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LONDON FOR FUN Newsletter: 14 June 2011 Issue No.206

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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 - George Shaw: The Sly and Unseen - This solo exhibition by British artist George Shaw brings together paintings made over the past 15 years which chart the urban landscape of his childhood home on the Tile Hill Estate in Coventry. Painted in Humbrol enamels, more usually associated with boyhood model-making, and based on photographs, Shaw’s works revisit landmarks remembered from his youth. Meticulously painted houses, pubs, underpasses and parks become autobiographical notes, frozen in time. Conflating memory and present day reality, Shaw’s works take on an uncanny quality, alluding to a murkier side of contemporary society and collective subconscious. Until 3 July. www.southlondongallery.org

2 - Summer Exhibition 2011 - An essential part of the London art calendar, The Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition is the largest open contemporary art exhibition in the world, drawing together a wide range of new and recent work by established, unknown and emerging artists. Until 15 August. www.royalacademy.org.uk

3 - Miró - Joan Miró's works come to London in the first major retrospective here for nearly 50 years. Renowned as one of the greatest Surrealist painters, filling his paintings with luxuriant colour, Miró worked in a rich variety of styles. This is a rare opportunity to enjoy more than 150 paintings, drawings, sculptures and prints from moments across the six decades of his extraordinary career. Miró is among the most iconic of modern artists, using a language of symbols that reflects his personal vision, sense of freedom, and energy. The exhibition includes many of the key works that we know and love. It also shows that, behind the engaging innocence of his imagery, lies a profound concern for humanity and a sense of personal and national identity. Extraordinary works from different moments of his career celebrate his roots in his native Catalonia. Until 11 September. www.tate.org.uk/modern

4 - Watch Me Move: The Animation Show - In 1911, American cartoonist and animator, Winsor McCay prefaced his short film Little Nemo with the invitation to ‘Watch Me Move’, introducing a cast of colourful characters in a playful promenade. A century later, animation is one of the most popular and prevalent of visual art forms. Tracing the history of animation over the last 150 years, Watch Me Move: The Animation Show brings together for the first time, contemporary artists, cut-out, collage, puppet, clay and stop-motion animators, auteur filmmakers and exponents of experimental film alongside the creative output of the commercial studios such as Walt Disney, Hanna-Barbera, Aardman, and Pixar. Presenting animation as a distinctive and highly influential force in the development of visual culture, this exhibition explores the relationship between animation and film and offers a timely insight into animation as a cultural and socio-political phenomenon. Until 11 September. www.barbican.org.uk

5 - Cy Twombly and Nicolas Poussin - Arcadian Painters - This unique exhibition will look at these two figures side by side for the first time. Separated by three centuries the two artists nonetheless share remarkable similarities. The connections are highlighted through the key themes of Arcadia and the pastoral, passion and love, violence and war and mythological figures that are central to both artists’ work. From 29 June until 25 September. www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

6 - Treasures of Heavensaints, relics and devotion in medieval Europe - This major exhibition brings together for the first time some of the finest sacred treasures of the medieval age. It features over 150 objects drawn from more than 40 institutions including the Vatican, European church treasuries, museums from the USA and Europe and the British Museum’s own pre-eminent collection. It was during the medieval period that the use of relics in devotional practice first developed and became a central part of Christian worship. For many, the relics of Christ and the saints – objects associated with them, such as body parts or possessions – continue to provide a bridge between heaven and earth today. Relics featured in the exhibition include three thorns thought to be from the Crown of Thorns, fragments of the True Cross, the foot of St Blaise, the rib of St Peter, the breast milk of the Virgin Mary, the hair of St John the Evangelist, and the Mandylion of Edessa (one of the earliest known likenesses of Jesus). From 23 June until 9 October. www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk

7 - Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits - A new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery will examine the importance of photography in creating the stars of Hollywood from 1920 to 1960. Glamour of the Gods: Hollywood Portraits, Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation will include portraits of Marlene Dietrich, James Dean, Joan Collins, Marlon Brando, Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe by nearly 40 photographers including George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Laszlo Willinger, Bob Coburn and Ruth Harriet Louise. Nearly all of the photographs in the exhibition will be vintage prints drawn from the archive of the John Kobal Foundation. This will be a rare opportunity to view these important artifacts of a now extinct Hollywood studio system. The exhibition will show both iconic and previously unseen studio portraits of Clark Gable, Marlene Dietrich, Joan Crawford, Vivien Leigh, Loretta Young, and Carole Lombard among others. These portraits will be shown alongside film scene stills including Lillian Gish for The Wind, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers for Swing Time and James Dean for Rebel without a Cause. Stills photographs which were used for lobby cards and posters and had to encapsulate the film plot, or be powerful and dramatic enough to attract film-goers in just one image. From 7 July until 23 October. www.npg.org.uk

8 - Taryn Simon - Tate Modern premieres an important new body of work by the American artist Taryn Simon, who chronicles generational histories through an elaborate assembly of image and text. In each, the external forces of territory, power, circumstance or religion collide with the internal forces of psychological and physical inheritance. From feuding families in Brazil to victims of genocide in Bosnia, and human exhibitions in the United States to the living dead in India, Simon forms a collection that maps the relationships among chance, blood and other components of fate. Simon’s presentation explores the struggle to determine patterns embedded in the narratives she documents. From 25 May until 6 November. www.tate.org.uk/modern

9 - The Vorticists: Manifesto for a Modern World - Led by painter Wyndham Lewis and named by American poet Ezra Pound, the revolutionary Vorticist artists reacted against the culture of Edwardian England with a radical new aesthetic that embraced the maelstrom of the modern world. This exhibition celebrates the electrifying force and vitality of Vorticism by bringing together over 100 works including paintings, sculptures, as well as the rarely seen Vorticist photography of Alvin Langdon Coburn, claimed as the first ever abstract photographs, and newly revealed works by key women Vorticists. Drawing on new research, the exhibition goes beyond a purely British interpretation of Vorticism, highlighting the movement’s connections with the American avant-garde in New York. Until 4 December. www.tate.org.uk

10 - Masterpiece a Month: Presiding Genius - The Gallery celebrates its 200th year with an astonishing international loan exhibition. Masterpiece A Month: Presiding Genius will feature a loan masterpiece every month in star position at the end of the Gallery’s enfilade. Until 31 December. www.dulwichpicturegallery.org.uk

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2. Other Events, Theatre listings, Museums and Galleries:

Events listing:
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Theatre listings:
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Museum listing:
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Galleries listings:
http://www.londonforfun.com/galleries-in-London.htm

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