressing visually both the conscious and the subconscious. It’s a surrealism-heavy show just as our current plight has many such characteristics.

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June 10, 2020 0

Counter Acts: Incomplete Histories 1984 – present

As the UK’s contemporary art scene gears up for the announcement of this year’s prestigious Turner Prize winner, University of the Arts London (UAL) has mounted a fascinating exhibition featuring the work of alumni, both teachers and students, who have either won or been nominated for the prize since its inception in 1984.

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November 29, 2019 0

Leo Villareal – Pace Gallery

A silver sun sends out waves in pulses that suddenly dissolve into a swirling mass of tadpole-like shapes. A molten core waxes and wanes while shooting stars erupt around it in seemingly endless and varied sequences. These white light installations, one nearly 40 foot wide, some as individual pieces, others as triptychs, are by American artist Leo Villareal in his first solo exhibition at London’s Pace Gallery.

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November 25, 2019 0

Patrick Altes – Tolerance

This new exhibition by Patrick Altes, a leading light in the emerging French-Algerian art movement, is something of a ‘cri de coeur’. As the title spells out, each work, be it digital print, painting, sculpture or installation, engenders a plea for understanding in a world beset by seemingly insoluble problems and dissension.

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November 19, 2019 0

Homelands: Art from Bangladesh, India and Pakistan – Kettle’s Yard

Fierce nationalism and inter-religious tension in South Asia have been a constant feature of the region’s modern history, a legacy of Partition in 1947 and the struggle for independence for Bangladesh in 1971. Millions of people were displaced and millions were killed either directly or through famine. The resultant instability of concepts like home and nationality is explored by 11 acclaimed artists in a new and stimulating exhibition at Cambridge’s Kettle’s Yard, curated by Dr Devika Singh, Curator of International Art at Tate Modern.

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November 14, 2019 0

Watch This Space – Lazinc Gallery

When you walk into a gallery, particularly one in Mayfair, you don’t expect to see such a hive of activity with paint being dripped, sets hammered, installations constructed, in other words a gallery being used as a working studio. For this is what is happening to the Lazinc Gallery for the coming weeks where some 25 contemporary urban artists from around the world will be transforming the place and offering the chance for visitors to watch the process of art in the making.

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October 7, 2019 0

Nicole Wassall – Precious Mettle

For her new exhibition entitled Precious Mettle at London’s Fiumano Clase Gallery, British artist Nicole Wassall has created a series of works that serve both as aesthetic pieces in their own right and as metaphors for underlying themes prevalent in our society today. Thoughtful and thought-provoking, Wassall has managed to pull off the trick of using highly complex processes to create artworks that appear simple yet are anything but simplistic.

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September 26, 2019 0

Suzanne Moxhay – Conservatory

The world of Suzanne Moxhay is one of decrepit interiors where plants seem to grow out of the floorboards, where ceilings have collapsed, fireplaces cracked, walls broken and where the wallpaper dissolves into fading images of old romantic landscapes.

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September 2, 2019 2

We Sing the Body Electric – Gallery 46

In so many aspects of our culture – fashion, film, all forms of art in fact – the human body, particularly the female form, has become sexualised. To many feminists, the idea of the male gaze, for example, where men gain pleasure from looking upon a passive female subject, is symptomatic of male oppression and female objectification.

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August 5, 2019 0