Shimabaku sharpening his Apple
It’s wonderful what obscure byways you can be drawn into if you visit a few shows. Just sticking to natural history:
How do you cut an apple with an apple? Shimabaku makes it look easy at Wilkinson (to 17 May, with the bonus of a brilliant set of paintings by Marcin Maciejowski). He sharpens the side of his Macbook Air to a guillotine finish before wielding it on the fruit. So if you crave thematically murderous revenge on a computer addict…
Salvatore Arancio: ‘Holes’ 2015, calcite, epoxy resin, pigment, epoxy modeling compound, pain
What’s going on in the world of barnacles? London hasn’t has a good barnacle show since Paul Delafield Cook at Purdy Hicks in 2013, which makes Salvatore Arancio’s ceramics at the Contemporary Art Society (to 28 Aug) a particular pleasure. That counters the recent news that the teeth the mobile limpet uses to cling to a rock contain the strongest naturally occurring substance yet discovered, which had threatened to rather overshadow the fixed spot barnacle.
Moussa Sar: still from ‘L’Orgasme du Singe’, 2007
Do female monkeys have orgasms? The verdict is out in wild practice, but all female mammals have a clitoris, and all primates can be artificially stimulated to such behaviours – hyperventilation, spasms, clutching, eversion of the lips, panting vocalization – as are demonstrated by the French African video artist Moussa Sar in the racially charged ‘L’Orgasme du Singe’ at Cecilia Brunson Projects (to 8 May), one of a group of punchy little plays to camera which also include an insect impersonation which comfortably outdoes Isabella Rossellini on ‘The Sex Life of Insects’.
Most days art critic Paul Carey-Kent spends hours on the train, traveling between his home in Southampton and his day job in London. Could he, we asked, jot down whatever came into his head?
