As a child I remember my father covering the walls of our home office with genealogy documents that mapped out centuries of our family history. There was something about knowing exactly where we came from that was significant for him and he dedicated much time and energy tracing our family origins. From this, I came to believe at a very young age that your relatives[…..]
With freedom of speech, artistic censorship and human rights at the centre of global concern with the arrest of Ai Weiwei, Huang Yong Ping’s show at Nottingham Contemporary, a young, highly influential contemporary art space run by Alex Farquharson just north of London, could not have come at a more pressing or pertinent time. Huang has been the target of protested censorship in the past,[…..]
While the most beautiful world in the world may be that which is in your own mind, what happens when your mind fails you? Not just a matter of truth vs fiction, but a fundamental physiological failure that causes your mind to lose the ability to register, and remember, that which is around you – That reality is far from beautiful. I recall studying the[…..]
Imagine what it would be like to step into someone else’s mind – to find yourself submerged within the physical manifestations of their memories, truths and dreams? It is this exact feeling that is elicited when stepping across the threshold of the sterile gallery space into the curious world that is Friedrich Kunath’s exhibition at the White Cube in London. Scent is the first unexpected[…..]
What happens when language fails? Madness. In a crumbling estate in the English countryside, ‘The Object’ descends upon a peculiar liberal upper class family. No one recognises him as human. As he mechanically and menacingly eats their books and expels them, language, meaning, places and perception deteriorate into obscurity. This is the premise of British artist Nathaniel Mellors’ work ‘Ourhouse‘ – an absurdist dramatic series[…..]
Before we go any further there is a confession I should make – I have a slight obsession with art that is visceral, uncomfortable and generally disturbing. Something my friend David – a mutual adorer – once designated ‘the creep factor.’ So when I first laid eyes on images from HRL Contemporary’s upcoming show The Nature of Change: Hybridity and Mutation I was hoping to[…..]
In Parasol unit’s latest exhibition, Yinka Shonibare, Yang Fudong, Shirin Neshat and Christodoulos Panayiotou prove that they do know something about love as their visually seductive works tell tales of l’amour ripe with romance and nostalgia. I Know Something About Love reads as a gushing four-verse love poem to love itself – an extended visual sonnet that unfolds in time and space, instilling optimism, hope[…..]
