Tag Archives: Art

Artist Cao Fei leads the conversation on navigating our future at Gallery Weekend Berlin

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Cao Fei “Duotopia” at Sprüth Magers
Cao Fei “Duotopia” at Sprüth Magers. Photo © Design Talks

Artists have long turned to science fiction, to worlds of the imagination, to understand what it is to be human. This general concept forms the overarching theme at the 2023 Gallery Weekend Berlin— the annual event which sees independent galleries around the city open their doors to all — with mixed results.

“Human Is”, a group exhibition at Schinkel Pavillon, for instance, proposes a series of alternative futures, questioning the reality of being human, its weaknesses, fears and limitations. It asks if the distinctions between dystopia and reality are collapsing due to technological and ecological upheavals.

Working on a similar theme is Cao Fei’s “Duotopia” at Sprüth Magers. For over two decades, the Chinese multimedia artist has been investigating what it means to be human within our rapidly changing twenty-first-century landscape. Visiting the artist at her studio in Beijing a few years ago, I was struck by her work’s originality and how alive it is, constantly moving and evolving to be in conversation with our time.

In this significant exhibition, she has transformed this lovely Berlin gallery space into a visually cinematic, performative and highly engaging series of multi-media exhibits that take the viewer on a journey into multiple worlds here on earth and in the multiverse.

Read my full review from Berlin here

Linear concepts of identity go under the spotlight at Gagosian exhibition ‘Rites of Passage’

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Elsa James ‘Ode to David Lammy MP’ (2022) at ‘Rites of Passage’, Gagosian Gallery, Photo Lucy Dawkins

In ‘Rites of Passage’ published in 1909, the anthropologist Arnold van Gennep spoke of the concept of liminality, and how we mark critical transitional events through ceremonies with a ritual function that transcend cultural boundaries.

The idea forms the premise for an interesting exhibition currently at Gagosian Britannia St. London. Borrowing the book’s title, it explores the idea of liminal space through the lens of nineteen contemporary artists, primarily based in the UK, who share the story of migration. 

The work on display come in various mediums, for a lively discourse challenging linear narratives and fixed concepts of identity.

It’s good to see such complex and varied conversations around movement, migration – really relevant themes that have to be explored further and further, and through multiple voices and lenses. 

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Art talk: In conversation with the American artist Leonardo Drew

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Leonardo Drew with his “Number 360” (2023) taken from the Chapel balcony at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Photo ©Nargess Banks

Last Friday I visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park to meet with the American artist Leonardo Drew as he unveiled his latest commission, Number 360 for the YSP’s eighteenth-century Chapel (on until October 2023).

In his abstract work Drew avoids working with found material, instead treating objects to appear found, and with the material almost acting as instruments making symphonies, in the case of Number 360 creating tension and turbulence but also this lovely sense of peace. It really looks special in the meditative Chapel and surrounded by early spring park life.

Drew’s work carries weight and meaning, yet he purposely numbers his work, instead of naming, so to encourage the viewer to make up their own mind, for the artwork to become a mirror, and for it to continually evolve with each interaction. 

There’s a lovely sense of freedom to this. Of letting go. 

Our conversation went from the process of art making, to the meaning of art, politics, religion and what it means to be human. 

Read the full interview published in Forbes here.

Artist interview: Generative visual artist, Tyler Hobbs

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Tyler Hobbs working on the Unit London Gallery’s 2023 exhibition ©Sarah Kaplan for Avant Art

Tyler Hobbs is an Austin-based leading generative artist who is on show at the moment at Unit London and will be heading to Pace Gallery in New York later in the month.

Hobbs has a straightforward, systematic way of making artwork. It involves processes, procedures and algorithms. His generative art combines abstraction with information and communication technologies – perhaps two of the most exciting movements of the last century in art and science. Hobbs may write code to develop programmes that generate artwork, knowing the programmes will lead to a distinct creation. Or he may give in to chance – something that I wasn’t quite expecting on seeing his work.

And it’s been fascinating hearing his approach to involving technology so seamlessly in his work so the human and machine creation feels collaborative – almost natural

He tells me: “Randomness plays a large role. I try to find a balance between order and disorder or between structure and chaos. I want to give the programs the freedom and ability to surprise me and to escape the limitations of my imagination. Randomness is the ingredient that creates that opportunity.”

Artists, of course, have long been fascinated by new techniques and technology. Think of Joshua Reynolds’ camera obscura, or Andy Warhol’s polaroid artworks, and David Hockney’s current embrace of immersive art.

The artist Kazimir Malevich write in his ‘On New Systems in Art’ in 1919: “Art advances inexorably … Life develops with new forms; a new art, medium and experience are necessary for every epoch. Not seeing the modern world and its achievements means not participating in the triumph of modern transformations.”

Read my full interview here



Tyler Hobbs ‘By Proxy, Yellow 1’ 2021, graphite plotter and oil pastel on paper (38.1 cm x 25.4 cm) ©The artist
Interview with Tyler Hobbs, the leading generative artist famed for his Fidenza NFT, about his work which unites the human touch and intricate, algorithmic compositions.
Tyler Hobbs ‘Jacquard Legacy’ 2023, acrylic and ink on linen (152.4 cm x 121.92 cm) ©The artist

Exhibition: ‘Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle’ at the Barbican Gallery, London

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Alice Neel at the age of 29, 1929 © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy The Estate of Alice Neel

Alice Neel, activist, feminist, humanist, warm and passionately non-conformist, is one of the leading painters of our time. Working predominantly in New York, where she lived most of her life, and in the intimate surroundings of her home rather than a studio, from the start of her long career Neel was drawn to raw moments of intimacy, painting neighbours, artists, activists, labour leaders, Black intellectuals, queer couples — often painting those excluded from portraiture. “I’m a collector of souls,” she wrote. “I paint my time using the people as evidence.”

‘Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle’ at the Barbican gallery captures the spirit of this remarkable painter of the 20th century who, despite her figurative work being so unfashionable, refused to conform to the art movements of her time.

Andy Warhol, 1970 © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy The Estate of Alice Neel.

And she was a gifted portraitist; her gaze penetrates deep inside each of her subjects, all of whom are treated with respect, compassion, humour and equal attention, be it her fellow artist Andy Warhol caught at his most vulnerable (1970), the youthful poet and writer John Perreault (1972), head of the US Communist Party Gus Hall (1981), a couple of privileged Wellesley College girls (1967), her neighbour Carmen and child (1972), or indeed herself, painted in 1980 at a ripe age of 80. 

As a side note, it’s interesting to compare Neel’s self-portrait with Lucian Freud’s ‘Painter Working, Reflections’ (1993), also his only full-figure naked self-portrait, painted as the artist turned 70. Whereas Neel reveals a touch of vulnerability in her pose, seated in an armchair, paintbrush in hand, cheeks flushed, Freud stands arrogant, full of ego, tough – yet both artist appear triumphant.

The Barbican’s gorgeous exhibition, with its warm colours and textures, offers an intimate encounter with the artist. Neel’s work is as fresh and relevant and powerful today as it was then. And, as the exhibition catalogue nicely points out, it speaks of our concerns and struggles, who is represented and why, highlighting the political nature of how we look at others, and what it is to feel seen.

‘Alice Neel: Hot off the Griddle’ is at the Barbican gallery in London until May 21, 2023.

Self-Portrait, 1980 © The Estate of Alice Neel. Courtesy The Estate of Alice Neel.