Gallery run 24th May

Posted on May 26, 2017 by julessharples

The streets are filled with the drone of helicopters as I reach Lambeth Bridge. Security is high today after the tragic bombing of Manchester two days earlier. At St James’ Park the guardsmen on horseback are given a police escort as a car and policeman on bicycle flank the procession. The first gallery is White Cube where Wayne Thiebaud has a retrospective of pie and cake paintings along with landscapes. The application of paint is in thin single-coloured sheets rendered with parallel brushstrokes. On the food they look like icing whilst on the landscapes, nature itself looks edible. Across Piccadilly I arrive at Pace Gallery. Joel Shapiro has created an installation of coloured solid forms. I read that the airborne forms are made of 3mm plywood making them light enough to be suspended by thin wires. As described on the photo below, the floor based forms actively flaunt much thicker sides and greater mass. As a whole we are perhaps induced through illusion to believe the floating forms are of a similar design and are thereby defying gravity in some way. Back onto the streets I pass Berwick Street market whilst being stuck behind a cement mixer and pause to let the street and the way forward clear. Wardour Street leads on to Berners Street where I push open a door for the second time this month and find myself in an office next to Alison Jacques Gallery, a mistake in other words, and go into the gallery feeling slightly self conscious about the rather gauche circumstance of my arrival. The show I wanted to see is invitation only and in fact completely closed today due to the installation of a big show downstairs, though the woman on the front desk graciously invites me to the big opening in a week’s time. Hopefully this will feature in the next run. Slade School of Art have their BA this week and I was struck by the work of Chloe Ong and Max Martyns, both painters. The next student show I go to is the St Martin’s BA at St Pancras, but first I stop at Brittania Street and see a triple bill of Giacometti, Peter Lindberg and Taryn Simon. I had seen the work by Simon before and loved it. Bouquets recreated and photographed accompany political text describing the signing of a treaty, where the original flowers were present, and the narrative continues to subsequent events many of which involve war and conflict. The walk to St Martin’s College is stunning through the back of St Pancras and over a bridge crossing the Regent’s Canal. The college has an open atrium leading to 3 floors and on the top floor is a piece of work I love by Nathaniel Faulkner where high-tech facade meets low-tech materials. Another work by the same artist catches my eye. An IBM supercomputer, is powered by a few fairy lights, whilst the rest of the lights hang loose, visible from the back along with a roll of Sellotape casually left behind. Finally the canal takes me east to the exit at Wharf Road. After photographing Anne November Cathrin Hoibo’s beautiful textile works at Carl Freedman Gallery, I head south and reach Matt’s Gallery. David Batchelor has created a great installation notable for its use of giant hole cutter and un-precious materials. On the way out I meet the director and after an introduction we do a quick catch up on the day’s shows!

Wayne Thiebaud at White Cube with richly rendered landscapes in addition to his famous cake paintings.

Joel Shapiro at Pace Gallery with coloured plywood forms. From a technical viewpoint the floor based forms show thick chunky edges whilst by a kind of illusion the air based pieces conceal their thin 3mm sides and appear to float from thin wires.

Chloe Ong at Slade Degree Show 2017 with beautifully composed landscapes.

Max Martyns at Slade Degree Show 2017 with an exciting use of brushstroke.

Taryn Simon at Gagosian with recreations of exotic bouquets that had been made originally for important signings of international deals.

Nathaniel Faulkner at Central St Martins Degree Show 2017 with stunning recreations of technology from the front view. But look round the back and we see the proper artwork with wooden frames and flashing fairy lights that created the illusion of complex processes.

Chicks on the towpath of Regents Canal.

Ann Cathrin November Hoibo of Carl Freedman Gallery with beautifully woven threads and fabrics.

David Batchelor at Matts Gallery with an installation that portrays the city landscape coming alive by night.

Gallery run 8th February

Posted on February 10, 2017 by julessharples

West to East.

Luiz Zerbini of Stephen Friedman Gallery with abstract motifs inserted into vivid naturalistic paintings.

Anya Gallaccio of Thomas Dane Gallery with extruded clay building up a gallery-sized replica of a mountain in the US. A giant 3D printing process will be used to build the mountain up in layers with a honeycomb internal structure for strength but deliberately compromised by the chaotic nature of the wet clay.

Fernanda Gomes of Alison Jacques Gallery with white objects of wood and canvas placed about the gallery.

Florian Roithmayr of MOT International at Bloomberg Space with objects made from processes using basic materials.

Urs Fischer of Sadie Coles HQ with an interactive Rodin replica whose plastacene material has been remodelled by the gallery visitors.

Peter Halley at Stuart Shave Modern Art with 80’s paintings exploring communication and technology with simple but striking painted forms.

Alex Israel and Bret Easton Ellis at Gagosian with text on painted film-style back drops.

Team Lab of Pace Gallery with an immersive installation that recreates basic forces in nature such as the forces between water droplets, to create waterfalls, vortices, rivulets of water and other natural phenomena from their minute parts.

Barbara Kasten at Thomas Dane Gallery with set-ups made from modern optically attractive materials.

Gallery run 20th January

Posted on January 21, 2017 by julessharples

Plinth shortlist and along Thames.

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Andrea Zittel at Sadie Coles HQ in a group show exploring rooms as psychic spaces. This is part flotation tank and part survival space.

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Michael Andrews at Gagosian Gallery with 5 series of paintings including one of Uluru or AyersRock.

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Charles Avery at Pilar Corrias with more drawings from his imaginary island.

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Bright sun today casting a mysterious green glow thanks to a nearby building.

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Huma Bahbah of Stephen Friedman Gallery showing as a short-listed artist for the 4th plinth. The artist is inspired by science fiction and ancient cities.

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Heidi Bucher who shows at the Approach Gallery featured here in a group show at Sadie Coles HQ featuring rooms as psychic spaces. This is a latex imprint of her father’s study.

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Adrian Paci at Frith Street Gallery with a series of drawings on found black board materials.

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Sarah Lucas at Sadie Coles HQ with a smoking room fashioned from tabloids headlines many of which I remember from the 90’s.

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Photograph of the The Shard placed by Tom Wolseley in the entrance hall of his exhibition. Two hall mirrors make for an interesting viewpoint. Vertical Horizons is the title of his work.

Gallery run 27th October

Posted on October 29, 2016 by julessharples

Regent’s Canal from the west to Hackney.

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Tony Cragg at Lisson Gallery with sculptures inspired by organic and technological forms.

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Maureen Gallace at Maureen Paley with work inspired by the artist’s local landscape.

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Eddie Martinez of Timothy Taylor at Frieze 2016 sculpture park.

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Rallou Panagiotou at Ibid Gallery with sculptures inspired by a derelict holiday resort.

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Tala Madani at Pilar Corrias with a metaphysical take on disco.

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Nairy Bagrhamian at Marian Goodman Gallery in Frieze 2016 sculpture park.

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Ed Ruscha at Gagosian with works exploring ideas of extension in space and time.

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Jeff Koons at Almine Rech with recreations of old master paintings bearing a mirror ball. Inspiration from Kiss Of Judas by Giotto at The Arena Chapel in Padua.

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David Adamo at Ibid Gallery with small figures on ceder plinths.

Gallery run 22nd October

Posted on October 22, 2016 by julessharples

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Njideka Akunyili Crosby at Victoria Miro with immaculate complex images, including print transfer, on a thin support.

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Giuseppe Gabellone of Greengrassi showing at Bloomberg Space. Casually laid out pastel coloured fabric transforms the space.

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Alex Hartley at Victoria Miro with a transformed space (comprising ruined building) in the canal running down the back of the gallery.

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Sanya Kantarovsky at Stuart Shave ModernArt with Russian figures and glimpses into their lives.

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Richard Serra at Gagosian with a giant walk through steel labyrinth.

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Yayoi Kusama at Victoria Miro with metal doors appearing to have extruded some metallic sausage like substance. Group show Protest.

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Doug Aitkin at Victoria Miro with immaculately mounted shattered mirrors on the letters FREE.

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Ruth Freeman at Beers London with painted images inspired by computer tablet hand gestures.

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Robert Therrien at Parasol Unit with 70’s to 90’s retrospective.

Gallery run 18th August

Posted on August 26, 2016 by julessharples

Gallery visits by @juliansharplesart, jogging via canals and parks. 9 pics. This week, Samara Scott Battersea Park and clockwise.

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Su Xiaobai at White Cube. Size about 5’x5′ Depth about 6″

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Samara Scott of The Sunday Painter at Pleasure Garden Fountains in Battersea Park. The show called Developer uses fabrics deployed in characteristic casual, meaningful and evocative manner.

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Jiang Zhi at White Cube. Remember these screen blips from 90’s computer technology?

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Thrush Holmes at Beers London using neon and loose brushwork.

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Daniel Sinsel at Sadie Coles HQ with more exploration of surface and illusion.

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Jeff Koons at Gagosian Gallery with a blow-up stainless steel piece complete with two valves.

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Break step!

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Jean Michel Basquiat at Gagosian Gallery.

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Straight on from the bridge shown adjacent.

Sculpture in the City 2016, 12th August

Posted on August 13, 2016 by julessharples

Some artworks take time to absorb fully their significance and this was the case with Michael Lyons sculpture, Centaurus. As a consequence of this, the present gallery run, entitled Sculpture in the City 2016, is described on two separate time scales, the day itself and a few days later from whence I was able to cast my gaze across the City whilst on a separate run and at a greater distance. The inspiration for a critique of this sort was also inspired by the writer Marcel Proust who used the changing distance of a spectator to reveal different truths about an object under mental scrutiny.

Close up, Sculpture in the City is a trail that extends south from the building formerly known as the NatWest tower, and for those who are interested in its design, it displays in its vertical section the logo of the bank. Doubling back at Leadenhall market, one soon arrives at the grand plaza of the Leadenhall Cheesegrater, and then further back one arrives at the plaza of the St Mary’s Axe Gherkin. This doubling back at Leadenhall gives the sculpture trail an overall V shape with the Cheesegrater near the tip.

It was this constellation of three buildings I would see from afar as I jogged round the long curving banks of the Thames a few days later. They formed a slowly rotating compass which would constantly pick out due south thanks to the illumination of a rather vivid red sunset reflecting off the Cheesgrater’s long sloping facade. Thanks also to Michael Lyons sculpture, it would inspire me on my return home to write the present account of the sculpture trail mindful of the fact that some artworks give a delayed reaction to the understanding of their truths.

On the day, Michael Lyon’s sculpture appeared sited on ground level in a plaza close to these iconic buildings. It had a roughly worked steel form and stone plinth and what looked like a gestural curve applied to a horizontal steel bar as a head and which sat atop a thick tapered pole in reference to a neck. It had a presence a bit like a sentinel and its name Centaurus suggested it was distracted by a point or constellation in the southern sky, despite the bright midday sun temporarily obscuring any poetic reference to the stars. Then comes the moment referred to at the beginning of this account, of realisation. The sculpture was actually in alignment with the paving slabs of the plaza and this in turn through the vision of architects, extended to an overall south facing aspect for all the buildings in that little region of the city. Thus from afar I would be looking at London’s Compass as the three buildings of the trail formed a V shaped constellation brought to life by the glowing tip of the foremost building, the Cheesegrater, a compass which would be there in perpetuity for any city visitor henceforth to help them pick out due south and thus guide them on their way.

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Centaurus by Michael Lyons. The sculpture faces due south, as do the surrounding buildings, in fact, and is the inspiration for this week’s blog, the London Compass.

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Gavin Turk in Sculpture In The City

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Huma Bhabha of Stephen Friedman in Sculpture In The City.

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William Kentridge of Marian Goodman gallery. The artist has produced a composite portrait of a poverty stricken figure selling coals.

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Sarah Lucas of Sadie Coles HQ in Sculpture In The City.

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Ugo Rondinone of Sadie Coles HQ in Sculpture In The City.

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Lukas Duwenhogger at Raven Row. Exotic symbol-laden paintings.

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Giuseppe Penone in Sculpture In The City. Bronze tree with smooth boulders.

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Brick Lane activity.

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Anthony Caro of Gagosian in Sculpture In The City. Made from additions to a sea floatation tank.

The Line Sculpture Trail, 4th August

Posted on August 6, 2016 by julessharples

With the galleries on summer holiday, I decided to check out The Line sculpture trail. On the web guide it appears as a stepped graphic, a bit like a ladder, incorporating the letters THE LINE into its design. Its inexorable progress north along The Meridian is augmented midway by a couple of stops on the DLR. This avoids the mouth of the River Lee with its tight bows through industrial estates close to the Thames.

An Oyster card is useful. A first batch of sculptures is accompanied by a surprisingly exciting ride across the Thames on the Emirates cable car. From here I am directed to the DLR, but with my own requirement to do a gallery run, I make my way by foot through the industrial estates rejoining The Line where the Lee has become navigable.

At this stretch of the river one arrives at a sculpture by Damien Hirst, a painted bronze about the size and shape of a camper van. Small blue and red circles are visible in pairs on its surface and in slight relief. They represent blood vessels in cross section. Other vessels are apparent too and in colours that somehow describe their function; sweat glands, hairs and shunts that cool the skin all with the clarity of a medical text book illustration.

The bronze mass mimics a few cubic millimetres of skin, yet has a lusciousness that one might imagine seeing were a serving to be made of a large chunk of trifle after an already hearty meal! The layers are stepped on the upper surface and are articulated in bright colours straying from the anatomical rigour bestowed upon the underlying bronze form with its many fine details. Black hairs sit on top, and here the analogy with trifle must end, curved as though caught by a delicate breeze drawn off the surface of the nearby river. Having taken the photos I leave in search of a DNA spiral made of shopping trolleys.

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Emirates Air Line which forms a vital link crossing the Thames for The Line sculpture trail.

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Opposite larger than life bronze contemporary figure with its own smart phone by Thomas J Price on The Line sculpture trail.

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Carsten Holler of Gagosian joins his spiral tube slide to the spiral tower of Anish Kapoor of Lisson Gallery.

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Antony Gormley of White Cube showing Quantum Cloud on The Line sculpture trail.

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Richard Wilson RA produced Slice of Reality, the title being visible on a life ring on board. The Line sculpture trail.

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Sterling Ruby of Spruth and Magers and Gagosian produced this angular canon-like form. He paid particular attention to the spray paint whose code is displayed in welded lettering on the base. The Line sculpture trail.

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Damien Hirst of White Cube on The Line sculpture trail. The painted bronze sculpture imitates a few cubic millimetres of skin.

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Gary Hume of David Zwirner gallery with brass leg-like forms on The Line sculpture trail.

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Abigail Fallis on The Line sculpture trail. Shopping trolleys imitate structural molecules in a DNA spiral. The poppies were growing round the concrete base.

Gallery run 6th July

Posted on July 13, 2016 by julessharples

West through Burgess Park, Lambeth Bridge, Battersea Park to Wandsworth recycling depot. Bacon sandwich, then back east to Chelsea bridge, through Victoria arriving at Gagosian on Grosvenor Hill. Then run to Ibid Gallery, Rodeo Gallery, Sadie Coles HQ and back South over Lambeth Bridge. To Greengrassi, Corvi Mora and South London Gallery. Picked up a postcard artwork there and returned it to the artist’s gallery.

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Mark Grotjahn at Gagosian with work that departs radically from his close studies of nature.

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Raymond Pettibon at Sadie Coles HQ.

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John Adamo at Ibid Gallery. Small ceramic models of biscuits (and crumbs).

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Damian Ortega of White Cube showing at South London Gallery in Under the Same Sun. Sculpted tortillas.

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Ian Law at Rodeo Gallery. Wrapped hospital screens placed in the very bright sunny corner of the gallery.

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Gallery Runner was encouraged to take a postcard from Rivane Neuenschwander’s artwork by one of the gallery assistants at South London Gallery. Only catch is it must be sent on somewhere. Why not to her gallery #stephenfriedman?

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Karinruggaber at Greengrassi with a wall assemblage.

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Erika Verzutti of Alison Jacques showing at South London Gallery in Under the Same Sun.

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Gallery Runner has seen plenty of these along the canals! Simon Ling at Greengrassi with paintings of piled debris on junk barges.

Gallery run 3rd June

Posted on June 8, 2016 by julessharples

Lambeth Bridge, St James Park, Green Park, Hyde Park and The Serpentine Gallery to see Alex Katz and Etel Adnan. East to Ibid, Alison Jacques Gallery and Rodeo Gallery. Frith Street, then further East to Stewart Shave and Gagosian. Regent’s Canal and South over Tower Bridge.

221 Alex Katz of Timothy Taylor showing at the Serpentine Gallery. This wide portrait is of his wife Ada Katz.

222 Christopher Orr at Ibid. Light projections and stacks of books at his studio, we are told, help free up the imagination in the work.

223 Etel Adnan of White Cube showing here at Serpentine Gallery. Beautiful bumpy landscapes.

224 Lygia Clark at Alison Jacques Gallery. This is the first design for her famous folding aluminium pieces. They represent animals or critters. This was a crab.