It’s first Thursday, and there is LOADS on. Check out our round up below, and click through to this week’s FADmap for even more to go see tonight.
View FADmap 7th July 2011 Cool Art Stuff to do in a larger map
New Gallery Opening | BEACH London | Editions
Beach London Gallery, café and bookshop will launch on the 7th July with ‘Beach Editions’ a group show featuring an international selection of artists whose work is influenced by comics, magazines, zines and low-brow culture.
New work from James Unsworth, Anna-Faye Gillespie, Sister Arrow, Carl Partridge, John Bohl and Sean Morris.
Also on the night, Beach London will be launching their first publication – a colection of photographical work by Essex-based upstarts, Lifestyles of the Poor and Unknown.
Until 28th July
www.beachlondon.co.uk
Alastair Mackie | I was there in Arcadia | Pertwee Anderson & Gold
In I was there, in Arcadia Alastair Mackie draws on man’s relationship with nature, challenging our awareness and convictions about the boundaries that separate the two.
His first solo show since Not Waving but Drowning in 2009 at the David Roberts Art Foundation, the exhibition will open with four delicate spherical sculptures displayed under glass cases. Upon closer inspection, the surface turns out to be intricately composed of hundreds of perfect mouse skulls. The bones were collected and processed from regurgitated barn owl pellets found on and around the artist’s family farm. On the adjacent wall will be photographs depicting each of the sculptures reunited with their place of origin, the cycle from nature to culture complete.
Further on, three taxidermy display bell jars mounted on turned wooden pedestals have been transformed in to mirroring structures. Upon first view, we are faced with our own reflection. But as our eyes become accustomed to the light, we are able to peer through the mirror and in to the enclosed chamber. The ghostly apparition of a bird of prey is revealed, then lost, as the eye continually struggles between the surface reflection and the hologram-like image cradled within.
Pertwee, Anderson & Gold
Until 11th July 2011
Neal Fox | Beware of the God | Daniel Blau Gallery
Neal Fox’s drawings depict a phantasmagoric journey through the detritus and mythology of pop culture. From a life-long obsession with the tales of his dead grandfather, a World War II bomber pilot, writer and hell raiser, his large-scale drawings have developed into increasingly layered celebrations of the debauched and iconoclastic characters whose ideas have helped shape our collective consciousness.
Fox’s latest project takes many of the recurring subjects of his drawings and portrays them through the medium of the stained glass window. As traditional church windows show the iconography of saints, through representations of events in their lives, instruments of martyrdom and iconic motifs, Fox plays with the symbolism of each character’s cult of personality; Albert Hoffman takes a psychedelic bicycle ride above the LSD molecule, J G Ballard dissects the world, surrounded by 20th Century imagery and the eroticism of the car crash, and Johnny Cash holds his inner demon in chains after a religious experience in Nickerjack cave. One quality in particular binds these characters and the others together; a refusal to conform and conviction in their own ideology.
Working with traditional methods at the renowned Franz Mayer of Munich manufacturer, Fox is producing a set of twelve 2.5 metre high stained-glass windows; exhibited in a single room – an alternative church of alternative saints.
Until 10th August
Daniel Blau Gallery
A Fist Full of Paint | Burning Candy | Tonys
The exhibition will centre on presenting the aftermath of a western style “showdown” using paint-filled fire extinguishers. Two B.C. members were let loose in a wild, head to head, battle using high pressured paint, and leaving behind the gestural process of their actions, as well as a filmed documentary, reflecting the bigger picture of the competitive, fun and extreme nature of the graffiti world. Tony’s will stage this performative and yet subversive encounter, turning what may at once be perceived as an act of vandalism into a playful comment on the art world and its systems of presentation.
The show will feature new works including paintings, drawings and limited-edition prints as well as an on-going screening of exclusive un-released footage from the B.C produced DOTS film.
Until 21st August
www.tonysgallery.com
Tom Polo | Disappointed With Many Places & Things | Acme Project Space
‘Disappointed With Many People & Things’ continues Tom Polo’s use of text, humour and portraiture to engage with a familiar anxiety concerning that big theme, “the human condition” and the resultant genres of self help and motivation.
The exhibition explores contemporary society’s inherent desire for success and explores how personal feelings are influenced by what is deemed ‘good’ against ‘bad’.
The opening night will feature a new painting performance developed during the artist’s time in London.
Acme Project Space
Until 10th July
C215 & Romany WG | Signal Gallery
Signal Gallery shows the the work of one of the most important and respected Street Artists in the world, alongside the work of the equally revered street art photographer Romany WG.
The show will present C215’s wonderfully delicate and heartfelt stencil artworks beside Romany WG’s photographs of some of the same works on the streets.
Both artists will also have the chance to showcase their new work for galleries. C215 has produced a body of work inspired by Caravaggio and Romany WG will be showing images from his new book ‘Out Of Sight’.
Until 23rd July
www.signalgallery.com
Rachel Bennett
