Gallery run 13th February

Posted on February 15, 2020 by julessharples

Bram Bogart at White Cube with really thick paint, plus other extenders.

Dorothea Tanning at Alison Jacques with the gorilla and bike used as symbols arrested evolution and contemplative travel.

Jordon Wolfson at Sadie Coles with animations on spinning fan blades. The blades are invisible (except on the photograph) and provide the support or substrate for the hologram image to be formed on.

James Turrell at Pace Gallery London with striking light pieces.

France Lise McGurn at Simon Lee with colourful figurative works.

Flowers and graffiti on the Regents Canal towpath.

Christine Rebet at Parasol Unit with animated drawings.

Basil Beattie at Hales Gallery with great abstract work from the early 80’s.

Hertford Union Canal.

Gallery run 11th December

Posted on December 14, 2019 by julessharples

Richard Forster at Timothy Taylor with photorealistic drawings.

Jockum Nordstrom at David Zwirner with a shadow display of moving figures.

Kara Walker at Sprueth Magers with cutouts and films that have used them.

Leo Villareal at Pace Gallery with vivid images on giant LED displays.

Guy Ben Ner at Sadie Coles with a lighthearted mimed film to the soundtrack of Spielberg’s War of the Worlds.

Antony Gormley of White Cube with block-based figurative sculpture.

Helen Johnson at Pilar Corrias with paintings containing layered imagery.

Roy Oxlade at Alison Jacques Gallery with imaginative and interesting paintings.

Soft Furnishings, Ribosomes and Proteins.

Gallery run 7th November

Posted on November 9, 2019 by julessharples

1361 Art Marathon. Weekly runs tracked on GPS with stats, plus drop-ins at 8 galleries.
Eight pictures posted weekly plus the updated map.

1362 Patrick Staff at Serpentine Gallery explores some of the problems humankind faces. Acid rain is simulated in the gallery with this metal drum filling up with lactic acid and acetic acid. For those into biology, these are mild organic acids important in cell metabolism.

1363 Peter Doig at Michael Werner.
Gallery 12 on my map.

1364 Alvaro Barrington at Sadie Coles HQ with evocative paintings.
Gallery 13 on my map.

1365 Claire Tabouret at Almine Rech with elegant portraits.
Gallery 15 on my map.

1366 Cy Twombly at #GagosianLondon with classic style sculpture made from simple materials and some then cast in bronze.
Gallery 14 on my map.

1367 Lisa Brice at Stephen Friedman exploring alternative representations of the female figure.
Gallery 21 on my map.

1368 Grayson Perry at Victoria Miro Gallery with pots and woven carpets that explore social themes.
Gallery 22 on my map.

1369 Betty Parsons at Alison Jacques Gallery with beautiful painted wooden sculptures.
Gallery 28 from my map.

Gallery run 5th July

Posted on July 8, 2018 by julessharples

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Rosa Loy at The Approach with great German symbolic realism.

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Kasper Bosmans at The Approach with a small cosmic-looking painting. Fab piece.

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Brick Lane doorway. Love it, by the way!

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Collier Schorr of Stuart Shave Modern Art in a reclining pose for a selfie.

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Cosmic! Michelle Stuart at Alison Jacques Gallery with a grid made in 1969 and inspired by the moon.

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Keren Cytter of Pilar Corrias with imaginative use of reflective sheet that turns the gallery floor into a sort of makeshift projector screen helped by the intense spotlights coupled with dim over-lighting.

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Urs Fischer of Sadie Coles HQ with iPhone artworks showing the wit of the artist.

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Leonor Antunes at Marian Goodman Gallery with screens based on architectural and art motifs including those of Anni Albers.

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Juan Munoz of Frith Street Gallery with vividly drawn objects.

Gallery run 10th May

Posted on May 12, 2018 by julessharples

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Beatriz Milhazes at White Cube with a 15m long tapestry in her characteristic style.

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JeffKeen at Kate MacGarry with an early example of spliced 8mm film intercut with animation.

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Birgit Jurgenssen of Alison Jacques Gallery with delicately presented photographs using gauze fabrics to give a soft focus and welded metal frames which she made herself.

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Wilhelm Sasnal at Sadie Coles HQ with paintings in his distinctive style.

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Christian Boltanski at Marian Goodman with films of interventions and installations in deserted landscapes.

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Juan Usle of Frith Street Gallery with delicate brushwork.

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Rose Wylie at David Zwirner with evocative paintings made from the artist’s memory and images she finds in her studio.

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Alvaro Barrington at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac with paintings and sketches.

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Joseph Beuys at Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac with a big retrospective and here a transformer and felt installation.

Gallery run 22nd February

Posted on February 24, 2018 by julessharples

Rachel Howard is showing at Damien Hirst’s Newport Street Gallery. Fourteen large paintings are on display which, as the press release tells us, are intended to resonate with the Fourteen Stations of the Cross, the last hours of Christ as seen through the canon of Western painting. In addition a small fifteenth painting is on display based on a famous news photo depicting an Iraqi detainee standing on a box, arms outstretched and wires dangling downwards, connecting to an electric box. Human suffering is a theme that preoccupies this artist. The images themselves, apart from the latter, are abstract and their immediate content stems from the love that has been put into them. Many weeks elapse between the application of each new layer of paint, waiting for the old layer to dry, implying a degree of care and solemnity by the artist which offers some kind of parallel to her powerful subject matter.

Due North through St. James’, Green and Hyde Parks followed by a stretch of the Regent’s Canal then Primrose Hill, lies Camden Arts Centre located on the outskirts of Hampstead. Giorgio Griffa, an Italian practitioner of Art Povera, has spent a lifetime exploring the subtle variations of brush marks on different unprimed fabrics using just a limited set of symbols comprising numbers, loops and lines. A particular artwork catches a shaft of light, that has entered through a gallery skylight, and its simple lines seem to dissolve into the glowing surface of the surrounding unpainted canvas.

Running back down the hill towards Camden, brings the Zabludowicz Foundation into sight. Based at what looks like a former consecrated building of some kind, the visitor enters through a grand Georgian facade with doric columns, arriving at an entrance lobby with a small cafe counter to one side and two doors giving access to each of the two shows currently on view. Siobhan Coen has been invited to participate as part of a scheme to showcase artists not currently represented by galleries. Her interest is perception and the multitude of stimuli that do not make it into our conscious thoughts. Whether the perceptions segue into the unconscious is a moot point since we cannot judge their passage for ourselves, but it is a concern that provides the artist with ample possibilities to develop her practice. The words of Donald Rumsfeld, who is recorded reading one of his own books, resonate through the building. As former security chief, the implication of him broadcasting his own thoughts on perception, is that this is a matter of political importance not just personal.

Finally a small group of galleries in Fitzrovia offers the last few shows of the day. The Telecom Tower provides a ready-made landmark that makes for an easy approach across Regent’s Park. At Alison Jacques gallery, Roy Oxlade has an exhibition of paintings that have a fantastic faux-naive style. As a biographical point we are told that he was married to Rose Wiley and soon spot the outlines of her handsome nose as muse on some of the images. Indeed with both artists producing works with this certain childlike quality to them, since Rose’s work is similar in respect to her use of figurative outlines and simplified backgrounds, one then wonders if there is any other possible connection. Perhaps their apparently simple, yet complex, paintings evolved from a canon of intellectual concerns that Roy and Rose would develop and share over a lifetime together.

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Rachel Howard at Newport Street Gallery with carefully applied gloss and bright acrylic base colours loosely following the sequence of 14 images in Christian depictions of Christ’s last days.

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John Copeland in Newport Street Gallery with figurative paintings.

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Giorgio Griffa at Camden Arts Centre with unprimed canvas and delicately chosen and applied brush marks.

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Siobhan Coen at the Zabludowicz Collection with an artwork that explores perceptions, namely how we edit nearly all the information from our senses before we become conscious of the remainder. Political commentators play as a soundtrack and the artist claims our editing processes can be exploited by political propaganda.

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Grainy video of Gillian Wearing dancing in Peckham shopping centre over 20 years ago. Shown in the Zabludowicz Collection.

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Roy Oxlade at Alison Jacques Gallery with paintings that focus on symbolism rather than pretty painted surfaces, (though they are very pretty anyway).

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Victoria Colmegna at Southard Reid with a picture cabinet suggestive of highschool memories.

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Vivienne Griffin at Southard Reid encasing an aptly named object in resin.

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Laurie Simmons of Amanda Wilkinson Gallery created mocked-up fashion shoots using herself and clothes sourced from second hand shops.

Gallery run 6th December

Posted on December 6, 2017 by julessharples

My phone is being sorted out this morning leaving me temporarily camera-less. Nevertheless this hiatus is a chance to build up the jogging miles before my retrieving of the device and doing the gallery visits in quick succession. At Alison Jacques Gallery, Juergen Teller is displaying a series of photographs called Go-Sees. The title used here refers to the term in the fashion industry of an informal introduction between photographer and aspiring model. In this exhibition the models have crossed over from the fashion industry into art. They are shown posing in a frequently used doorway or against a familiar backdrop revealing, all the while, different levels of engagement with the camera. Some models are at the artist’s front door waiting to be let in and have been caught unexpectedly from above, whilst others have adopted contorted gymnastic poses thereby taking control of the photograph and demonstrating a power of their own.

A few streets away at Pilar Corrias Gallery, Mary Ramsden has exhibited abstract paintings with dynamic motifs. A swoosh of paint arcs over the canvas and at its apex, where the droplets can no longer hold together due to the force of the brush swerving in a new direction, a secondary ejection occurs. The droplets have broken free and splay out across the canvas. This arching swoosh is a gesture but also a symbol, since the artist appears to have reproduced it at will, not only in its general shape, but also in its dynamism, harnessing the forces of nature to eject the paint spray at the chosen point. Other details stand out too, though with less dynamism, such as a bright pink strip of paint up the outside of the stretcher frame. It is normally a dead space that carries only the residues and traces of the main action on the painting’s front surface, but here on this side strip the artist appears to have intervened amongst the various accidents.

Sadie Coles HQ provides two further spaces for today’s run. At Kingly Street, Kati Heck has produced a central hexagon structure in the centre of the main gallery. Six paintings are displayed on its inner walls forming a sort of panorama of images. The images themselves are very strong, comprising figures and various objects of symbolic importance, all boosted in their immediacy by the economy and panache of the brushstrokes. Some of the background colour actually appears to have been applied with decorating brushes, evidenced by the width of their strokes, whilst other areas are omitted altogether, suggesting a confidence and good judgement on the part of the artist. Arms are detached from hands, a piece of sky missing, but each such intervention is done with a plausible logic thereby keeping alive the interest for the viewer.

With the day rapidly passing, there is a chance to see some work at Phillips. Jonathan Meese has a large image that oozes German Expressionistic appeal. The tell-tale fragments of German vocabulary along with roughly rendered figures populating the picture space, create a distinct style and attractive image. Finally in Peckham a climbing frame with art aspirations of its own catches the eye. The steel with flaking blue paint looks great and its image on Instagram sits in the middle of the other eight like a sort of carousel.

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Juergen Teller at Alison Jacques Gallery who photographed aspiring models in informal settings called Go-Sees.

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Mary Ramsden of Pilar Corrias.

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Adriano Costa of Sadie Coles HQ.

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Urs Fischer at Sadie Coles HQ with prints and photos.

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John Armleder at Phillips.

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Mel Bochner at Phillips.

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Jonathan Meese at Phillips.

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Kati Heck at Sadie Coles HQ with very good figurative painting that isn’t too finished in places.

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Old frame in Peckham.

Gallery run 3rd November

Posted on November 4, 2017 by julessharples

Bright sunshine is taking the chill out of the air this morning. The sun is behind me making the jog out west along the River Thames towards Wandsworth particularly radiant. Several bridges intersect this stretch of river before one arrives at the Wandsworth recycling centre, a first base on this run and site of an excellent bacon sandwich van. The owner has been trading since before dawn, she says, despite the hour gained from changing clocks. The recycling centre itself seemingly provides much of the business as visibility tops file down the narrow pavement before placing their breakfast orders. With bacon sandwich in hand the first photo opportunity of the day presents itself, a beautifully packed wall of recycled plastic, with the sun’s rays making the different colours sparkle like jewels.

Across the river, the Serpentine Galleries are showing an upcoming American artist called Wade Guyton. He specialises in digital imaging and printing processes but adds a painterly twist by incorporating drips and dislocations into their forms with a joyful array of “mistakes”. These are either accidental or intentionally orchestrated, but either way are very effective in upsetting the order of the original image. In the other gallery Torbjorn Rodland has produced uncanny photographs that incorporate familiar objects such as shoes, food and figures. All of these compositions have been disturbed in some way. A man appears to have thrust his legs in front of his head, with the consensus being that he has performed some extreme yoga pose. But then there is the realisation that what seemed like legs are actually arms, since the performer has had shoes placed on his hands, and his head merely nestles slightly uncomfortably behind one of his arms.

The short run through Hyde Park then leads to Upper Brook Street where Michael Werner is showing Enrico David, a sculptor who was at St Martin’s College at the same time as myself. On this account there is added interest for me. The white sculpted figures with their strange and ornate metal attachments, provide a powerful spectacle to the viewer but also remind me of the artist’s distinctive style clearly evident as a student at college. At Timothy Taylor gallery, a few streets away in Carlos Place, Alex Katz is showing paintings of woodland alongside sculpted portraits and drawings. The woodland paintings, in particular, reveal the artist’s vitality as paint streaks across the canvas in broad strokes. Whole tree trunks are rendered in single swipes while additional twigs are depicted with the same economy as the trunks and appear to twitch like the whiskers of a living animal.

As the sun comes round to the south in the early afternoon there are just three remaining stops to complete, but surprises will await at each of these. At Sadie Coles HQ there is a group show of Eastern, non-European artists. Of this interesting selection, Xu Qu, who is normally represented by Almine Rech gallery, has produced a striking garland of video cameras, which are all threaded onto a thick steel cable. Then round the corner at Pilar Corrias, Rirkrit Tiravanija has filmed the making of a feast cooked in ritual fashion on a giant, cast iron stove. Though traditional in its design, the welding and cast iron of the stove reveal that this object was in fact specially made for the occasion and furthermore that the utilitarian knobs and handles are all scaled up from a smaller original design. They are now barely practical in their new setting and as such take on the mantle of art object. Lastly, and as our finale for the day, Alison Jacques gallery is showing Sheila Hicks’ fantastic, woven, wool pieces. Some of these intricate structures have been mounted on a canvas support, further challenging the viewer’s preconceptions that a difference exists between craft object and artwork.

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Wandsworth Recycling Centre.

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Wade Guyton at Serpentine Gallery with ink jet accidents and images that have a painting quality to them including this illusory effect of depth.

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Torbjorn Rodland at Serpentine Gallery. The shoes create the illusion of a strange contorting posture at first.

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Enrico David of Michael Werner.

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Alex Katz of Timothy Taylor with intense images applied in thin washes of paint.

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Xu Qu at Sadie Coles HQ with a giant video camera garland on metal cable.

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Rirkrit Tiravanija of Pilar Corrias with a cast over-sized stove and enlarged saucepans which were used to prepare a feast.

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Sheila Hicks of Alison Jacques Gallery with fabric structures attached to a standard canvas.

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Katharina Grosse at South London Gallery with spray paint that looks like draped fabrics.

Frieze week 5th October

Posted on October 6, 2017 by julessharples

It is Frieze week and the galleries are all together under the Regent’s Park awning. Consequently there is little opportunity for a run. However, earlier this week I am given the opportunity to run up to Alan Cristea Gallery and review the new Michael Craig Martin exhibition of prints. Prints are the speciality of this gallery. To one side of the gallery, the newest work uses an altogether new method of duplication using a laser cutting process to remove a thin black surface and reveal portions of the white under-layer. The bonus of this process is the durability of the surface and these works look striking without even needing a sheet of protecting glass.

Two days later it is my chance to visit Frieze. The stand out works include some great ones by Ivan Seal, Mary Reid Kelley, Djordje Ozbolt, Patricia Treib, Sheila Hicks and Daniel Richter. A recent addition to Michael Werner Gallery called Peter Saul catches my eye in particular. It seems popular too on the Instagram feed with the most likes and as I look at the image it leaves this intense desire to produce a work of my own in a similar style. This of course will never happen. The work is great though, being a sort of dismantled figure with recognisable foot and hand emerging from some central tank-like container.

Lastly, a neon piece by Andrea Bowers is flashing away at Andrew Kreps Gallery, and since this is Frieze week, New York lies only a few seconds from London. The concourse between the neighbouring cubicles replaces the expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. A cardboard cowling surrounds the neon letters and frames their pithy slogan, but also lends to their slick form an impromptu feeling, due in part to bits of random image left on the cardboard surface. This is almost the end of Frieze experience for me, but the same evening there is a bonus of seeing a talk by the Slade professor Andrew Stahl. A mutual friend has invited us to a rather exotic venue in Mayfair, home of the Woman’s University Club, and the evening assumes a slower and more relaxed rhythm.

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Michael Craig Martin at Alan Cristea Gallery with laser cut plastic as a medium for his new drawings.

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Sheila Hicks of Alison Jacques Gallery at Frieze 2017.

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Mary Reid Kelley of Pilar Corrias at Frieze 2017. Images and props from a recent film are artworks in themselves.

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Ivan Seal of Carl Freedman Gallery at Frieze 2017.

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Djordje Ozbolt with Herald Street at Frieze 2017.

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Patricia Treib of Kate Macgarry at Frieze 2017.

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Peter Saul of Michael Werner at Frieze 2017.

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Daniel Richter with Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac at Frieze 2017.

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Andrea Bowers at Andrew Kreps Gallery.

Gallery run 31st August

Posted on August 31, 2017 by julessharples

The first stop today is a Science Fiction Exhibition at the Barbican containing artwork from several artists at London galleries. On arrival, there is a sort of sensory overload of robots, clips from 60’s sci fi films and models of rockets destined for the moon. Many of these items are film props which were used in classics ranging from Star Wars to The Incredible Shrinking Man. The initial attraction for this show was the abundance of familiar gallery artists, but this is soon matched by the great postcard-sized paintings by Andrey Sokolov of moonscapes and yet more rockets.

At the Barbican a helpful attendant points the way up to Old Street after asking me If I was lost and what look likes a very pedestrian unfriendly car ramp turns out to be a short cut back to the main road. At Beers, Adam Lee is showing some evocative paintings inspired by the exotic location of his studio in an isolated region of Australia.

From here the Regent’s Canal provides a direct, though fairly long, route to Regent’s Park where there is a choice selection of sculptures. This is the Frieze Sculpture Park show and it is kicked off with a stunning sculpture by John Chamberlain set against a background of the park and some of the Regency properties on its periphery. Next Ugo Rondinone of Sadie Coles HQ presents an enormous white tree planted firmly into the grass. Tony Cragg has a sculpture with his stacked disc motif all assembled into a gold figure that has some similarities to the fantastical machines and figures on show earlier at the Barbican. Finally Takuro Kuwata of Alison Jacques Gallery has presented some brightly coloured cylindrical forms that look slightly organic like brightly coloured mushrooms, though of a different shape. Urs Fischer, meanwhile, has a skeleton placed in a fountain. It is being cooled, or watered in some way, with a garden hose. Then for me it’s back south with tired legs after having spent much of the last week with feet up on vacation.

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Postcards by Andrey Sokolov shown at Into the Unknown: A Journey Through Science Fiction at The Barbican Centre.