LAF RECOMMENDS: HUMAN CONNECTIONS AND CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS

Discover May’s LAF Recommends with a collection of exhibitions for you to enjoy in person. Tag Fine Art, Fiumano Clase, Anima Mundi, Rabley Gallery, and Tate Modern present arresting contemporary shows, exploring human connections, artist’s surroundings and cultural observations. Castlegate House Gallery’s solo show on Modern British artist, Bob Crossley invites you to discover eight works of semi-abstract figures and colourful compositions.

Adam Dant, The London Calendar,
Adam Dant, The London Calendar, 2020. Courtesy of TAG Fine Arts

TAG FINE ARTS

ADAM DANT: THE RETURN OF LONDON

1 - 8 MAY

Adam Dant has created a brand new commemorative map to mark the 300th anniversary of the first foundation stone being laid at the Church of St Martin-in-the-Fields.

Unveiled for all to enjoy for the first time at The St-Martin-in-the-Fields Crypt Gallery ‘The Novel Map of the Parish of St Martin in the Fields’ forms the exciting centerpiece for an exhibition of the artist’s lively depictions of London public spaces.

Using Dant’s novel map, visitors are encouraged to revive the tradition of ‘beating the bounds’ of The Parish of St-Martin in the Fields, walking its perimeter so as to reaffirm their memory of the streets and sights that have lain unvisited through a year of lockdown.

Anikó Kuikka, Sun Aikas Koittaa (Ending Scene), 2020. Courtesy of Fiumano Clase
Anikó Kuikka, Sun Aikas Koittaa (Ending Scene), 2020. Courtesy of Fiumano Clase

FIUMANO CLASE

ANIKÓ KUIKKA : SUN AIKAS KOITTAA (YOUR DAWN WILL COME)

20 APRIL - 22 MAY

Anikó has now made the final preparations for her exhibition opening in Fiumano Clase Gallery on 20 April – incorporating several instances of braille and audio guides. 

Visitors will be led through the exhibition centred around a single-channel moving image projection accompanied by an audio guide. These media elements are juxtaposed by glass-sculptures of the parasitic tinder polypore (Fomes fomentarius) and organic material including highly scented spruce branches.

Luke Hannam, Her Naked Gaze, Courtesy of Anima Mundi Gallery
Luke Hannam, Her Naked Gaze, Courtesy of Anima Mundi Gallery

ANIMA MUNDI

LUKE HANNAM: THE COMPASS & THE ROSARY

12 APRIL - 22 MAY

‘The Compass & The Rosary’ is Luke Hannam’s debut solo exhibition at Anima Mundi, opening as we emerge from the latest Covid lockdown. The show will feature vivid, large and monumental scale paintings shown alongside more intimate works and working drawings.

Hannam’s paintings expressively offer a singular view on how what he sees, how he thinks, and pivotally how he feels about the human condition and what lies beyond our materiality. His work could be seen to continue the Romantic tradition, embracing reality and mysticism with the wonder of the experience.

Craigie Aitchison RA, Portrait of Naaotwa with Green Earring
Craigie Aitchison RA, Portrait of Naaotwa with Green Earring, 2006. Courtesy of Rabley Gallery

RABLEY GALLERY

AN INTIMATE DISTANCE

CRAIGIE AITCHISON RA, EILEEN COOPER RA, NATASHA MICHAELS AND JO TAYLOR

15 APRIL - 29 MAY

An Intimate Distance is a side view of contemporary portraiture. It brings together portraits where the relationship between the sitter and the artist has been forged and invented portraits, where the imagination of the artist has given new agency and form to previous incarnations.

Craigie Aitchison (1926–2009) is well known for his colourful, stylised paintings. 

Eileen Cooper has recently returned to drawing and painting from life. In this collection are two very different male subjects, Ziggy and Archie, both Royal Academy alumni. 

Natasha Michaels originally trained as an illustrator at the Royal College of Art. The origins of her recent monoprints lie in historical portraits from the renaissance to the 19th century. 

Jo Taylor, through her medium of Ceramics, crosses the boundary from likeness abstract form creating new vessels in porcelain that appropriate Sevre porcelain from the 18th Century. 

Bob Crossley, Family Group, 1960. Courtesy of Castlegate House Gallery
Bob Crossley, Family Group, 1960. Courtesy of Castlegate House Gallery

CASTLEGATE HOUSE GALLERY

BOB CROSSLEY: EARLY WORKS 1958 - 1961

23 MAY - 26 SEPTEMBER,

Born in the north of England in 1912, a member of the Rochdale Art Society and Manchester Academy of Arts after WWII, Bob Crossley produced a wonderful body of semi-abstract figurative paintings both just before and after his move to Cornwall in 1959.

Although in his latter years Bob was to become known for his more colourful fully abstract compositions, undoubtedly influenced in some ways by his friend and fellow very well known artist Terry Frost, he has left behind a small and focused body of work which screams mid-century British painting. 

Zanele Muholi, Qiniso, The Sails, Durban, 2019. Courtesy of Tate Modern
Zanele Muholi, Qiniso, The Sails, Durban, 2019. Courtesy of Tate Modern

TATE MODERN

ZANELE MUHOLI

23 MAY - 26 SEPTEMBER

Tate Modern will present the first major UK survey of South African visual activist Zanele Muholi.

Muholi came to prominence in the early 2000s with photographs that told the stories of black lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and intersex lives in South Africa.

260 photographs will be brought together to present the full breadth of Muholi’s career to date, from their very first body of work Only Half the Picture to their ongoing series Somnyama Ngonyama.

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