Georgie Hopton at Poppy Sebire

I finally made it to Poppy Sebire’s gallery space at All Hallows Hall, Copperfield Street, Southwark.   I had heard much about Sebires’ gallery but had never managed it make it over there.  The space and location alone is worth a visit.

It nestles between what looks like a well-loved small community garden, Alms houses and what looks like the smartest London Fire Brigade centre in London.  Literally a stones’ throw from the Jerwood Project Space, this disused church hall has been minimally converted into a great showing space.  Actually the word ‘converted’ sounds a little too prissy for what is really a good smartening up with a good lick of paint. Like a retired ballet dancer, the hall oozes good bone structure that has worn time well.

Complimenting their temporary home perfectly Georgie Hopton’s diverse artworks  engaged me fully as soon as I walked in . Hoptons’ work immediately felt fresh, different, articulate and beautifully presented.

Hoptons’ works has a handcrafted aesthetic that is redolent of the Arts & Crafts movement.  In fact, her work chimes very well with the Zeitgeist.  Having lived though the recent boom and bust years, many people are forging a more meaningful relationship with the simpler things in life.  Gardening, knitting, a make do and mend mindset seems quite pervasive at this moment in time.  Hopton seems to have a long established passion for gardening, eating the fruits of her labour and the beauty of nature as it dwindles into its twilight phase.

In ‘The Wounded Tulip’ Hopton uses pretty much every medium to demonstrate her vision of a beautiful simple life.  Fecundity is tamed with her pared down mark making.  Block printing using vegetables and then also the stems ‘A Wet Season’s Veg Print (xvi)  that grew them are used to create simple, beautiful collages.  Curtains are hand painted with stylised tulips ‘Wounded Tulip Repeat Domestic Sculpture’.  But for me, the star pieces are her sculptures and mirrored photographs.  Playing deftly between media, Hopton transposes dimensionalities between the two media.  Photographs become three dimensional through the clever use of mirror borders ‘ Bruised Tulip’ and ‘ Wounded Tulip from Behind’ and sculptures see-saw between flat planes bringing to life the cushioned decorative nature of how flowers are often depicted – on cushions and soft furnishings.

The highlight of the show is ‘Submission’ a Jesmomite sculpture of a Tulip ripe with fertile seedhead yet absolutely at the moment of collapse; it simply no longer can bear its own weight.  Hoptons skill eeks sympathy and love for a forsaken object from the viewer.

Apparently the artist is interested in making a huge version of this which people would be able to walk under at the point where the stem most droops under the weight of its own productivity.  

On the train home, I remember the Spalding Flower Festival my parents would take me too as a young kid.  Tulips are a major part of the local economy and are feted in this completely over the top parade of themed floats made entirely from flowers and I cannot help but think a giant Wounded Tulip should be right up their street.

This post was written and submitted by Ingrid Hinton, Curator.

Georgie Hopton is at Poppy Sebire until 16 June 2012

paolo reversi at the wapping project bankside

I dropped in recently to the very pleasant Wapping Project Bankside space in Hopton Street, just a latte’s throw away from the Tate Modern, to see what they had on. It turned out to be Paolo Roversi – not a name that I was familiar with, but apparently ‘one of the most esteemed fashion photographers currently working’.

I have seen similar phrases quite often, usually where photographic galleries seek to monetise fashion photographers’ back catalogues of stored work. Fashion images are naturally usually taken for one-off magazine publication before being consigned to storage, but in this case it the published phrase held up to scrutiny with Roversi actually being truly revered in the industry and these works being genuinely interesting.

Having started working with Associated Press in 1970 Roversi moved in to fashion in Paris in the 1970′s. A Dior campaign in 1980 made his name and since then he has continued from his minimal Paris studio working with names like Comme des Garcons, YSL, Dior and Valentino and featuring in exhibitions in many of the worlds top museums.

It does not take long viewing these images before you realise that Roversi’s work was somewhat more interesting than the typical fashion photographer – an early give-away being that many of the images do not feature any fashion or even any clothes at all! His work is delicate and ethereal featuring models, of both sexes, chosen for their enigmatic and mysterious looks are pictured against simple backdrops.  All are taken with a 10×8 tripod-mounted camera which provides a distinctive appearance – shallow depth of field, occasional blurring and an old-fashioned ‘look’, helped here by the fact that almost all the images are in black and white.

He has said ‘I started to work with this camera for its size, the 8×10 format. Taking pictures one by one is a slow procedure. I found my way through this camera— how to work. It was the ideal way to express myself. By now, I know it very well. It has become a part of my skin; my blood.’

This is a lovely small exhibition in an attractive space, well worth a stop on the way to the Tate (or vice-versa!).

At the Wapping Project Bankside until 31 March 2012

PS: ‘Lips’ is not in the exhibition but a nice example of his unusal work…

Related articles

• Paolo Roversi | The Wapping Project (dazeddigital.com)
• Interview: Paolo Roversi Talks to Filep Motwary (filepmotwary.com)

david shrigley at stephen friedman

Humour is not hard to find in postmodern art – a typical definition of postmodernism will probably include humour alongside parody and irony – and we are all familiar with works like Maurizio Cattelan‘s Pope Struck by a Meteorite (below), Jeff Koons‘ Rabbit and Gavin Turk‘s Blue Plaque. But this is not laugh out loud humour – or should I say nowadays lol humour – this is more like the knowing chuckle of the West End audience in a performance of an Alan Bennett play. So when we do get a work of art that we can really laugh at (presuming that we are not laughing at its awfulness) it is instinctive to ask ourselves whether this really is art or not. Surely we should not be lol-ing at proper art?

But lol I did at the wonderful David Shrigley‘s exhibition at Stephen Friedman. Shrigley of course has a big retrospective currently showing at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank (to be reviewed later) and Friedman has taken the opportunity to use both his West End gallery spaces for a parallel exhibition. A lot of his work of course is on paper but he has broadened his output to include sculpture, animation, taxidermy and photography.

The first gallery space at Steven Friedman is taken over by the darkly humorous and rather disconcerting Bombs, an installation of black ceramic sculptures, subverting the destructive nature of a real bomb using a rather delicate material. In the next a sculptured word - writing - sits upon a small wall mounted platform, no explanation required.

A clever animation in the back room is of an artist faithfully depicting his model on canvas: the breasts are first (is that what that the artist is really interested in?), then the rest of the body and head, until finally after careful consideration, adding a smile to replace the glum expression of the model. The cynical suggestion of course is that art is there to please – the artist changing the reality to fit the expectations and commercial realities.

The most humorous works are those on paper over the road at Friedman’s other gallery space. Too many to describe and I do not have any images, but some random images below just for fun or for some more examples of his work have a look at the Steven Friedman Gallery website or better still drop in next time you are in the West End!

David Shrigley is at the Steven Friedman gallery until 10 March 2012.

Related articles

• David Shrigley: one of the cleverest, funniest conceptual artists (thetruthiswhere.wordpress.com)
• In pictures: Shrigley’s weird world (news.bbc.co.uk)
• David Shrigley: art’s White Rabbit (guardian.co.uk)
• david shrigley: brain activity at hayward gallery, london (designboom.com)
• David Shrigley: Brain Activity – A Reality Check for Modern Art (rattlingoastick.wordpress.com)

yayoi kusama at tate modern; now & future japan; hyper japan

I’m turning Japanese, I think I’m turning Japanese,  I really think so….. It seems that there are all sorts of Japanesey things happening here in London pretty much at the same time – the Yayoi Kusama exhibition at Tate Modern being the highlight of course.

yoko ono - mend piece

Opening soon Now & Future JAPAN supports orphaned children from the Tsunami and features a work by Yoko Ono repeated from 1966 - Mend Piece – where visitors are invited to join in by repairing broken china. A fund-raising auction takes place alongside – see website for details. Please try to support it.

Meanwhile, starting today at Earls Court, Hyper Japan is UK’s biggest celebration of Japanese ‘culture, cuisine and cool.’ I will try and drop in if only to say konishi wa to Satoshi Miki – director of those unforgettable classics Instant Swamp and Turtles are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers (see it!) and to check out the World Cosplay Summit (Cosplay being anime/manga/video dressing up – don’t ya just love it!).

Talking about someone who loves dressing up Yayoi Kusama‘s big solo exhibition at Tate Modern kicked off a couple of weeks ago. I do like Kusama, but I was not overly excited about the prospect of some 14 rooms chock full of her trademark spots. However this was a prospect that I has seriously misjudged and Yayoi, bowing deeply, I apologise. Like many, I am sure, I have been far too ready to assign her to the ‘it’s just lots of spots’ category (even the Tate get carried away in the foyer – image above!) but here was a timely reminder of all the wonderful, innovative and varied work that she has made over a long – and still continuing – highly influential career.

A prodigy and already exhibiting in her teens Kusama moved quickly from oils to every variety of works on paper and the first rooms of the exhibition show stunning imagination and variety. Quickly even Japan was too small for her. She soon decided, whilst only still in her mid twenties that ‘For art like mine… questioning what we are and what it means to live and die… [Japan] was too small… My art needed a more unlimited freedom and a wider world.’  

So off she went to the USA first having made contact with Georgia O’Keefe – one of the most influential painters of that time: this was no shrinking violet but a hugely determined artist. She quickly switched now from the compulsive and repetitive Infinity Nets to sculpture-making, her Accumulation Sculptures covering everyday objects with repeating forms. Her huge influence on the avant-garde of pop art being clear if I simply tell you that a boat sculpture was exhibited as the ‘One Thousand Boats Show’ in a room pasted on all sides with repeating silkscreen images (of the same boat from above) a full three years before Warhol created his ‘Cow’ wallpaper and that her stuffed objects predated those of Claes Oldenburg.

Her work continued to evolve rapidly. She featured herself in her own collages, photographs and films, putting the artist at the centre of the work – a tactic we are now (overly?) familiar with a la Emin, Abramovic, Gormley etc – but back then highly original. She threw herself in to happenings, performances and installation ‘environments’. As if she had not yet done enough she returned to Japan where she briefly set herself up as an art dealer before, deeply troubled, she checked herself in to an asylum where she remains to this day. As you may have guessed even this did not stop her with production of collages, sculpture, painting and installation still continuing apace.

If anyone has forgotten, or did not realise, just how influential and original Kusama really was then this excellent and comprehensive exhibition is a real must-see. A highly surreal, visual treat right through until the final two room-sized installations; one an infra-red/day-glo world of multi-coloured spots that float before your eyes, the other a mirrored space containing infinitely reflected tiny multi-coloured lights. Dazzling in every way – and the kids will love it too!

Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern until 5 June 2012

Now & Future JAPAN at 39 Dover Street, London W1S 4NN from 3 – 9 March 2012

Hyper Japan at Earls Court 24 – 26 February 2012

Related articles

• Yayoi Kusama, Tate Modern, review (telegraph.co.uk)
• Yayoi Kusama arrives at Tate Modern with a polka at Damien Hirst (guardian.co.uk)

dont be seduced by s[edition]

With todays unveiling of the Elmgreen & Dragset sculpture for the fourth plinth - Powerless Structures; fig 101 - the online digital ‘art’ collecting company s[edition] is offering 5000 free ‘editions’ of the sculpture.

For those of you who haven’t heard s[edition] “is a revolutionary new way to collect art by the world’s leading contemporary artists in digital format. Experience a whole new world of art and collecting.”   Supposedly this is the way that you can suddenly ‘own’ you own masterworks of contemporary art. They boast that works “that can normally command astronomical prices can be had here [sic] for as little as 4 Euros.”  They do not mention that it is up to 500 euros – -hardly good value in my book. And who are these artists that have licenced their work? Surprise, surprise – Tracey Emin, Damien Hirst and Matt Collishaw for starters, you can guess many of the rest.

Hmm – 4 Euros – spotted the catch yet? Uniquely it can only be used on digital devices accessible from your online vault. Infact all you are doing is paying to use an image. Forgive me for being cynical but wouldn’t most people just find an image somewhere on the web and use it as a screensaver? OK, officially you have to have permission to use some images but still many people will not be too concerned about using any image they find on the web for personal use (and there are plenty of royalty free images around too).

S[edition] cleverly throw around words like ‘own’, ‘collection’, ‘certificate of authenticity’. Art collecting is “instant, affordable, social and enjoyable“. And what happens if you want to sell some of these valuable ‘editions’ that you ‘own’ in your ‘art collection’. You can forget it for now – you cannot sell (or give) them to anyone else. They promise an online marketplace in the future, but don’t expect a queue of takers for those Hirst spots that you thought might look nice on the ipad.

Don’t get seduced in to thinking you are ‘owning’ contemporary art and this is somehow an art ‘collection’. This is throwaway temporary decoration. When I was younger we used to have access to instant, affordable, good value artworks – they were called Athena posters. They are of course now all valueless and discarded. If you want ‘arty’ screen-savers do yourself a favour and save some money – just browse the web!

Related articles

• S[edition] Art: Collect Boldface Artists, Digitally (apartmenttherapy.com)
• elmgreen & dragset unveiled on 4th plinth trafalgar square (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)

photographers gallery announces reopening date

The excellent Photographers Gallery, closed for a year or so now, has just announced that it is to reopen on the 19 May 2012. Put it in the diary right now! This is an important institution that I have greatly missed in recent times. It is still open by appointment and the excellent bookshop is also open but the three new exhibition spaces will bring a huge boost to photographic exhibitions in London. Furthermore it is widely involved in projects, talks and works with schools and education and its importance cannot be underestimated. Expect also for the new cafe to be a good place to drop in to an an arty place to hang out!

The Photographers Gallery is certainly the most relevant and important gallery of its kind in London, and the UK for that matter, founded 1971 in a converted Lyon’s Tea Bar. It was the first independent gallery in Britain devoted to photography and was the first public gallery in the country to exhibit many of the key international names in photography such as Juergen Teller (fashion), Robert Capa (photojournalism), Sebastião Salgado (documentary) and Andreas Gursky (contemporary art). It has also been instrumental in establishing many contemporary British photographers including Martin Parr and Julie Cockburn (illustrated below).

Additionally it has established the highly regarded annual £30k International (now Deutsche Borse) Photography Prize. Past prize winners include Andreas Gursky (1998), Juergen Teller (2003), Robert Adams (2006), Esko Männikkö (2008), Paul Graham (2009), Sophie Ristelhuber (2010) and Jim Goldberg (2011).

The Photographers Gallery is currently on the 3rd Floor at 7 – 9 William Road, London NW1 3ER. Call prior to arrange a visit.

Opening hours Tue – Sat: 10.00 – 18.00  Contact 020 7087 9320

The new Gallery will open on 19 May 2012 at 16-18 Ramillies Street W1F 7LW

Emin, Hirst & Banksy – who deserves to be in the news?

It seems appropriate that three of the most notorious names of recent years have been in the news recently and have appeared there for widely different reasons. Tracey Emin has just been appointed Professor of Drawing at the Royal Academy, Damien Hirst has announced new exhibitions of his entire spot paintings and Banksy has just donated a ‘controversial’ work to the Walker Gallery in Liverpool. Only one should be meaningful to the art world.

Here are three very different artists that have taken key roles within the mass media as representatives of the contemporary art world. Their ‘notoriety’ has been neatly pigeonholed by the press. Tracey Emin for her raw and sexual autobiographical work, the unmade bed, the ‘how can this be art’ tabloid diatribe. She is the bad girl made good. Damien Hirst for his blatant money-making approach and mass-produced work – symbol of the commercialisation of art. The bad boy made rich. Banksy for his anonymous (despite the fact that everyone knows who he is – it’s just that nobody wants to spoil the game) gallery ‘interventions’ and graffiti. The naughty boy turned film producer.

The board of the Royal Academy has just appointed Emin as Professor of Drawing. Although she has been quite cosy with the RA for some years her appointment is a surprise to me. After all she is famously inclusive with her attitude to method –  she paints, draws, embroiders, sculpts, etches, assembles, works in neon and much more. She told us for her Hayward solo show that her work ‘is about words’. Her drawing is OK – if you like repeated drawings of Emin masturbating. Actually I am being overly critical – her drawing is quite good but hardly the stuff of RA professorship. This is an appointment that smacks of some combination of internal/external politics, inclusivity (she is the first female professor in RA history) and media attention.

Hirst meanwhile, as commercial as ever, will next month be showing his entire output of spot paintings at 11 Gagosian galleries worldwide when over 300 variations of the painting series that he first produced in 1988 will be shown. He announced them finished in 2008 but (his ‘factory’) continues production, currently working on a painting that contains two million spots. I hope you can contain your excitement – just one of these appalling ‘paintings’ is enough for me. Yawn.

Up in Liverpool, just in time for Christmas, the Walker has announced the permanent loan of a piece by Banksy. Entitled Cardinal Sin an 18th Century replica stone bust has had its face sawn off and glued on is a selection of bathroom tiles. The resulting ‘pixellated’ portrait is a very neat comment on the abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church and its on-going cover-up.

The one significant piece of news? Whilst Emin has become part of the establishment and Hirst regurgitates his poorest work (easiest to make?) only Banksy – who I have had mixed feelings about to date – produces something of worth. Further this is his best work to date by far – away from quaint political slogans and clever graffiti he has made a Museum quality work. As he says “The statue? I guess you could call it a Christmas present. “At this time of year it’s easy to forget the true meaning of Christianity – the lies, the corruption, the abuse.” Brilliant. Re-spect.

[ps - apologies for a prolonged absence in December - moving house!]

Related articles

• Hirst connects dots across New York, Paris, London and more (travelnews.britishairways.com)
• Tracey Emin appointed as RA’s Professor of Drawing (telegraph.co.uk)

massimo vitali at brancolini grimaldi

It was surprising to discover that this exhibition is Massimo Vitali’s first solo UK exhibition in nearly fifteen years. Long overdue it is fitting that the recently-established Brancolini Grimaldi gallery, who specialise in photographic works, should also feature a fellow countryman.

Vitali’s stock in trade is the overexposed and washed-out image of over-populated locations. Beaches feature prominently as have discos and parties, whilst the current exhibition features coastal scenes. All are blown up in to a large-scale – typically about six feet high and more across – mounted under plexiglass to heighten a feeling of plastic unreality.

Talking briefly with Vitali at the exhibition it was interesting to hear that he started this theme of work following his despair at the Italian political scene when Berlusconi came to power. He decided to photograph the people of Italy to see if he could find any insight in to the way that they think. The mundane and everyday moments in locations of beauty such as beached appealed to him.

Despite many of the images seeming to feature almost uninhabited landscapes he confirmed that his images are still always about people. It is their interaction with the landscape and not the location itself which is most important. I loved his Firiplaka Red Yellow Diptych - a multicoloured cliff-face with a few figures walking the water’s edge at its base. It was an image he waited and waited for and only as the waves lapped over the top of the tall platform, from which he takes his high viewpoint shots, did he finally get the composition he wanted. In the end it was his favourite image in the show.

I personally prefer his earlier – even more washed-out – images but here is a top photographer close to his peak and it is worth stopping by for a look. Works are expensive – £30k or so, increasing towards the ends of the editions of six – but will surely hold their value.

Departing I snapped a final image and just as I did so a figure walked through the frame – it was Vitali himself, so I add the image below. Perhaps he would approve – after all he could be just another anonymous Italian in a beautiful coastal landscape….

At Brancolini Grimaldi until 28 January 2012

Related articles

• Massimo Vitali: The seaside snapper who’s making waves (independent.co.uk)
• Massimo Vitali’s Photographs in Home Interiors (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Crowded Coast Photography – Massimo Vitali’s Beach Shoot Exposes Seasides Packed With People (TrendHunter.com) (trendhunter.com)
• Massimo Vitali, Lucca, Italy | Feature Shoot (ambravernuccio.wordpress.com)

david bailey – hitler killed the duck at scream

I have always thought that the notoriously irreverent and enjoyably grumpy photographer David Bailey has always been slightly underestimated. Not that of course he goes unrecognised but that perhaps he is often dismissed as simply a fashion photographer or celebrity snapper. Actually his work has often been groundbreaking with for example his use of excessive contrast and very tight cropping.

I recently visited his studio where, despite being well in to his seventies, he had been up since 6.30 am working in the darkroom (he still does much of his own printing). This despite the fact that by now he should of course be able to hang up his lenses for good and have a very comfortable living from his back catalogue. Still working every day – “otherwise I’d get bored stiff” – his latest work has not actually involved photography but painting.

Paint is of course a departure from his usual work but, no doubt encouraged by his good mate Damien Hirst, he fancied trying his hand at something different. And different it certainly is. The exhibition is called Hitler killed the Duck - a title derived from the bombing of his local cinema when he was a child. The works in the show are split between expressionistic – if one could call it that – canvases that variously feature Mickey Mouse, warplanes, Donald Duck and Hitler with daubed graffiti such as 1942 WAS A BAD YEAR, WANTED or WOT, and inspired by these childhood experiences. The remainder take one of his iconic photographs as a starting point for some overpainting.

The former do not really work and some might be unkind and say that perhaps he should not have bothered – but hey, its David Bailey, if he wants to try it why not? In any case am sure he would say something like ‘f*** ‘em – who cares?’ As for the photographic-based pieces they are actually work very well, perhaps due to the sthrength of the original images.

In Red Warhol, Jack Nicholson and Noel Gallagher the original photographs featuring the thoughtful, bad and mad respectively are tightly cropped with the black and white or sepia images still visible through or inside the painted background.

It is not great art – but here is one of Britains iconic photographers having some fun and what the the hell, why not take a look.

David Bailey Hitler Killed the Duck is on at Scream until the 12 November 2011

Related articles

• ‘Hitler Killed the Duck’: New paintings by David Bailey (dangerousminds.net)
• Photographer David Bailey’s muse claims she never got a penny (telegraph.co.uk)

ahmed alsoudani at the haunch of venison

You have too give credit to Charles Saatchi. Three years ago the gallery snapped up half a dozen works by the New York based Iraqi painter, Ahmed Alsoudani, no doubt for peanuts. At the time an up and coming middle eastern artist ranked (if you take any notice of such things) by Artfacts way down below 30,000 in their scheme for world artists, he is now, after a near vertical climb, already rated under the 10,000 mark. Since appearing at auction last  year his works have exceeded £200,000 each whilst last week at Sothebys Baghdad I  - actually from the Saatchi collection - sold for an amazing £713,000 against an estimate of £250-350,000.

His first UK exhibition has just opened at the Haunch of Venison and you can bet that it has already been sold out. The works, mostly medium to large-scale, are certainly striking. Starting from energetic charcoal drawings, which often remain in unpainted areas, his figurative works feature distorted and intertwined bodies or body parts, in a more or less tangled mass together with assorted, barely identifiable objects like clothing, foam, tubes and pieces of concrete. Flashes of vivid, bright colour combine with more painterly sections and charcoal drawing.

The paintings naturally relate to his, and his compatriots, experience of conflict in his homeland. Without expressly depicting war they however clearly reflect the effect and experience of war upon the people who live under its shadow. Pain and suffering is clearly visible via the tortured and broken bodies. The wide spaces of the fine new Haunch of Venison Gallery allows a calm and reflective viewing. These are hugely impressive and very powerful paintings in a striking setting.

Haunch of Venison until 26 November 2011

Related articles

• Ahmed Alsoudani: Iraq to London, via New York and Venice (independent.co.uk)
• adrian ghenie at haunch of venison (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)