21st Jun – 17th Aug 2013

All Visual Arts will by displaying the works of three international artists Dolly Thompsett (featured top) Julie Heffernan (featured bottom left)  and Haruko Maeda, whose works draw on a rich body of myth, fable and art history to evoke the spirit of Magical Realism.

The term ‘Magical Realism’ is broadly descriptive rather than critically rigorous, described as “what happens when a highly detailed, realistic setting is invaded by something ‘too strange to believe'”. This strangeness and painstaking detail draws a compelling parallel between the artists, drawing out the dark narratives woven throughout our everyday experience.

For more info, please visit All Visual Arts

7th June. – 23rd June 2013

D*face’s latest body of work reflects upon times of chaos, disorder and loss, as informed by shifting circumstances in the social climate. Exploring topical and long standing dystopian sentiments, New World Disorder confronts the effects of love and loss from a physical, mental and cultural standpoint, drawing up on the artist’s direct experiences.

Elements of the show are inspired by The Tillman Story,the 2010 documentary film about the 2004 death of U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman in the war in Afghanistan, the cover-up of the true circumstances of his death, and his family’s struggle to unearth the truth. In the gallery space adapted WW2 helmets, some with original bullet holes, reference our conspicuous consumption,where we desire more, but get less. Other work includes enlarged baseball bats, skateboards created from graffiti-covered school desks, and cabinets of curiosities displaying relics from a place in time where there is no distinguishable line between religion and consumerism.

For more info, please visit StolenSpace Gallery

‘The Sum Of All Evil’ is the first exhibition of the Chapman’s work in China and will feature a major new ‘Hell’ installation, a group of single dioramas and a new series of ‘reworked’ paintings.

Monumental in scope and minute in detail, ‘The Sum of all Evil’ (2012-13) occupies the entire ground floor of the gallery and is the most densely imagined diorama installation that the artists have produced to date. The fourth in a series of ‘Hell’ landscapes – the first and most well known of which, ‘Hell'(1999), was destroyed in a warehouse fire – the work features a multitude of intricately modelled Nazi soldiers, along with various characters from the fast food chain McDonald’s, committing violent, abhorrent acts set amid an apocalyptic landscape within four glass vitrines. Darkly humorous, ‘The Sum of all Evil’, as its title suggests, is imaginative rather than descriptive: a summation of all the worst possible ‘evils’, violence runs amok in a trans-historical and a-temporal arena.
Continue reading “Jake & Dinos Chapman’s ‘The Sum Of All Evil’
On show at the White Cube, Hong Kong” →

Belgian artist and swine tattooer, Wim Delvoye is displaying his Intricate and decorative Gothic architectural sculptures. Created with the help of computer-aided design tools. Delvoye manipulates the metal in fascinating and witty ways. On show until June 28th, 2013 (Via)

Californian artist and toy industry veteran Brian McCarty is displaying his most recent project ‘War Toys’ at V&A Museum of Childhood. McCarty,with the help of art therapists, worked with children living in areas affected by war and conflict, including the Gaza Strip, Israel and the West Bank.

The children were encouraged to draw images of their experiences of war in order to begin a healing process as a starting point to therapy. McCarty sources inexpensive toys from local markets and shops and recreates the children’s often disturbing drawn images in situ, interpreting them into photographic works, often with direction from the children on setting up the shots. (Via)

For more info, Please visit V&A Museum of Childhood

23rd May – 24th Nov 2013

Saints are more often associated with traditional sacred art than with contemporary work, but Michael Landy, current Rootstein Hopkins Associate Artist in residence at the National Gallery, has been inspired to revisit the subject for this exhibition.

Landy’s large-scale sculptures consist of fragments of National Gallery paintings cast in three dimensions and assembled with one of his artistic hallmarks – refuse. He has scoured car boot sales and flea markets accumulating old machinery, cogs and wheels to construct the works. Visitors can crank the works into life with a foot pedal mechanism.

Towering over you, the seven sculptures swivel and turn, in movements that evoke the drama of each saint’s life. Saints Apollonia, Catherine, Francis, Jerome, Thomas – and an additional sculpture that takes a number of saints as its inspiration – fill the Sunley Room alongside paper collages.

For more info, please visit The National Gallery.

May 17th – June 2nd

Vice are holding an exhibition at the Pure Evil Gallery, displaying work from some of their favourite illustrators. The exhibition will include a selection of new prints, work that have been featured in VICE and original drawings especially created for the show, which are designed to give an insight into how the people who do drawings for Vice go about doing their drawings. Artists on show include Johnny Ryan, Daniel David Freeman, Kyle Platts, Cei Willis, Nick Gazin, Craig Questions, Jonny Negron, Sam Taylor, Malin Bergstrom and Krent Able.

For more info, please visit Vice

16th May – 22nd June 2013

Nolan’s recent collection represents an enquiry into the life, mind, thoughts and feelings of the practising artist. Taking a nihilistic approach to the notion of portraiture, Nolan undoes many of the modes that have previously underpinned his work, and embraces the abstract in order to unveil his subjects.

By imagining characteristics and simultaneously projecting himself onto his subjects, each painting becomes a representation of an art world type, and most predominantly the artist. The paintings in themselves might be considered a mirror, and we the audience find ourselves between two mirrors infinitely reflecting each other: the painter and the painting. This diaristic approach is revealing then, but also affirms that while elements of an artist’s life and work are universal, there is also much that is fleeting and fugitive.

For more info, please visit the Charlie Smith Gallery

16th May – 7th Jun 2013

Elinor Evans new solo show ‘Picasso Pact’ looks at the way we interact in groups, or ‘packs’. Casting animal masked figures posing in domestic scenes they appear tribal, displaying their pride and loyalty to the pact. Eilnor says ‘In this series of paintings I´ve engaged with my muse, Picasso, my Dalmatian to investigate the ancestors of the species ¨canus lupus familiarus¨ , that is, The Wolf and The Jackal. I´ve taken a new approach by making the masks in the paintings of the wolves and the jackals by hand. This adds a primitive touch to the paintings.’

For more info, please visit the Signal Gallery

3rd May – 27th July 2013

Trade routes have connected the major centres of civilisation in Europe and Asia since antiquity. These routes not only made the exchange of goods possible, but also fostered cultural exchanges between distant regions. The group exhibition, ‘Trade Routes’, on view at Hauser & Wirth’s Piccadilly gallery from 3 May, presents a diverse picture of where these trade routes stand in today’s globalised society through the lens of 15 artists.

The exhibition features video installations, sculptures and two-dimensional works by artists based in Africa, China, Europe, India, and the Middle East including Adel Abidin, Fatima Al Qadiri & Khalid al Gharaballi, Alighiero Boetti, Monir Farmanfarmaian, Subodh Gupta, Gülsün Karamustafa, Bharti Kher, Rachid Koraïchi, Lee Xe, Maha Malluh, Bettina Pousttchi, Hassan Sharif, Wael Shawky and David Zink Yi.

For more info, please visit Hauser & Wirth