Tag: exhibition

Norbert Bisky ‘Anomie’ Exhibition Launch // König Gallery London

Norbert Bisky ‘Anomie’ Exhibition Launch // König Gallery London

I got a text from my buddy, Aidan. ‘Hey I’m in London on Friday night, playing with Sam Vance Law at the opening of the Norbert Bisky Exhibition, want to come?’. Of course I do!

I arrived at the König Gallery in Marylebone where the party was in full swing. Launch attendees had spilled out onto the street, inside I could see why. The room was jammed, the band were playing. At the front, close to the band, people were dancing. That also included the artist, Norbert Bisky. Those wanting a chat were further back.

The first thing that I noticed was the space, a basement setting like this in central London is a haven, something really special. The vibrant mis-painted red walls against the concrete brought my eyes to the art.

I was extremely curious to find out why Sam Vance-Law and his band, who had come all the way from Berlin, were playing at an event like this. It turns out that Mr Bisky’s art was used for the cover of Sam’s album, Homotopia. Sam’s music is refreshingly open and honest. The first track on his album refers to asking a boy to dance at a school disco, he’s not afraid to write about his sexuality. The theme of the music, blended beautifully with the theme of the art.

It turns out that this is Norbert Bisky’s first UK solo exhibition. The word ‘anomie’ means the lack of the usual social or ethical standards in an individual or group. In a piece taken from the Köning website:
“how inclusive a society is towards members of the LGBTQI+ community is still highly indicative of the degree to which humanist values are accepted in a society and to which members of this society are able to live autonomous lives.”

You can read in full about Bisky’s ideas here.

As the band ended and crowds left, I wait for my friend and getting a closer look at each painting.

The red walls are deliberate. The canvas on the walls, on closer inspection, reveal layers and collages. The bright pastel colours, different parts of the male form and one piece where three makes share a kiss, make me recall Frankie Goes to Hollywood’s reworking of Coleridge’s poem ‘In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasuredome erect’.

This was the first time I had seen Norbert Bisky’s paintings and I adored his work. I also loved how some of the pieces were completed mere weeks before this exhibition began. Making it very relevant and very now.

The exhibition runs until May 19 2018.

Sam Vance Law and band

Photos were taken with my crappy Samsung S5

April 13, 2018
The Radical Eye at Tate Modern // Review

The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection

On the very first page of Susan Sontag’s book, ‘On Photography’, she says ‘To collect photography is to collect the world.’ That’s exactly what The Radical Eye is.

Taken down from the walls of his home, The Radical Eye exhibition has been curated from the collection of Sir Elton John. These photographs hang in the same frames here at the Tate Modern as they do in Sir Elton’s Atlanta base.

Since 1989, the music legend has built up a fantastic collection of photographs from the golden age of modernist photography. This was from the 1920s/50s, a time of experimentation, a time where these photographers wrote the rule book for what we now know.

From the image of Man Ray’s ‘Glass Tears’, which has been used to promote the exhibition, to Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’, these are world known images and I felt like a kid in a candy store, wandering through the exhibition.

Before Instagram, before being able to take a photograph on your phone, these were the pioneers. Film was expensive, developing film was pain stakingly slow in today’s terms. Each frame set up was a deliberate click, not a series of random clicks until you get the one that works. The results these photographers were able to achieve with their knowledge of their equipment and media is staggering.

Curator, Shoair Mavlian has done a fantastic job choosing from Sir Elton’s 8000 piece collection, one of the biggest private collections in the world.

It runs until May 21 2017. Go see it! Who knows when you’ll ever get a chance to see all these masterpieces together in one place again. That is of course, unless Sir Elton invites you over for a cuppa.

You can see some of the images here but you know what? Go see it, the vintage prints look better in real life than on a computer screen.

Find out more from Tate Modern.

May 18, 2017
A Thousand Words: an Exhibition by Mags Harnett at The Copper House Gallery

The fine people at The Copper House Gallery never seem to sit still for a minute. They’ve just announced another exhibition, this time it’s ‘A Thousand Words’ by Mags Harnett. What do we need to know? Here’s some answers.

What is ‘A Thousand Words’?

Thousand Words is a series of images in pen, ink and rain on paper. Each piece is a vibrant palimpsest of time and colour; themes central to the artist’s work. Mags Harnett transcribes thoughts as they flow on to the page in a stream of consciousness style, instinctively linking colour to sound, emotions, the world around her. In this series each piece represents a length of time in life and a reflection of moods or observations. Layers of text in different shades of colour are superimposed on one another to create a palimpsest on each page. These words woven together create a concentration of text and colour.

I don’t know Mags Harnett, who is she?

Mags Harnett worked briefly in advertising in Dublin before going to live in Paris and later Cologne . She read French and German at Trinity College Dublin graduating with an honors degree in 1998 and went on to study Fine Art for five years at l’Ecole Supérieure des Beaux Arts de Tours, France, where she graduated with an honors degree in 2005. She joined the Bled group of artists in Saint Pierre des Corps in 2009 and worked as an independent translator and teacher (University Francois Rabelais and L’Ecole Brassart in Tours) before returning to her native Dublin in 2011 where she lives with her two children and works in her studio-attic.

So when is the exhibition on?

A Thousand Words an exhibition by Mags Harnett runs in the Archive, upstairs at The Copper House Gallery from 5th September – 22nd September 2012. Admission is free and all are welcome

There you have it, if you’ve never been to The Copper House Gallery before, it’s situated at St Kevin’s Cottages, Synge Street, Dublin 8. You can get directions here

August 29, 2012
Interview with artist Daragh Hughes

Daragh Hughes’ first major exhibition ‘Black and White‘ will take place in the Sebastian Guinness Gallery in Dawson Street Dublin from March 23 – April 22. I might add that the exhibition space is amazing, if you think of some movie artists’ work shop and multiply its size by ten, you’re in the right ballpark. Really loved the natural feeling of the lighting in the gallery.

Some of the pieces are so big, he has moved his workspace into the exhibition space to paint them. His is our chat about his work. oh, check out the tumblr site for the exhibition.

March 3, 2012