Art events | Classical music events | Family
events |
Top 10 events in London
EVENTS IN LONDON ARE UPDATED DAILY - last update (30/07/10 - 7pm London time)
- Rachel Khedoori - For her first solo exhibition in London, Khedoori will present ‘The Iraq Book Project’, as well as a photographic series and a film installation featured upstairs in the American Room. Since the mid 1990s, Khedoori has created complex investigations weaving together architecture, sculpture and film. She often uses constructed elements and mirrors alongside film projections, creating works that can be explored both physically and psychologically. ‘The Iraq Book Project’, Khedoori’s ongoing documentary piece, consists of a chronological compilation of news articles found online using the search terms ‘Iraq’, ‘Iraqi’ or ‘Baghdad’. The articles begin on 18 March 2003, the start date of the Iraq war, and in theory, can continue indefinitely. Until 31 July. www.hauserwirth.com
- Rodney Graham - Painter, Poet, Lighthouse Keeper - One of the most original and influential artists of his generation, Graham has constructed a complex and articulate practice which operates through systems of quotation, reference, adaptation and inscription from other works or authors. Here the artist draws from sources as diverse as structural film, Mallarmé's poetry, British zombie movies, and 19th century French military painting to create a kaleidoscopic exhibition combining works in photography, film and painting. The light box, Lighthouse Keeper With Lighthouse Model, 1955, depicts the golden age of the hobbyist, at a time when automation was rendering the work of lighthouse keepers redundant. With increased time on his hands, the lighthouse keeper devotes himself to creative, leisurely activities, such as poetry and model making. Until 31 July. www.lissongallery.com
- The Sugar Cane Allegory - Glenn Sorensen -
Known for his intimate, small-scale paintings of flowers, domestic objects and people in his life Glenn Sorensen’s exhibition will be the first solo presentation of his work in a UK public gallery. Over a two year period Sorensen has produced a series of melancholic paintings that meditate on the transient nature of existence, drawing parallels between the ephemeral life of the flowers and the people that he paints. In some works the artist has selected a flower from his garden faithfully capturing in exquisite detail the process of entropy - altering, erasing and over-painting the canvas as the flower wilts and decays, sometimes producing a subsequent painting of the flower in its further deteriorated state. With waning petals rendered like crumpled handkerchiefs brushed in luminescent tones and the stark contrast of the dark, inky backgrounds, Sorensen has given his subjects a peculiar phosphorescent quality despite their proximity to final decomposition. The enigmatic title for this series of works comes from Sorensen’s childhood memories in Australia of being surrounded by sugar cane, and observing the yearly life cycle of growth, burning and harvest. Now based in Sweden, the flowers in his garden and the painting of them reminds him of this ritual. Until 1 August. www.pumphousegallery.org.uk
- Roman Cieślewicz - A major retrospective exhibition of work by one of the most influential graphic designers of the twentieth century. The show is curated by the Royal College of Art's David Crowley, Andrzej Klimowski, Jeff Willis along with Anna Grabowska-Konwent from the National Museum in Poznan and will be the first major retrospective of Cieślewicz’s work in Britain, showing over 150 key works from his diverse career. Until 7 August. www.rca.ac.uk
- Henry Moore - Radical, experimental and avant garde, Henry Moore (1898-1986) was one of Britain’s greatest artists. This major exhibition will re-assert his position at the forefront of progressive twentieth-century sculpture, bringing together the most comprehensive selection of his works for a generation. Henry Moore will present over 150 significant works including stone sculptures, wood carvings, bronzes and drawings. Henry Moore will reveal the range and quality of Moore’s art in new ways – sometimes uncovering a dark and erotically charged dimension that challenges the familiar image of the artist and his work. Henry Moore first emerged as an artist in the wake of the First World War, in which he served on the Western Front. This exhibition will emphasise the impact on Moore’s work of its historical and intellectual contexts: the trauma of war, the advent of psychoanalysis and new ideas of sexuality, and the influence of primitive art and surrealism. Until 8 August. www.tate.org.uk
- Hannah Wilke - Elective Affinities - Hannah Wilke (1940 – 1993) was an artist whose body of work was intimately bound to her body. She pioneered from the start of her career a feminine formal language centring on vaginal imagery, and deployed a range of media and practices to explore the pleasures and pains of contemporary female experience. Wilke’s work exemplified a powerfully gendered critique not only of society but also of art. This new exhibition is the first show outside the USA of work from the Hannah Wilke Collection & Archive, Los Angeles, which comprises the largest body of work left by Wilke following her tragic early death. Featuring a number of iconic works as well as a range of pieces rarely seen, the exhibition explores the continuous terrain mapped by Wilke between language, image and object, incorporating performance, photography, drawings, collages and sculptures rendered in materials as diverse as ceramic, gum, latex, erasers and bronze. Until 14 August. www.alisonjacquesgallery.com
- The Wyeth Family: Three Generations of American Art- This exhibition presents members of Wyeth family starting with N C Wyeth. N C Wyeth (1882-1945) was one of America’s finest illustrators, best known for his outstanding book illustrations of Treasure Island, The Boy's King Arthur and Robinson Crusoe. His illustrations in oils are magnificent, lush, technically brilliant examples of imaginative story-telling, and he painted some lovely landscapes as well. Until 22 August. www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk
- RIBBONS! (The Shape of an Exhibition) - Lengths of shiny, coloured ribbon are tied from the branches of one tree to another to form long squiggles and zig zagging lines which curve in one direction and then another as they are caught by the breeze. As the first installment of a larger project titled The Shape of an Exhibition, this outdoor installation acts as a sketch of what is to come. The Shape of an Exhibition has been conceived to address the notion of an exhibition by considering and expanding both its site and its timeframe. From 29 July until 22 August. www.autoitaliasoutheast.org
- House and Home - A new family exhibition opened this week at the Stables Gallery in Twickenham, featuring sculptures inspired by everyday objects and made almost entirely of recycled waste. The exhibits in House and Home, have been put together by members of Richmond Council’s Artplay3 project - a group of families from across the borough, particularly young parents and their children. They have worked with artist Sarah Richardson over the last two months to create their works. The exhibition runs until 29 August at the Stables Gallery, Riverside, Twickenham, TW1 3DJ. www.richmond.gov.uk
- Undercover – Life in Churchill's Bunker - Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms commemorates its seventieth anniversary this year from when it became operational in August 1939, the week before war was declared. This exhibition examines living and working in the Cabinet War Rooms during the Second World War. The exhibition will focus on the personal accounts of the men and women who worked at the Cabinet War Rooms during the tumultuous events of the Second World War. Images, artefacts and the first-hand oral accounts of those who worked in the Cabinet War Rooms bring the working conditions in Churchill’s secret underground headquarters vividly to life. Until 27 August. http://cwr.iwm.org.uk
- Linda Florence, David Gates, Chris Keenan - 60|40 Starting point series 2010 - A textile artist, a furniture maker and a potter are the latest artists to showcase new work at Siobhan Davies Studios this summer. Linda Florence, David Gates and Chris Keenan are creating work which explores the relationship between the Studios’ activities and their own practice. This is the second in the Starting point series at Siobhan Davies Studios, devised by 60|40, a crafts collective which encourages new thinking in the applied arts and expands the environment for experimental applied arts. The exhibition opens on 9 July and admission is free. Until 27 August. www.siobhandavies.com
- Picasso: The Mediterranean Years (1945-1962) - Including important portraits of Françoise , Claude, Paloma and his last great muse Jacqueline, linocuts, ceramics and several iconic sculptures (La guenon et son petit, 1951, Petite fille sautant à la corde, 1950, La femme enceinte I, 1950, and Sylvette, 1954), "Picasso: The Mediterranean Years" will be organized around generous loans from members of the Picasso family of works that have come to be known as Picasso's Picassos. Until 28 August. www.gagosian.com
- Wolfgang Tillmans - In this new exhibition, conceived for the Serpentine Gallery, Tillmans will reflect on his longstanding relationship with London and show both new works made specifically for this show, as well as a range of images from throughout his career. The exhibition will focus on both the figurative and the abstract in Tillmans’ work, and embrace a broad range of subjects; from unconventional yet intensely eloquent portraits, to large-scale, colour-saturated abstractions that capture the beauty of photography’s chemical processes. Until 29 August. www.serpentinegallery.org
- John Akomfrah: Mnemosyne - Mnemosyne by celebrated British filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah (b.1957) is a powerful new film installation which focuses on the experience of migrant labour in the UK - a poetic essay on the themes of memory and migration. To make it Akomfrah combined newly shot footage with archive material from the various television and film archive libraries. Mnemosyne refers to the mother of the nine Muses, the personification of memory in Greek mythology. Akomfrah’s work questions memory and suggest the possibility for endless re-interpretation of historical events by interweaving archival footage from 1952 to 1981 with contemporary ‘portraits’ of Britain and extracts of new work filmed in a remote snowy landscape. Until 4 September. www.bfi.org.uk/gallery
- Ernesto Neto - Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto (born 1964) transforms the upper galleries and outdoor sculpture terraces with a new site-specific commission and a number of new sculptural works. Neto, who lives and works in Rio de Janeiro, has established an international reputation for his work over the past 20 years. In 2008 he created a spatial and sensory installation for the Hayward Gallery’s acclaimed exhibition Psycho Buildings. Until 5 September. www.southbankcentre.co.uk
- Philip de László - Rarely seen works by the celebrated portrait painter, Philip de László, will be brought together for the first solo museum display of the artist's work since his death over 70 years ago. This new display will include special loans from The Royal Collection and Chequers and will mark the completion of indexing of the de László archive at the National Portrait Gallery. Focusing on de László's career between 1912 and 1925, the nine portraits on display include several of de László's finest commissioned portraits of eminent public figures. These will be shown alongside a much less well known aspect of his work: intimate portraits of his own family, several of which have not been on public display before. One of the artist's most accomplished paintings, a portrait of the 6th Duchess of Portland, will be on public display for the first time since the artist's death in 1937. Star portraits include probably the artist's most distinguished work, a portrait of the late Queen Mother (1925) on loan from The Royal Collection and a portrait of the American heiress Faith Moore (1920) on loan from Chequers. The display also draws from the Collection of the National Portrait Gallery, including a portrait of Jerome K. Jerome, author of Three Men in a Boat, who was a friend and supporter of de László. Until 5 September. www.npg.org.uk
- Rude Britannia: British Comic Art - Through a great diversity of art forms – including painting, drawing, sculpture, film and photography – comedy, the comic, and visual humour will be explored in their many dimensions. The exhibition will be presented and interpreted by some of the country’s best-known cartoonists and comedy writers including Steve Bell, Harry Hill, Gerald Scarfe, and the team at Viz Magazine. Drawing on material far beyond the traditional realm of visual satire, Rude Britannia will bring together sculptures, installations and performances. Works by contemporary artists such as Angus Fairhurst will be contrasted with key historical pieces by Gillray and Cruikshank. Radio, film and new media will play a part in the show, reflecting how technological developments have consistently reinvigorated the genre and engaged new audiences. Until 5 September. www.tate.org.uk
- The New Décor - The New Décor is an international survey of some 30 contemporary artists, who explore interior design as a means of engaging with changes in contemporary culture. Until 5 September. www.southbankcentre.co.uk
- Maison Martin Margiela '20’ The Exhibition -This is a major exhibition celebrating 20 years of one of contemporary fashion’s most influential and enigmatic designers. This ambitious, multi-layered exhibition captures Margiela’s unique aesthetic and vision, incorporating garments, installations, photography and film. Until 5 September. www.somersethouse.org.uk