‏Shanghai Art Guide - May

‏I.
Exhibition Title: Reconfiguration
‏Artist: Patty chang
‏Venue: Bank Mabsociety gallery
‏Dates: May 13- July 2, 2017

Patty Chang's early video works have depicted a horrifying, yet comforting experiences of fear, passion and conflict. Eating an onion while french kissing your parents, or uniting with an eel crawling under her button down shirt, are just two of the provocative and poetic expressions of Freudian anxieties we all kinda share. This has made her one of the “most consistently exciting artist of her time”. The current show is a lecture/performance based on the artist’s travels along the South-North Water Diversion Project, from its beginning at Danjiankou to the final reservoir in the outskirts of Beijing.

II.
‏Exhibition Title: Solo show
‏Artist: Julian Opie
‏Venue: Fosun foundation
‏Dates: Until June 10, 2017

Cause if there is a blockbuster in town you gotta go see it!

‏III.
Exhibition title: Where the end starts
‏Artist: Kwas
‏Venue: Yuz Museum
‏Dates: Until August 13, 2017

Kwas does everything that is hype from graffiti to illustration to Popart to f*ckng collaborating with Uniqlo. Can’t get more commercial than that, and Shanghai seems to be the perfect fit for it!
‏(oh don't forget to catch a DJ set at a speakeasy place after, and instagram all of it under "#hipsters don't die, they just get too predictable")

Melbourne Art Guide - May

May is the middle of Autumn in Melbourne, and while the leaves are changing colour and the weather is getting colder, the art is heating up. These are my top exhibition picks: 


I.
Exhibition Title: Mother Holding Something Horrific
Artist: Claire Lambe
Venue: Australian Centre for Contemporary Art
Dates: April 8 – June 25, 2017


Mother Holding Something Horrific is a new commission from Melbourne-based English-born artist Claire Lambe. The exhibition encompasses sculpture, photography, theatrical stage sets and video, and forms a powerful reflection on the human condition, exploring ideas of hope, love and fear. The exhibition is accompanied by six weekly performances from contemporary dancer and choreographer Atlanta Eke, which continues an ongoing collaboration between herself and Lambe.

Claire Lambe, The waterfall, 2017, installation view (detail), Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne. Courtesy of the artist and Sarah Scout Presents, Melbourne. Photograph: Andrew Curtis.

II.
Artist Darren Sylvester
Venue: Neon Parc
Dates: April 21 – June 10, 2017

Darren Sylvester’s second project with Neon Parc explores various pop culture references, predominantly American, to investigate ideas of luxury and desirability, high and low culture, and mortality. Three custom-designed chaise lounges are upholstered in wool printed with the insignia of early 1990s McDonalds hamburger packaging. These are accompanied by four large-scale photographs referencing entertainment and consumer culture, and a large floor-based sculpture that curves around the space in the colours of the FedEx logo.

Darren Sylvester, installation view, Neon Parc, Melbourne.

III.
Exhibition Title: Bent Guesses
Artist Aaron C. Carter
Venue: The Honeymoon Suite
Dates: May 5 – May 27, 2017

Bent Guesses from Aaron C. Carter combines painting and sculpture in vibrant colour.  His wall-based relief works use clay, pigment, and common building materials to achieve their sculptural quality. These are combined with found objects to create an installation that investigates the beauty of the everyday.

Aaron C. Carter, studio view, 2017. Photograph: Danny Cohen.


Header Image: Darren Sylvester, installation view, Neon Parc, Melbourne. 

- by Melissa Loughnan

Zürich Art Guide - May

In the last few weeks, we’ve experienced a full range of seasons in Zürich – from snowfall and hot drinks in cosy café corners to sunny days balmy enough to bring even a few brave swimmers to the riverside Badis! I sought out a similar panoply in the current art shows - multifaceted, and full of diversity and colour. 


I.
Exhibition title: Gregor and the Samsas (Kill your Friends)
Artist: Melli Ink
Galerie: Grieder Contemporary
Dates: March 24 – May 27, 2017

When first entering this gallery space, I was struck by the pure visual attraction of the installation. Forceful monochrome triangles in blue, yellow, pink and green (inspired by Gio Ponti) are painted directly on the walls juxtaposed with black and white film stills hanging over these forms, and small minimal sculptures arranged in the gallery space on wooden plinths. It was no surprise to learn that Melli Ink’s roots lie in stage design. 

This multi-faceted exhibition, sparked by the artist’s music video made with the California Soft Rockers in 2016, combines performance, costume, set design, video, photography and sculpture. The video documents the band commuting to work dressed as insects – a cockroach, fly and spider - a clear nod to Franz Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, transformed into a large monstrous insect-like creature and repelled and rejected by his family. The music and absurd footage is playful, but encourages more serious reflections on identity and how it is reflected by society. 

Melli Ink, Untitled, 2017
© Melli Ink, Courtesy of Grieder Contemporary

II. 
Exhibition title: Yesterday’s Echoes
Artist: Bianca Brunner
Galerie: BolteLang
Dates: March 24 – May 6, 2017

Bianca Brunner’s new body of work Yesterday`s Echoes looks at the things we do not register consciously. Bianca explores the idea that our minds hold our core memories – essentially we never forget, things are simply overwritten. The exhibition consists of six photographs in varying sizes and two sculptures. The sculptures are the artist’s first to be displayed in a gallery, although they have always been an integral part of her studio practice. 

The work is quiet and multi-layered, encouraging reflection. The minimal abstractions in soft-hued geometric forms are derived from plastic bags installed on a window in the artist’s studio, outside of which she also hangs sheets. The resulting photographs comprise wrinkles and imperfections, perhaps each layer a trace, a reminder of time passing, new events overlay old. 

Having followed Bianca’s work, this exhibition feels even more pared down than previous ones. Scale and subject are more cleverly concealed than ever to really push the viewer into a deeper introspection. It’s exciting to observe this evolution!

Bianca Brunner, Veil (pink), 2017
© Bianca Brunner, Courtesy of Galerie BolteLang 

III. 
Exhibition title:  No title
Artist: Christian Herdeg
Galerie: Lang + Pult
Dates: March 11 – May 13, 2017


It felt like a natural progression to follow with an exhibition of Swiss artist Christian Herdeg’s light installations. One of the pioneers of light art, he has been creating these works for over 40 years. 
Lange + Pult’s darkened gallery space is punctuated by oscillating abstract coloured forms made of light. 

Herdeg’s neon tubes turn into floating lines, which contrast seamlessly with the diffused colour fields of fluorescent light. He describes the pipes as “his pens” and his pieces as “kinetic light objects” – the idea of movement being key here. I found his work Sextett particularly enticing, where numerous squares made up of different coloured neon tube sides create varying shifts of colours within, and in turn produce triangular gradations that merge together in their centre. 

Standing amongst his works, I noticed in myself an emerging sense of calm. It was a perfect end to the gallery tour to pause in this space of serenity. 

Sextett, 2016
© Christian Herdeg, Courtesy of Galerie Lange + Pult


Header Image: Installation view, Gregor and the Samsas (Kill your Friends), Grieder Contemporary, Zurich, 2017 Photo credits: Gion Pfander
© Melli Ink, Courtesy of Grieder Contemporary

- by Diana Poole

Barcelona April Art Guide

This spring Barcelona has to offer a number of outstanding art exhibits among which we would like to highlight two that are already on view during the month of April 2017 - highly recommended!

Picasso Portraits, Picasso Museum, Barcelona
On view, until 25 of June 2017

The Museu Picasso in Barcelona presents the exhibition Picasso Portraits. This exhibition, co organised by the Museu Picasso, Barcelona and the National Portrait Gallery, London, accents the importance of the portrait in Picasso’s work. 

The exhibition brings together more than 80 pieces from public and private collections, revealing the technical media and variety of styles used by Picasso in working in portraiture, which was to always have an important place in his art. As well as acknowledged masterpieces, the exhibition also includes lesser-known paintings, drawings, sculpture and prints. 

We can find portraits of Dora Maar, Guillaume Apollinaire, Jean Cocteau, Nusch Éluard, Françoise Gilot, Max Jacob, Lee Miller, Fernande Olivier, Jacqueline Roque, Olga Khokhlova, Jaume Sabartés, Erik Satie, Igor Stravinsky, Miguel Utrillo and Marie-Thérèse Walter, amongst others.

Frederic Amat, Zoòtrop, Fundació LaPedrera
On view, until 16 July, 2017

Frederic Amat (Barcelona, 1952) is one of the leading figures in the contemporary Catalan art scene. His open concept of art has led him to incorporate numerous languages into his artistic practice, including painting, drawing, sculpture, installation art, performance, book illustration, videos, theatre set design and interventions in architectural spaces. 

The exhibition Frederic Amat "Zoòtrop" presents a selection of projects for interventions in natural and urban spaces, often associated with architecture, with the aim of drawing a map, a topography of the artist’s work, while seeking the poetic component present in it.

The title of the exhibition at La Pedrera, Zoetrope, is a reference to the stroboscopic device consisting of a rotating drum with slits cut in the sides through which the spectator can see a series of drawings which, as they spin, give the illusion of moving. Like a zoetrope, the exhibition intends to show the various facets of Frederic Amat’s work related to the space, architecture, the city and the landscape.

- by Angel Granero 

LONDON APRIL ART GUIDE

April is my favourite month in London: a ray of sunshine, fresh ideas and a hopeful heart. This month, you could find me rambling about art and artists in these locations: 

- Banksy on Tooley Street, SE1
Just where Tooley Street meets the underpass beneath London Bridge you can find this quirky rat by Banksy - one of many that the artist has left around London. Banksy is such a key character for our city - the graffiti artist come political activist combines dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stencil technique. 

- A cloud of fog by Fujiko Nakaya, Tate Modern
Quick, rush to see Fujiko Nakaya's swirling sculpture made of midst, which will be enveloping the Tate until the 2nd April. Her clouds of fog have adorned bridges in the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao and Philip Johnson's Glass House. Of them, the artist says: 'Nature controls herself. I try and let nature speak'. It cannot get any more surrealist: pure magic!

- Child's Play, Foundling Museum, Bloomsbury
Documentary artist Mark Neville has taken photographs of children playing around the world: Ukraine, Kenya, the Highlands, North London etc.. At a time when up to 13 million children have been internally displaced as a result of armed conflict and traditional public space is being privatised, this show reinforces our responsibility to ensure that children have full opportunity for play. 

- The studio of artist Leni Dothan and the National Gallery
More recently, I have enjoyed exploring the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery, which is mostly dedicated to altarpieces and religious works pre High Renaissance. The one work I rediscovered was Madonna of the Pinks by Raphael., The intimacy between child and mother reminds me very much of the work of our artist Leni Dothan and her relationship with her son, Yali. It prompted my back and forth between the two locations, comparing this new reference with one of my favourite artists from our crew. 

Leni Dothan

- by Marina Tanguy

Cover pic credit: Zabludowicz collection