“Expect light haze and sound. There will be chanting in Latin.”
OH NO… not Latin! Who’s the audience for that trigger warning? Delinquent posh kids that have been expelled from prep school? Clearly someone in management at the London Mithraeum felt it was necessary to include that verbal disclaimer to the immersive experience introduction. I can’t recall hearing it on my first visit a few years ago, so I can only assume it’s to save their staff from having to repeatedly explain the chants to confused audiences. Unfortunately, like most trigger warnings, it somewhat ruins the experience by unnecessarily revealing too much in advance.
I do hope, however, that the extensive selection of photos in my latest Roundup doesn’t make you feel you can skip these shows. Seeing my photos of the soup can sculpture that appears on the cover simply isn’t the same as having to limbo your way through it. And even though it’s cliché to say it, many of the works I’ve featured have textures that simply can’t be appreciated on a digital screen. So go see them!
Issue 122
Six superb shows to start September. Featuring: Jacob Dahlgren at Workplace; South Parade’s end-of-summer show; Liorah Tchiprout at Pippy Houldsworth; Thérèse Oulton at Vardaxoglou; Artbox London charity pop-up; Goshka Macuga at Bloomberg Space. Plus two honourable mention artworks.
Read the full issue online for mini-reviews of each show, with over 40 photos!
More Reviews:
Here’s three longer reviews for you to enjoy:
The Nature of Things @ Castor Gallery
19 artists “explore the thingliness of nature and the nature of things”.
Warbling - at last it came into focus @ 19 Greek Street
Quiet artworks from artists who work in a distinctively soft or more subtle way.
Why I Like It: Fourth Plinth (1841)
This month’s edition features a blank palette for an outdoor art programme.
What else, and what didn’t make the cut?
I began last week at the “degree show” for School of the Damned, an alternative education project that resets itself every year/cohort. There’s no facilities, no curriculum, no teachers and no tuition but the aspirations and intentions are much greater than just being a collective. The output was wildly mixed and heavily experimental but a handful of the 27 artists presented works that have landed their names on my radar.
In Fitzrovia, Altar States at Josh Lilley is filled with too many works trying too hard to be clever or kitsch, often in loud shouty ways that sit in stark contrast to the series of soft and intimate paintings of private moments shared between women, at Niru Ratnam. Looking at these quiet, often twee scenes made me feel like an intrusive male voyeur prying his way into someone’s safe space.
Speaking of private, Emilio Prini’s “typewriter drawings” at Sprovieri were never shown in his lifetime. His quirky, curious, exploratory works are a fantastic throwback of how artists in the pre-digital age would subvert mechanical production technology to create art in unintended ways.
In Islington, After Noah recently converted their garden shed into Gallery 121, a free exhibition space for artists, artisans and craftspeople. (Yes, FREE!) The current show runs until 08 Sept, and the gallery is taking applications for future exhibitions.
Finally, I ended the week with a sunny Sunday stroll through the landscaped gardens of ‘Inky’ Stephens in Finchley. It’s the setting for temporary art trail ‘The Sky is Moving Sideways’ which was a pretty mixed bag. More than a few works looked like someone’s kitchen cabinets were shaken out into the trees, but it was a joy to wander through the wooded grounds hunting for artworks. I also highly recommend Inky’s Stables Cafe. Their £5.60 bacon, sausage & egg wrap was a well priced treat! 😋
Anonymous Art Anecdotes
London gallery lineup changes continues at pace. My sources tipped me off that Bermondsey Project Space will be closing after almost 10 years. I’m going to miss it. Their shows, filled with emerging and underrepresented artists, always provided a great contrast to the polished blue chip exhibitions at nearby White Cube.
Maybe BPS’ demise will be balanced out by a new north-of-the-Thames entity that I learned about from another source. It’s called Panrucker Gallery (@panrucker.gallery). I had to ask three times for the spelling and yes, it sounds dirty if you say it out loud. They’ll initially be staging shows at venue-for-hire space Three Rooms (@threerooms_e17), a restored Victorian shop in Walthamstow Village. I’m not aware of any other galleries nearby and can’t even recall ever going to Walthamstow for an arts show, so it will be interesting to see if this new venue helps establish a Northeast Zone 3 arts presence or if they eventually decamp to a more central location.
Looking ahead…
Hello, September! It’s going to be a busy art week!
Deviant: Women, Sex and the Monstrous Erotic @ Horse Hospital — 03-07 Sept
Lehmann Maupin presents Teresita Fernández @ No.9 Cork Street — 05-21 Sept
Iain Andrews and Carolein Smit @ James Freeman— 05-28 Sept
Eva Rothschild @ Modern Art — 05-28 Sept
Vital Force (group show) @ October Gallery — 05-28 Sept
London Mural Festival — 05-29 Sept
Sara Berman and Hannah Tilson @ Cedric Bardawil — 06-28 Sept
Nona Inescu @ Brooke Bennington — 06 Sept - 05 Oct
Dante Elsner (1920-1997) @ Alice Black — 06 Sept - 17 Oct
Standing Ground @ Thames-side Studios — 07-22 Sept
The Gallery Entry Game
I know many of my readers pay very close attention to the details in the art they see. But how many of you are ‘actively looking’ before you walk in the gallery?
Here’s this week’s challenge and to make it easier for everyone to play the game is now multiple choice. Good luck! The answer will be in next week’s newsletter.
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Last week’s gallery was… Thaddaeus Ropac! Congrats to Gema and Tab, the two experts who knew! Here’s what it looks like. Can you spot all 6 of my photo edits?
What else would you like to see / read / know?
Thanks for making it all the way to the end of my Newsletter. Did you like what you read? Was there something else you expected? Leave an comment and let me know!
I like the photo game!
Good one.