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LONDON FOR FUN Newsletter: 8 April 2008 Issue No.145

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http://www.londonforfun.com
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1.) Top 10 London events
2.) Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries
3.) How to unsubscribe

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1. Top 10 London events
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1 - Living London: Gerry Fox - For his first major solo exhibition, Gerry Fox will present Living London, a single work made up of a series of synchronised multiple screen film installations inspired by London. In the space of 30 minutes the work will take the viewer on a series of journeys through life, through London and through the restored Methodist Chapel of 176. Fox’s work presents a portrait of London and evokes the physical sensation of being immersed in a city’s ever changing environment. Living London imparts differing scenes of London life, from the city’s historic and contemporary sites to dizzying portrayals of every-day occurrences. Until 20 April.
www.projectspace176.com

2 - Milly Thompson - At Milly Thompson’s exhibition at Peer there are sculptures, videos, and works on paper. There is also an artist’s book –Opera– that takes the form of an interview, which is available to visitors for free. The works are formally and stylistically very different, but all reveal a tension between shifting definitions of ‘the beautiful’ and ‘the aspirational’. A group of sculptures, all titled Energy Block (a curator's friend), bring together a modernist aesthetic, identified through a Donald Judd-like love of colour, with an entirely un-robust construction material: balsawood – a craft material beloved of the model maker. Their cheerful disposition and physical vulnerability can be construed as either arrogant or charming. Until 26 April.
www.peeruk.org

3 - Peter Doig - The most comprehensive exhibition to date of the work of Peter Doig will open at Tate Britain in February 2008. Spanning two decades, this major survey comprises over 50 paintings and a group of works on paper. It will also include a substantial body of work developed in the five years since his move to Trinidad in 2002 – many of them not previously shown in the UK. Peter Doig’s highly distinctive approach to painting has won him international acclaim. He made his name in London in the early 90s and has been a leading figure in the British art scene ever since. Using everyday photographic images from newspapers or snapshots as a compositional starting point, Peter Doig's haunting paintings have a strong sense of atmosphere – his figures often seem out of time, and his landscapes possessed of a strange, unnamable presence. The narrative lure of the image is always countered by the visceral impact of the painted surface. Until 27 April.
www.tate.org.uk

4 - Vula - The Conch - Performed on a stage flooded with water, Vula (Fijian for ‘moon’) combines magic and illusion with traditional song and dance. With one rich and captivating image flowing into another, it paints an evocative picture of the lives of Pacific Island women and their sensual and spiritual relationship with the sea. As the performers move and dance through the water, they take us on a journey through a Pacific Island day and night. Movement, song and humour intermingle with the glistening water and lighting in a wonderful harmony of elements. From 23 April until 3 May.
www.barbican.org.uk

5 - Masterpieces from the Louvre: The Collection of Louis La Caze - This exhibition is the first collaboration between the Wallace Collection and the Musée du Louvre, and will contain one of the masterpieces of seventeenth-century Spanish painting, Ribera’s Le Pied-Bot (The Boy with the Club Foot) of 1642, which will make a fascinating comparison with the Spanish paintings in the Wallace Collection by Velázquez, Murillo and Alonso Cano. Also there will be a splendid array of eighteenth-century French paintings (La Caze’s favourite school) by, among others, Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Rigaud, Chardin, Nattier, Boucher and Fragonard. Until 8 May.
www.wallacecollection.org

6 - John Currin - Sadie Coles HQ presents a major new series of paintings by American painter John Currin whose subjects range from the domestic to the overtly erotic. These exceptionally refined and gloriously engaging paintings continue the intense debate within Currin’s work that combines art historical technique with contemporary reference. While some of Currin’s new paintings are of flowers and exquisite china, most are depictions of hardcore eroticism taken from European pornography. Until 10 May.
www.sadiecoles.com

7 - Isa Genzken - Ground Zero - Isa Genzken presents a new body of work that will be displayed across the entire building; including the main gallery, mezzanine and vault room, as well as the American Room on the top floor which has been out of bounds for several years. At the exhibition’s core will be a presentation of Genzken’s long-awaited architectural proposals for Ground Zero, the twenty first century’s most historically significant site. These proposals take the form of architecturally induced sculptures produced in consultation with a specialist team of engineers to ensure that each model can be realised to the approximate scale of the World Trade Towers. Running contrary to official designs, Genzken envisages buildings with a social purpose – a church, hospital, car park, disco, memorial and shopping centre. The emphasis being on community projects that might help emotionally regenerate the site, as opposed to office buildings or the kind of structures one might find in Dubai. Until 17 May.
www.hauserwirth.com

8 - Spring Loaded - Spring Loaded, the annual season of new contemporary dance from emerging British-based choreographers, returns to The Place this year for the first time since 2000. Teeming with work that is fresh and creative, Spring Loaded is a showcase for the best choreography from the UK's most promising talent, with 16 companies performing over six weeks from 13 April to 19 May.
www.theplace.org.uk

9 - Strictly Gershwin - Strictly Gershwin is a dazzling celebration of George Gershwin and the sparkling age of Hollywood music and dance. Gershwin’s sassy tunes, most famously Rhapsody in Blue and An American in Paris, combine with Derek Deane’s sensational choreography to conjure up the Silver Screen genius of Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers and Gene Kelly. With over 100 dancers and musicians filling the stage, glitzy cinematic images set the scene for English National Ballet's fabulous dance spectacular. From 13 June until 22 June.
www.royalalberthall.com

10 - Amazing Rare Things: The Art of Natural History in the Age of Discovery- This extraordinary exhibition, recently shown at The Queen’s Gallery in Edinburgh, is selected from the collections of the Royal Library in collaboration with the distinguished naturalist and broadcaster Sir David Attenborough. It brings together the works of four artists and a collector who have shaped our knowledge of the world around us. Leonardo da Vinci, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby are diverse figures who shared a passion for enquiry and a fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in nature. All lived at a time when new species were being discovered around the world in ever increasing numbers. Many of the plants and animals represented in the exhibition were then barely known in Europe. Today some are commonplace, while others are extinct. Until 28 September.
www.royalcollection.org.uk

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2. Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries

Events listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/events-in-London.htm

Theatre listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-theatres.htm

Museum listing:
http://www.londonforfun.com/London-museums.htm

Galleries listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/galleries-in-London.htm

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