IAN FRANCIS – ENDLESS SUMMER

Posted on 2014-09-01

Endless Summer continues the artist’s ongoing investigation into contemporary issues facing the human condition, presenting a new body of identically-sized studies that capture suspended snapshots of modern life. After spending the past few months oversaturated in summer photos and bombarded with random imagery, Francis began his exploration into how these moments collide and the way in which we interact with and relate to them. Fascinated by the circumstances enabling such randomly selected images and ideas to coexist, the artist questions the result of this crosssection in time, whether they align or fall apart and their reference point in history in relation to our past and future.

Endless Summer provides a democratic display of ultra-modern artworks, each meticulously painted on a uniform panel, shifting the viewer’s attention between myriad suggestive open-ended narratives.

Exhibition runs through to October 4th, 2014

The Outsiders
8 Greek Street
Soho
London
W1D 4DG

www.theoutsiders.net

  

LI GANG – SALT ROAD

Posted on 2014-08-25

Li Gang studied painting, but went on to experiment with a wide range of media and materials. He wants his art to stay fresh and committing to only one medium would limit him too much. With Li Gang you never know which form his next group of works will take on. His art has no recognizable style, the common ground lies deeper: in Li Gang’s interest in transformation. This concern encompasses both: his own growth as an artist and the transformation of ordinary objects into art works. His aim is to create art, which is more than just a reproduction or copy of reality, and he challenges himself with all kinds of unusual materials: dead trees, waste from exhaust emissions, cement, stones and hemp string.

Exhibition runs through to November 1st, 2014

Galerie Urs Meile Lucerne
Rosenberghöhe 4
CH-6004 Lucerne
Luzern
Switzerland

www.galerieursmeile.com

  

ANNA FASSHAUER – NEW WORKS

Posted on 2014-08-25

Drywall construction profiles formed and wound to large sculptures, either coloured or partly lacquered, flexed sheet metal pictures, this is how Anna Fasshauer presents herself in her first exhibition at Galerie Nagel Draxler Berlin. In a rather open process, she accurately transforms material into forms, putting them into space. She neither designs nor draws, does not order the complete construction. Fasshauer produces herself in an energy consuming act of bending, flexing and fumbling around with the large and heavy works.
The pictures are results of this process-oriented working method as well. Their format is classical, their topic is the surface, their expression is abstract. Everthing on display here is what it is and it is hand-made. Neither the so-called speculative materialsm or realism nor the post-structural correaltion are the matrix.

Exhibition runs through to September 10th, 2014

Galerie Nagel Draxler
Weydinger Str. 2/4
10178 Berlin
Germany

nagel-draxler.de

  

ADRIANO COSTA

Posted on 2014-08-25

In line with previous installations, Costa’s found objects – readymade yet reformulated – continue to express their original functions and resonances; earlier assemblages have for example recycled items of clothing from his childhood. He has made a series of wall compositions using cut-out sections of free London newspapers, and these bear witness to the news stories that dominated the headlines over the summer (or indeed those that passed by without note), from the wars in the Middle East to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in the Ukraine. Reflected in these works, Costa proposes, is a sense of the “crazy and intense summer” that has just passed, with “some works speaking of tragedies, others of funnier things. It’s always important for me to talk about where I’ve been working – perhaps in an attempt to understand.”

Assimilating a diverse range of forms and colours – whether of copper or concrete, steel or cloth – Costa also oscillates freely between miniature and monumental scales, suspended and earthbound formats, or flat and volumetric structures. His works harbour precise references to artists he admires – allusions “packaged in plastic” – while also affectionately subverting the models they invoke. A grid of metal tiles, reminiscent of a Carl Andre floor sculpture, has for instance been riddled with circular holes. Elsewhere Costa has deployed coloured polythene bags (rubbish and recycling sacks from different London boroughs) to create geometrical wall pieces akin to Constructivist paintings; while in a series of small-scale paintings, he combines the methods and motifs of embroidery, collage and cartoons

Exhibition runs through to September 27th, 2014

Sadie Coles HQ
62 Kingly Street
London
W1B 5QN

www.sadiecoles.com

  

CLAYTON BROTHERS – OPEN TO THE PUBLIC

Posted on 2014-08-18

“Open to the Public,” an expansive exhibition of mixed-media drawings, assemblage, photography, video, and installations by the Clayton Brothers. Consisting of brothers Rob and Christian Clayton, the duo examines the mythos, culture, and visual language of an archetypal second-hand store located near their studio. Drawing from their observations of the venue and its visitors, the brothers entwine their independent approaches, styles, and palettes into works that operate as co-authored epics – which are rife with reoccurring motifs, gestures, and figures. The end result is a drama of shared experiences that fuse the concept of self with that of the communal, both in subject matter and practice.

Hailed as a thrifting mecca for several decades, Sun Thrift Store in Sunland (CA) draws its share of both unusual characters and the commonplace man – all partaking in the hunt for trash-turned-treasured objects. For this exhibition, the brothers appropriate not only the trinkets and discarded paintings retrieved from the business, but also the handmade signage, categorical displays, and shopper behavior. Unlike the polished and elaborate paintings that the brothers are known for, anonymous figures are drawn with stark immediacy – personalities that correspond with a series of projected candid photographs of perusing customers and muted wall spaces. Acting as flâneurs or urban observers, the brothers investigate both the construct of “thrifting culture” as well as the members that form this unique microcosm of consumption. Taken as a whole, the exhibition draws upon the subject matter of the everyday as a window into contemporary Americana. Through a nonpartisan lens, “Open to the Public” explicates the people’s narrative as a universal struggle to create, cherish and ultimately abandon.

Opposite – Grandma, Mother, Daughter, 2014

Exhibition runs through to September 27th, 2014

Mark Moore Gallery
5790 Washington Blvd
Culver City
Los Angeles
CA 90232

www.markmooregallery.com

  

BRANDAN VAN HEK – SHOOTING STARS

Posted on 2014-08-18

Shooting Stars foregrounds a field of multi-coloured neon lengths that float across the gallery wall. Though this colour scape leads us to fantasy, the wired electrical forms take us closer to space hardware than the mythical astral bodies that endless wishes are pinned to. The work explores the idea of hollow wishes and synthetic dreams – the kind that rather than hold hope, support scenarios built on illusion and deferment.

Brendan Van Hek works across mediums, incorporating materials such as neon, mirror, glass, metal and disco balls. Ranging from text-based work to large-scale abstract installations, his work deals with narratives located in personal history, fiction and cultural politics.

Exhibition runs through to September 14th, 2014

MOP Gallery
2/39 Abercrombie St
Chippendale
Sydney NSW 2008
Australia

www.mop.org.au