I have been looking forward to this new exhibition by the guys at Gazelli Art House, not just because of the promising line-up of artists but also about the venue this show is held at – Rochelle school. This is one of those venues any artist would love to have at disposal for shows – it is on two floors, airy, high ceilings, great light, several rooms. It just works for art shows and shall leave up to the expectations for this show which is installation based sculpture focused.
‘Air I breathe’ is the 4th show of a series of 5 exploring the classical elements, and in particular the contradictory nature of air.
Mila Askarova, curator of this show and founder of Gazelli Art House has gathered top talents for this show and John Wynne’s sound installation(whose speaker installation in Saatchi’s ‘Newspeak’ exhibition was critically acclaimed) will resonate throughout the venue . Hyper-real sculptures of people from the duo Little Whitehead (AKA Craig Little and Blake Whitehead) will also provoke reactions
Add to this, Kate Terry‘s work of dramatic, tense, thread installations and Yoonjin Jung‘s site-specific installations marrying oriental painting with a desire to explore the idea of ‘Seeing the Unseen’ and you know you will be up for a fine evening of must-seen art.
PV 8/9 6-9pm | Show: 9 till 7/10/11 Rochelle School, Arnold circus, London E2 7ES
We’ll bring you a moghty artistic collaboration between Matthew White and The Dirty Toyz, 3 electrodub producers & DJ’s. The result is an eye catching work of mixed media illustration on a 150×120 board of wood.
Song “So Real” by The Dirty Toyz
Produced by Cinematic Luna. Directed, shot and edited by Luca Naddeo.
When having CDs is becoming so nineties, everything getsstored online in the cloud as they call it, Meet Sean Avery, a talented artist, thought twice about discarding his CDs and have found a way of turning them into amazing and crafted animal sculptures.
Sean Avery has created a series of sculptures—from bears to peregrine falcons and even the Loch Ness monster thanks to a clever use of the reflective splinters of his CDs. There is no much more to say to appreciate the time, effort and above all talent in his artwork.
Untitled Nude, (c)2011 Shireen Qureshi, oil and charcoal on canvas
I recently interviewed London artist Shireen Qureshi for This ‘Me’ of Mine. Her ‘Untitled Nude’ is a compelling expression of the struggle in the violence of existence; of being flesh and bone. We discussed an interesting point of the Deleuzian ‘event’…
Jane Boyer: Deleuze suggests we are an event; meaning that out of a chaos in which conditions have come together to form a ‘one’ or have passed through ‘a screen’ which allows something rather than nothing to happen.[1] There is a sense of ‘event’ in your tableaus and the figures are that ‘event’, as if we are witnessing the coalescing of a self, how do you see this? Do you feel the passage of time is relevant to the self?
Shireen Qureshi: It is interesting that you suggest that we are witnessing the coalescing of a self in my work because in my mind I am more interested in breaking down the body, of rupturing boundaries. I often initiate a painting by making it look real and then trying to break it down, by overlapping bodies or breaking apart skin and bone, I suppose in that sense the aim for me is towards chaos rather than from it. But I think that this is a very interesting idea, especially the sense of an ‘event’ you describe in my work, forcing my viewers into the role of witness. I think that if the paintings have created any sense of inescapable drama pinning both my figures and viewers in place, then this is an achievement in itself. From my point of view, the passage of time is interesting because it is within a space of time that metamorphosis and transformation can occur. I would like to create a sense of movement, an undulation within each of my paintings as if they were bubbles of captured space and time. I think that time is inescapably relevant to the self because it is within time that a self is built or deconstructed, subjected to the violence of existence, and within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death.
Fall, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
Whether we think much about it or not, we live every moment of our existence with the thought of our extinction – every one of us could cease to exist at any moment. This latent threat is one aspect of the ‘violence of existence’ mentioned by Shireen. From her point of view the violence exists in the visceral reality of living in flesh and bone, a violence we understand first hand. Often through serious illness or accident, the loss of loved ones or violent personal threat we realize the fragility of our existence and the latent threat of our extinction become a conscious reality. Once aware of this imminence our sense of self undoubtedly alters; we become a self with limited time.
The visual breakdown of bodies, flesh and bone is an interesting interpretation of this psychological awareness of our mortality. The ambiguity of whether the bodies in Shireen’s paintings are coalescing or breaking down is indicative of the struggle in the moment of ‘difference’ described by Deleuze, and as such, is also the ‘violence of existence’ Shireen speaks of. Deleuze said, “Indifference has two aspects: the undifferentiated abyss, the black nothingness, the indeterminate…in which everything is dissolved – but also the white nothingness, the…calm surface upon which float unconnected determinations like scattered members: a head without a neck, an arm without a shoulder, eyes without brows. The indeterminate is completely indifferent, but such floating determinations are no less indifferent to each other. Is difference intermediate between these two extremes [the undifferentiated and the determinate]? Or is it not rather the only extreme, the only moment of presence and precision?”
Hand in Hair, (c)2010 Shireen Qureshi, oil on canvas
He continued, “There is cruelty, even monstrosity, on both sides of the struggle against an elusive adversary, in which the distinguished opposes something which cannot distinguish itself from it but continues to espouse that which divorces it.”[2]
Living is difference; it is the precision of presence. Living with the imminence of our extinction is the violent struggle of divorcing that which continues to espouse us; a struggle “within which the self moves, inevitably, towards death,” as Shireen says.
Read more of our interview, ‘Straight from the Nerves’ on the This ‘Me’ of Mine blogsite.
I got myself down to the mighty Brick Lane at the week end, the i-phone (to post photos on Instagram of course) in one hand and the camera in the other one and as always I spent a solid two hours strolling around the area looking for little wonders that is called “street art”.
I spotted a loads of C215 pieces but also a nice sets of PEZ smiling fish. Conor Harrington also has been at it and has produced striking artwork. Enjoy the pictures below. There was so much to see that I had to break into two parts, you are looking at part I, here is part II
In the centre of Grunwald Forest in the former West Berlin is an artificial mountain, Teufelsberg, made by man using the rubble from approximately 400,000 buildings that were destroyed in WWII. The structure that sits on top is ‘The Listening Station’ built by the US National Security Agency to spy on the Soviet’s. .
The listening station was decommissioned at the end of the cold war. There were many plans for it’s use in the future, all of which fell through. With that, over the years it has attracted the likes of vandals, youths, graffers and urban explorers. Amongst the broken glass from all the smashed windows and beer bottles, the collapsing stairwells, the gaping holes from the dilapidated flooring and the pitch black hallways, a diverse collection of pieces, dubs, tags, paste ups and stencils can be found.
Shepard Fairey’s Sound and Vision show has been the hot topic in town for the last few weeks. The artist and his crew has hit hard for this show since not only the Stolen Space gallery is hosting the show but another much bigger one a few yards away has also been necessary to give a roof to the impressive amount of pieces the artist has produced.
Since the Hope portrait of Obama back in 2008, Shepard Fairey and his brand OBEY has become something people recognize and like. You see a Shepard Fairey and you know it is one – the typography, colors and subject will give it away. OBEY is a brand here to stay.
London Art Fair is the UK’s premier Modern British and contemporary art fair. Galleries from across the UKand overseas will present the work of over 1,000 artists covering the period from the early 20th century to the present day. You will see museum quality British art presented alongside exceptional contemporary work from leading figures and emerging talent. The Fair provides a uniquely welcoming atmosphere in a spectacular venue in the heart of Islington, attracting visitors with a genuine passion for art; from experienced collectors to those buying their first original work. Source: www.londonartfair.co.uk
London Art Fair would like to invite friends and client’s of Brownhill Insurance Group to the Private View on Wednesday, 18 January 2012, from 6pm – 9pm.
This is an exclusive invitation-only evening reception and it’s a perfect place to catch-up with friends in the New Year and enjoy a complimentary glass of wine in the informal and welcoming atmosphere of Private View.
It was a glorious day when we had the chance to see the EN MASSE crew working on anew and huge wall at Village Underground
EN MASSE : (from French) “as a whole”, or “all together”
EN MASSE is a Montreal based, multi-artist collaborative drawing project. It draws life from the many creative individuals who take part in the project to create large-scale, highly spontaneous drawings in black and white.
EN MASSE explores the creation of a collective vision; works created together that are greater than any one person could create alone.
HISTORY
The project was created by Tim Barnard and Jason Botkin in 2009, at the Galerie Pangée. Now under the direction of Botkin and Rupert Bottenberg, the initiative has worked with nearly 250+ artists internationally.
MANDATE
The EN MASSE Project nurtures the broadening and solidification of artistic communities everywhere it goes, serving artists from extremely diverse backgrounds such as graphic novels, graffiti, tattoo, illustration, design and the fine arts.
For the most part, artists participating in the project are self-taught creative entrepreneurs. EN MASSE is a high-profile public platform for these people who have often found themselves in an awkward relationship with many contemporary arts institutions (resulting in their work often being excluded from mainstream galleries, museums, and funding agencies). This is a bridge for artist to institution, and vice versa.
I have been looking forward to this new exhibition by the guys at Gazelli Art House, not just because of the promising line-up of artists but also about the venue this show is held at – Rochelle school. This is one of those venues any artist would love to have at disposal for shows – it is on two floors, airy, high ceilings, great light, several rooms. It just works for art shows and shall leave up to the expectations for this show which is installation based sculpture focused.
London Art Fair is the UK’s premier Modern British and contemporary art fair. Galleries from across the UKand overseas will present the work of over 1,000 artists covering the period from the early 20th century to the present day. You will see museum quality British art presented alongside exceptional contemporary work from leading figures and emerging talent. The Fair provides a uniquely welcoming atmosphere in a spectacular venue in the heart of Islington, attracting visitors with a genuine passion for art; from experienced collectors to those buying their first original work. Source: 
