A Walk Through The Art: Gallery Shows in London, Winter 2016

Bridget Smith, The eye needs a horizon. Installation view Frith Street Gallery Golden Square, until 3 March

Finally acknowledging the late arrival of Winter in the UK, we have undertaken an exhibition marathon during these weeks, touring around art galleries in Central London – mainly around the art districts of Mayfair, Fitzrovia and Bermondsey – with the aim of taking note of the different trends populating the capital in this first season of 2016.

Heading out on the theme of sculpture, a few exhibitions offer multiple interpretations, challenging and extending its features: like Marian Goodman‘s Sculpture 4Tet, that presents a selection of sculptural works by Luciano Fabro, Jean-Luc Mouléne, Bruce Nauman, and Dahn Vo, curated by Jean-Pierre Criqui. Or Hauser&Wirth‘s Maisones Fragiles (yet closed on 6th February), which investigates instead notions of fragility, vulnerability, and protection in forms and space, through the work of nine artists from different generations. And also Spüth Magers, that features the enigmatic and controversial assemblages by Edward and Nancy Kienholz, while Pace Gallery presents a rendezvous of the six winners of The Calder Prize to date, which have interpreted the lesson of the artist who surpassed the historical stillness that confined sculpture. Looking at masters from the last century, the variegate languages of Pop Art are still drawing an increasing attention from the general public and collectors, seen the shows at Gagosian (Avedon Warhol), David Zwirner (Tom Wesselmann – Collage 1959-1964, here exhibited for the first time), and Waddington Custot (Peter Blake) – probably on the wake of the recent exhibition on 1960/70 international countercultures The World Goes Pop at the Tate Modern.

The Calder Prize 2005-2015: Darren Bader, Alexander Calder, Tara Donovan, Rachel Harrison, Zilvinas Kempinas, Haroon Mirza, Tomas Saraceno. Installation view at Pace Gallery, until 5 March

Among the most remarkable exhibitions in town, John Akomfrah’s video installations deserve a dedicated visit to Lisson Gallery, where viewers will easily lose their perception of the time captured by these powerful moving images, that narrate tales of displacement, of ghosts from the contemporary unconscious, and other hidden dark stories. Just as much engaged in present day events, Neoliberal Lulz at Carroll/Fletcher brings together five young artist who, by mixing visual language with corporate strategies, interrogate the influence of the immaterial yet pervasive power of the financial market over our everyday lives.

John Akomfrah. Installation view at Lisson Gallery, 27 Bell st, until 12 March

Constant Dullart, DullTech™Player, installation view at Carroll/Fletcher. Neoliberal Lulz. Constant Dullaart, Femke Harregraven, Émilie Brout & Maxime Marion, and Jennifer Lyn Morone, until 2 April

Painting holds the stage at Victoria Miro, which presents a series of new and intimate portraits by Chantal Joffe; at Massimo De Carlo, with Nate Lowman‘s negative spaces; and at White Cube, with the solo shows Ecriture by Park Seo-Bo, and Moneybags by Sergej Jensen. The territory of the pictorial surface is also explored by Michael Joo at Blain|Southern, who combined photography, print-making, painting, and sculptural techniques to visualize a quantifiable amount of energy in his ‘caloric paintings;’ by Narelle Jubelin‘s petit-point renditions of international Modernist works at Marlborough Contemporary; and, finally, in the computer-generated drawings by digital art pioneer Manfred Mohr at Carroll/Fletcher.

Migrating from the substrate to the tridimensional space, Line, a group exhibition at Lisson Gallery (guest-curated by the Drawing Room), features artwork by fifteen international artists, aiming to expand the intrinsic characteristics of drawing to space and time. Finally, a stop-over at Frith Street Gallery in Golden Square should not be missed to immerse in the entrancing atmospheres created through photography, film and found objects by Bridget Smith, which pervade the entire gallery recalling the aura of cinema spaces.

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