Newsletter London for fun

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LONDON FOR FUN Newsletter: 10 February 2009 Issue No.166

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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 - Rosson Crow: Texas Crude - The Texan-born Californian-based artist has produced a series of large-scale paintings which portray grand scenes, inspired by moments in history. The spaces depicted in Crow’s work are of mythical or mythologized locations, devoid of people but with implications of recent habitation, as if capturing the moment after a party has ended. Her paintings are inspired by diverse references – Baroque and Rococo interior design, cowboy culture, Las Vegas architecture, theatre and music – their dominant scale pulling the viewer into the psychological space of the spectacle. Until 21 February. www.whitecube.com

2 - Superflex - Flooded McDonald's - 'Flooded McDonald's' is a new film work in which a convincing life-size replica of the interior of a McDonald’s burger bar, without any customers or staff present, gradually floods with water. Furniture is lifted up by the water, trays of food and drinks start to float around, electrics short circuit and eventually the space becomes completely submerged. From large-scale installations, through to long-term process-based projects and, more recently, films, Superflex’s work is founded in economic and political awareness. They create works inspired by the points where definitions and possibilities of art become blurred. Until 1 March. www.southlondongallery.org

3 - Byzantium 330-1453 - This ambitious exhibition, a collaboration between the Royal Academy of Arts and the Benaki Museum in Athens, provides a grand-scale survey of 1,000 years of history. Highlighting the splendours of the Byzantine Empire, 'Byzantium 330–1453' incorporates over 300 objects. Some of the works have never been displayed in public before. The exhibition includes great works from the San Marco Treasury in Venice and rare items from collections across Europe, the USA, Russia, Ukraine and Egypt. Until 22 March. www.royalacademy.org.uk

4 - Magnificence of the Tsars - The grandeur of Imperial Russia is captured in this display of the dress and uniforms of Emperors and officials of the Russian court. Starting in the 1720s with the lavishly embroidered coats and elaborately patterned silk banyans from the wardrobe of Tsar Peter II, the display spans a period of almost two centuries. Until 29 March. www.vam.ac.uk

5 - Deutsche Börse Photography Prize 2009 - Now in its 13th year, this annual prize of £30,000 rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, who has made the most significant contribution to photography in Europe, through either an exhibition or publication, over the past year. The winner will be announced on 25 March. From 20 February until 12 April. www.photonet.org.uk

6 - Japan Car - The world of Japanese car design set against the backdrop of Japan’s unique culture is explored in a sophisticated new exhibition. Japan Car, an exploration of the car as a "mobile cell", has been conceived by two world class names from outside the world of automobile: Kenya Hara, the man responsible for much of the success of Muji, and Shigeru Ban, the distinguished Japanese architect currently designing a new satellite gallery in Metz for Paris’ Pompidou Centre. The exhibition shows how Japanese car design reflects the 'soil and the spirit of Japan', shown through concept cars and special home market models. Japan Car explores three themes while examining the future of mobility in cities. Japan, being both highly innovative and densely populated, can be seen as the driving force behind transport solutions for twenty-first century cities. Until 19 April. www.sciencemuseum.org.uk

7 - Altermodern – Tate Triennial 2009 - The Tate Triennial 2009 at Tate Britain presents a collective discussion around this premise that postmodernism is coming to an end, and we are experiencing the emergence of a global altermodernity. Artists are responding to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expression and communication. Until 26 April. www.tate.org.uk/modern

8 - Cy Twombly - The Rose - Each painting comprises four wood panels on which three roses in full bloom are depicted in pulsating colours, ranging from deepest burgundy to tangerine, gold, violet and crimson, set against a background of vibrant turquoise. Inscribed on the last panel of each painting are fragments from Rilke's poem cycle "The Roses." Stanzas scrawled in a gestural mode reflect Twombly's characteristic conflation of painting and poetry, image and word, while his brushwork describes petals bursting open, together with words that hint and evoke. He allows the paint to flow down the panels so that liquidity and gravity interact, asserting the vertical passage of the medium over the broad horizontality of the support. From February 12 until May 9. www.gagosian.com

9 - Gerhard Richter's portraits - A groundbreaking exhibition devoted to one of the greatest living painters opens at the National Portrait Gallery on 26 February. This is the first major exhibition to show a selection of Richter's portraits across the entire span of his career. Dating from the 1960s to the present, it includes important early black-and-white paintings made from magazine photographs, works based on private snapshots, a special installation of his celebrated series 48 Portraits, and a never-previously exhibited portrait of his daughter Ella. Richter is widely regarded as one of the world's leading contemporary artists, a complex figure whose work from the early 1960s has moved between photographically derived figurative imagery and brightly coloured abstract painting. Until 31 May. www.npg.org.uk

10 - Brit Insurance Design of the year 2009 - The world’s most interesting and forward looking designs have been nominated for Brit Insurance Design Award by industry experts spanning seven categories: Architecture, Fashion, Furniture, Graphics, Interactive, Product and Transport. This shortlist will be on show at the Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition. From this comprehensive list, the panel will decide the category winners in each of the seven disciplines to be announced at the end of February. These finalists will go forward to vie for the 2009 Brit Insurance Design of the Year to be judged by a high profile panel, chaired by Alan Yentob and including the designer and environmentalist Karen Blincoe, and the architect Peter Coo. From 12 February until 14 June. www.designmuseum.org

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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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