Ocula Conversation Cinga Samson: ‘a different conversation on representation’ Jareh Das Cinga Samson 's paintings lay bare the complex relationship between contemporary life, African traditions, globalisation, and representation. His strikingly sombre portraits contain similarities to those of contemporary painters such as Toyin Ojih Odutola, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye , Kehinde Wiley , Florine Démosthène, and Tunji...
Ocula Report Dhaka Art Summit 2020: Seismic Movements Radha Mahendru, Dhaka Seismic Movements , the fifth Dhaka Art Summit, plotted movements, solidarities, and exchanges across the Global South with over 500 artists, scholars, curators, and thinkers.
Ocula Insight Guo Hongwei on Seeing Patterns That Don’t Exist Sherry Paik, New York Guo Hongwei's recent watercolour paintings, showing at Chambers Fine Art in New York from 3 March, trigger pareidolia—the phenomenon of seeing random objects or patterns where they do not exist.
London street scene. Photo: Pedro Szekely (CC BY-SA 2.0).
Ocula News Who is Auction Sensation Amoako Boafo? London, 21 February 2020 A portrait by the artist from Ghana obliterated estimates in London last week.
Ocula News London Auction Sales Down Despite $30m Hockney Splash London, 18 February 2020 The third highest price fetched by Hockney at auction contributed to over US $500 million in sales.
Ocula Conversation Sophia Al-Maria: The Girl Who Fell to Earth Tendai John Mutambu, London With Beast Type Song on view at Tate Britain to 23 February, her first solo exhibition in Germany opening at Julia Stoschek Collection in Düsseldorf this March, and a Serpentine Galleries commission launching in summer 2020, Sophia Al-Maria discusses her relationship to literature, screenwriting, and poetry.
Ocula Conversation VALIE EXPORT: ‘The voice belongs to me’ Tessa Moldan, London Born Waltraud Lehner in Linz in 1940, VALIE EXPORT was inspired by the branding of Smart Export cigarettes to modify her nickname Walie alongside Export, thus exporting new ideas to new grounds. Written in capital letters, her own bold branding rejected the name of both her father and former husband, and catalysed one of the earliest waves of...
Ocula Conversation Richard Saltoun and Catherine McCormack on 100% Women Jareh Das, London 100% Women is a year-long exhibition programme at Richard Saltoun Gallery in London , focused on the lives and works of female artists. According to the gallery's press release, the programme seeks to 'redress the persistent gender imbalance, whilst cementing its ongoing support of female artists.' Having launched in March 2019 with the first...
Ocula Conversation Michael Armitage and Kudzanai-Violet Hwami on Painting Michael Armitage, London At just 26 years of age, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami has made two enviable milestones this year. The Zimbabwean-born and London -based artist represented her country of birth at the 58th Venice Biennale alongside Georgina Maxim, Neville Starling, and Cosmas Shiridzinomwa; while her first institutional solo exhibition opened at Gasworks in London on...
Ocula Conversation Japanese collector Daisuke Miyatsu has merged his life with a passion for collecting art perhaps more than any other collector today. Known as the 'salaryman collector', Miyatsu started his collecting journey as a surprisingly typical office worker with a limited budget for art, originally working in advertising and supplementing his salary as a...
Ocula Conversation Doublethink at Simon Lee Gallery (6 September–5 October 2019), Clare Woods ' first solo exhibition in London in ten years, marks a change in direction in the artist's practice. For over 20 years, Woods has expanded from her initial training as a sculptor at Bath College of Art—where she received her BA in 1994—to create abstract...
Related Video & Audio Pieter Hugo | La Cucaracha at Huxley-Parlour Gallery 1 February 2020, Huxley-Parlour Artist Pieter Hugo introduces his latest body of work, La Cucaracha , which goes on display in London in February 2020. The series explores death, sexuality and spirituality in Mexico and reflects the artist’s long-standing interest in how history and environment can shape a culture and those living within it.
Related Video & Audio Basil Beattie | Pathfinder 6 January 2020, Huxley-Parlour Huxley-Parlour Gallery are pleased to present an exhibition of works by acclaimed Royal Academician, Basil Beattie. Dating from 1989 through to 2004, the works in the forthcoming exhibition chart the development of Beattie’s work throughout the 1990s. The exhibition will include six large-scale paintings, that testify to Beattie’s skill as a...
Related Press Paper work – the British Museum shows off its collection of contemporary drawings 4 November 2019, Apollo Magazine Anish Kapoor, Louise Bourgeois, Rachel Whiteread, Gerhard Richter. These may not be names that spring to mind when you think of the British Museum, but they all have work filed away in its extensive archive of prints and drawings. 'Pushing Paper: Contemporary Drawing from 1970 to Now' lifts a lid on a lesser-known collection at a museum renowned...
Related Press Damien Hirst, Turning In Circles 12 October 2019, Hyperallergic LONDON — It's a hot mid-afternoon in the West End's posh Mayfair district, and Damien Hirst is standing outside the glass double-doors of the White Cube gallery, looking every inch the devil-may-care prankster out of some early Shakespearean comedy.
Related Press ARTIST ENOC PEREZ WALKS US THROUGH THE HOTEL ROOMS OF ROCKSTARS 8 October 2019, Interview Magazine In The Cinematic Self , Perez gives a nod to the figures who have influenced him throughout his life by opening a gateway into their lives, and homes, with his paintings. The exhibition humanises these larger-than-life figures, allowing the viewer to leisurely examine Andy Warhol’s medicine cabinet, or rifle through the books on Mick Jagger’s...
Related Press Frieze London review, Regent's Park: the fine art of hobnobbing and showing off 3 October 2019, Telegraph It can be tiring traipsing around the annual Frieze London art fair in Regent's Park – which is why, when you pass Tokyo gallery Taro Nasu's booth, you may find yourself drawn to a black vending machine. If you're after refreshment, though, prepare for disappointment – because this automated device is an installation by British conceptual artist...
Related Press What to look for at Frieze London 2 October 2019, The Guardian Modernist architecture is still a big focus for artists – as long as its Eurocentric and male-dominated history can be rewritten while its buildings are celebrated. Frieze Live is one of the fair's main curated sections, and this year it features British artist Shezad Dawood's performance piece. Dawood's work draws on the work of Bangladeshi...
Related Press Beyond Frieze – what’s in store in London this week 1 October 2019, Apollo Frieze Week has long been the busiest spell in the London art calendar, with Frieze London and Frieze Masters (3–6 October) joined by a host of major gallery exhibitions across the city.
London's most anticipated commercial art event is, arguably, the annual Frieze Art Fair. Featuring curated sections, talks programmes, and more than 160 of the world's most outstanding galleries, the week-long fair in October is the Frieze brand's prized flagship, even with editions in New York and Los Angeles. Over at Somerset House, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair takes place over five days. Recent editions have included a series of special projects, a forum, and a talks programme.
Read MoreBut, of course, London is more than a pit stop for mega-collectors and star curators: it is home to countless artist-run initiatives and not-for-profits that have long formed the beating heart of the city's arts ecology. In South London, 198 Contemporary Arts & Learning focuses on supporting BAMER (Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic, and Refugee) artists and curators in breaking through the art-world's racial and socio-economic barriers. For over 30 years, their aim has been to foster sustainability and an enduring sense of community. Turf Projects, the first contemporary art space run by artists in Croydon, has a similarly communal ethos behind its dynamic programme of exhibitions and public events. Founded in 2013 and located in two former retail units, Turf showcases the work of emerging and established, as well as local and international, artists.
Meanwhile, the itinerant b.Dewitt Gallery—a self-described 'entry point to the international art scene for U.K. based artists'—combines the responsiveness of an artist-run initiative with the ambition of a bricks and mortar gallery. In Islington, Cubitt fosters critical, peer-led activity including a locally-focused art education programme, while South London Gallery's collection and history, dating as far back as the 19th century, has proved no impediment to staying as relevant as its non-collecting counterparts.
In East London, Chisenhale Gallery has made its name over the years as a bellwether of contemporary art, commissioning new works by the likes of Rosalind Nashashibi, Ed Atkins, Amalia Pica, Park McArthur, and Hannah Black, during the formative stages of their careers. Similarly, Gasworks in Vauxhall is best-known for its solo exhibitions and public events—but its residency and studio programmes are just as worthy of acclaim. A half-hour away from Gasworks, you can experience Auto Italia's commissioned collaborations with emerging artists, many of whom go on to exhibit all over Europe. And across the city, in northwest London's Waterlow Park, LUX—Europe's largest distributor of artists' film and video—showcases the best in moving-image, including the work of several Turner Prize winners and nominees. Check out their latest offering before strolling through Waterlow Park en route to the nearby Highgate cemetery, where you will find the tombs of Karl Marx, George Eliot, and Malcolm McLaren.
For those in London from January through February, the international gallery exchange CONDO—where host galleries share their spaces with visiting galleries—brings together some of the world's most talked about artists. Founded in 2016 by Vanessa Carlos of Carlos/Ishikawa in Whitechapel, whose own roster of artists includes art stars Oscar Murillo and Korakrit Arunanondchai, CONDO has expanded to include Mexico City, New York, Shanghai, Athens, and São Paolo. Its list of participants—all worth visiting at any time of the year—reads like a veritable roll call of London's most exciting small- to mid-scale private galleries: Southard Reid, Arcadia Missa, Rodeo, Pilar Corrias (all in West London); Project Native Informant, Hollybush Gardens, Kate MacGarry, Emalin, Union Pacific, Modern Art, The Approach, Maureen Paley (all in East London); Green Grassi and The Sunday Painter (both in South London).
The annual Serpentine pavilion commission is possibly the trademark London art event, for which the gallery invites renowned architects to design temporary structures in Hyde Park. With collaborators like Herzog de Meuron, Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, and SANAA, it is no surprise that the pavilion attracts as much international attention.
London's larger galleries and museums exert their own force with a revolving programme that ranges from early career to blue-chip. Head to The Photographers' Gallery to see the best in lens-based art, the Royal Academy for its crowd-pleasing exhibitions and annual summer show, or stop by The Barbican and experience the surrounding brutalist complex that is one of London's great architectural marvels. At Southbank Centre's Hayward Gallery, give yourself several hours to see one of its large-scale exhibitions before heading to the Institute of Contemporary Art, which has recently emerged as London's home of cutting edge film programming.
An experience of London's art world would be incomplete without a trip to Tate Britain or, the most popular modern art museum in the world, Tate Modern. For smaller crowds but no less stimulating shows, visit Camden Arts Centre, Serpentine Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, or the recently inaugurated Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (designed by Turner Prize-winning architects, Assemble). Finish with a trip to see the National Portrait Gallery's storied collection and Victoria & Albert Museum—home of epoch-making blockbusters such as Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty and David Bowie Is.
