Tag Archives: art

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Seven architects from around the world – Alvaro Siza, Eduardo Souto de Moura and Kengo Kuma included, have created a series of site-specific installations and inserted them into the main galleries and front courtyard of the RA. More than just a shelter or a flashy building, architecture has the ability to shape and form how we feel everyday. We are invited to touch, climb, walk, talk, sit, contemplate. And more – as you enter the galleries, a sign orders you to tweet, and photography is encouraged. A rare treat in the rarefied environment of this grand institution. Definitely one for the littles… 

Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined until 6 April 2014
Royal Academy of Arts, London. More, here. Image via

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Maisie Broadhead, Isabella – 1, 2014. Digital C-Tye Print, 51 x 45 cm. Sarah Myerscough Gallery

It’s London Art Fair week, the first show of the art world year, showing Modern British work of both established and emerging artists. And it’s not just about the art – it’s the most wonderful place to people-watch.

London Art Fair, Business Design Centre, Islington 15-19 January 2014.

More Maisie Broadhead, here

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Allusion and ambiguity beguile in these fantastical portrayals of modernity by the impressively monikered Geebird and Bamby. With echoes of  Julius Shulman, Alfred Hitchcock, Ed Ruscha and others they appear familiar and yet surreal at the same time.

The Modern Gentleman by Geebird and Bamby, here

ampersand house.

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More inspiring design from Belgium; this time Ampersand House, a gallery of art and design located in the centre of Brussels. It is also a home, which the owners define as a living gallery, a constantly changing place depending on what is on show. They curate the gallery as an ever evolving environment mixing vintage, contemporary and prototype work to inspire a dialogue with and between collectors and creatives. Almost everything is available for sale.

The style is an eclectic mixture of pieces of different periods, from strict modernism to French opulence, with the only rule being the pieces need to be connected either by texture, material, colour or shape, for a cohesive overall aesthetic. I love the influences the owners cite, from the work of the architect and Brazilian designer Isay Weinfeld, to the mid-twentieth century furniture of Sergio Rodrigues to Australian architect Glenn Murcutt and French designer Pierre Paulin. What a fabulous design sourcebook.

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http://www.ampersandhouse.com

Ampersand House via  Photos: Karel Balas

More wonderful spaces, here

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It’s Frieze art fair time here in London: provocative, dynamic… this show has the most amazing buzz and vitality, the atmosphere thick with expectation and possibility. I’m a huge fan.

 And if you can’t make it, Artsy – a great on-line resource for discovering contemporary art – has curated a selection of works by artists represented at the fairs from prominent galleries, here

Images and more Frieze, here

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Just back from a few days final foray to south wales before the leaves turn for another year…

Playing with dimension and scale, these staged still lifes are decidedly modernist, referencing the works of Miro and Picasso, for example. Composition, form and lighting all come into play and everyday, recognisable objects become players within a stage set.

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Danish artist Jan Hardisty has created abstract artworks that resemble paintings but are actually photographs. More, here

Jan Hardisty Abstract Art Photographs first seen here:

nothing to see here : the wonderful world of oliver jeffers part II.

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I first wrote about Oliver Jeffers here. A teller of fantastical children’s stories that are sweet and funny and with the most beautiful illustrations, Oliver Jeffers is also a figurative painter. His first London exhibition Nothing To See Here is at Lazarides Gallery in London opening tomorrow.

There is more than a touch of surrealism about his work, which also references familiar 18th and 19th century European landscape and still-life painting. Clearly an observer of modern life, the works question and provoke. The series of paintings which give the show its name show a classic rural landscape, or a reclining nude, defaced with the graffiti-like slogan Nothing To See Here, creating a tension between the picture and the words – which one is to be believed?

Oliver Jeffers’ world is an inquisitive one:

‘In contradicting modern scenes and subjects with references to classical painting, his depictions encourage the viewer to look a little closer at the world around them and question the mundane. Are we blindly ignorant or are our eyes wide open in the dark?’  

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Oliver Jeffers: Nothing To See Here 13th September to 3rd October 2013 Lazarides Rathbone, 11 Rathbone Place, London. All images courtesy of the gallery.

More Oliver Jeffers: www.oliverjeffers.com

More in the gallery, here

white dahlia.

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I first featured Lena Wolff’s work in an earlier post ‘black dahlia’ (see it, here). Lena’s latest work is currently on show at Ampersand Gallery in Portland, Oregon. Called Call & Response, the title of the show alludes to the traditions of craft and folk art, and the pattens and iconography of American quilt making that are so deeply entrenched in Lena’s work. Through a reductive process of paring down and honing in, the resulting collages, prints and drawings reveal a dynamic pattern and rhythm creating contemporary, geometric abstraction.

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Lena Wolff, Golden Dahlia, 2013, letterpress relief print, 17 3/4 x 17 in. edition of 40

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Lena Wolff, Double Red Lines Stars , 2012, pen on paper, 6 x 12 in.

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Lena Wolff, Black Dahlia, 2012, letterpress relief print, 12 3/4 x 12 1/2 in. edition of 40
Feature image: White Dahlia, 2013 collage with hand-cut paper 30 x 30 in.

Call & Response, Ampersand Gallery, Portland, Oregon until July 21st.

All images courtesy of the artist.

What do you think of Lena’s work? More in the gallery, here

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James Turrell, Aten Reign, 2013
Daylight and LED light, dimensions variable © James Turrell
Photo: David Heald © Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York
Site specific, the installation consists of a series of rings suspended from the ceiling of the Guggenheim’s rotunda. Each ring is lit from below by a series of ever-changing LED lights, and from above by the sunlight filtering down from the rotunda’s oculus. The piece cycles between colors, and over the course of the day, varying amounts of sunlight mean that Aten Reign is composed of an almost infinite variety of colors and states. 

James Turrell, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, June 21–September 25, 2013

More happenings, here

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Argentine artist Leandro Erlich has been commissioned by the Barbican to create a new installation in Dalston. Resembling a theatre set, the detailed facade of a Victorian terraced house lies horizontally on the ground with mirrors positioned overhead. The reflections of visitors give the impression they are standing on, suspended from, or scaling the building vertically like so many acrobats. Erlich’s installation will be accompanied by talks, workshops and live performances, exploring themes of architectural history, urbanism and perception. More, here.

Leandro Erlich’s previous, gorgeous Parisian installation, here