Contemporary Culture Carousel 2

Suddenly She Felt A Terrible Need To Be Somebody Else, 2011, Gäel Davrinche

Looking Back: The Week That Was

The Week In Culture (NYT) And what a rich week it was!

International Arts News Digest (artforum.com) Well worth clicking on this for the first two reviews, but I’m fed up of hearing about Charles Saatchi’s ouburst, yawnnnnn..

The 2011 Turner Prize (The Independent) I was all for George Shaw winning this year as was art critic Jonathan Jones but there were also many who championed as a very worthy winner the man who did win the 2011 prize, sculptor Martin Boyce. That makes it a Scots winner three times in a row, must be something in the water!? And did you hear about the man apparently wearing nothing but a pink tutu who tried to get on stage as Martin Boyce made his acceptance speech? He had the words “Study This” scrawled on his chest too. Take a peek, it’s the first slide of the slide show here.

Exibitionist (The Guardian) With a slide show of 8 images. “From Kapoor’s quiet redemption in Nottingham to a thunderous Anselm Kiefer show in London, Skye Sherwin and Robert Clark find out what’s happening in art around [Britain].”  Sounds good…nooooo………sounds and looks absolutely fantastic. It even includes a “Little Black Dress” show!

Marc Bowyer-Briggs

Light Painting at Stonehenge looked pretty dramatic if rather garish, as you can see above and in the slide show at the link; not to mention that it meant great publicity for 33 year old Marc Bowyer-Briggs, an amateur photographer and quality manager at a plastics firm who has only been experimenting with using his camera at night for four years. If you want to know a litle more about the techniques involved, so you can emulate him perhaps, take a look here.

Looking Back: The Year Now Ending

The Best Movies of 2011 (Rolling Stone) Lov’em or hat’em, you just can’t get away from end of year lists this time of year. Here’s one for you to just lightly peruse / enthusiastically approve / have a big loud argument with, according to your mood, opinion or inclination –  and to compare with the one below.

The Best Films of 2011 (New Yorker Review) 26 of them, as selected by Richard Brody who says “The numbering is somewhat arbitrary; I think of two through six as equals, the next ten as equals, the ten after those as equals.” – so now you know!

Poetry Books for Giving (TheGuardian) Nice idea to list the best poetry books in the guise of a holiday gift guide, and I might get one or two of these as a gift to me! I like the idea of Carol Ann Duffy as the Christmas fairy at the top of the tree.

Wish I Could See

Blauer Kopf (Blue Head) by Georg Baselitz,  1983, copper beech and oil paints, 81 x 41 x 32 cm

Wish I was in Paris to enjoy the important retrospective featuring almost all of Georg Baselitz’s sculptures. At the The Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris until January 29th.

Wish I was in NYC to go to the Whitney to see Roy Lichtenstein’s little-known triple screen film installation. It hasn’t been seen since its showing at the Los Angeles County Museum in 1971, can you imagine? It’s on until Februray 12th 2012 – I’d hurry on there if I were a little bit closer instead of all the way across the ocean.

Wish I was in Beijing for the Song Yuanyuan (b.1981) solo exhibition Examining Objects, which looks like a fascinating exploration, a show of absorbing oil paintings where you look hard and think more. It runs until 19th February at Platform China Contemporary Art Institute. Can someone bring it over here, please?

Round The World

Paris Forever opened 10th December and runs until January 14th. Now since I’m planning on Paris anyway (I wish!) then I’ll just have to go see Gäel Davrinche’s Mona Lisa portrait in the flesh, wouldn’t you love to see it too?  The show is the 100th exhibition to be held by the Magda Danysz Gallery and features over 80 artists as it ranges from digital art to street art via Pop-surrealism and the new Chinese contemporary scene. If you’re in Paris for Christmas, take a break from shopping and eating, and go feast your eyes instead. If you’re not in Paris, check out the images in the Link, there’s quite a few there.

Ernesto Neto’s suspended installation

Ernesto Neto in Buenos Aires  This huge uber-cool installation by Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto, curated by Jessica Morgan from London’s Tate,  is showing at the Faena Arts Center, Buenos Aires until February 2012.  It’s tactile textile art, that you can prod, poke and feel, and walk, crawl and scramble through. The installation  – or is it a sculpture?  – is called O Bicho Suspenso na Paisajem which translates as Bug Suspended in the Landscape  (hmmmmm…) and it’s made of ropes and crochet, coloured balls and stones. And by the way Neto (b. 1964, Rio de Janeiro) is one of the most important figures in the current Brazilian art scene. 12 stunning images to click through here.

Anne Berning’s Blind Date in Madrid This is another one that attracts me but I don’t think I’m going to get Madrid before it ends on January 14th, damn! Still, Espacio Minimo have no fewer than 38 slides to browse through online. Muchas gracias dear galeria!

Looking Forward to January

If I’m in Paris in early January then maybe I could carry on to Amsterdam (a girl can dream, right?) to go see Tala Madani’s new work at  the Stedelijk Museum. The show, which is called The Jinn, just opened on December 10th and is running through to 5th February. The gallery says  it is presenting a “powerful and elaborately constructed new body of painted, drawn and animated work.” We’ve featured some wonderful work by Madani, who lives between Amsterdam and New York, here on EIL before, take a look.

Seven Books for 2012 (TIME magazine) …because it will be good to curl up with a book when the holidays are over. These are the ones that Lev Grossman is looking forward to.

And if you’re in India or heading that way come January – lucky you! – check out the Indian contemporary art scene at the New Delhi Art Fair …