Fictional Character Moves into V&A Museum

Elmgreen & Dragset new brilliant installation, "Tomorrow" at the Victoria & Albert Museum, is a reconstruction of the apartment of a fictional character, Norman. Here we have Norman's home, we can walk around at this grand South Kensington apartment setting, and touch the items once belonging to the 75-year-old failed architect, and examine his unrealized models in his study. It is no surprise that the V&A directors extended an invitation to the artist duo after seeing their similar work Collectors at the 2009 Venice Biennale.  Watch this informative interview with the artists discussing their works, including this new installation.

http://vimeo.com/74735390

What is interesting at LAPADA

We were at Lapada fair at Berkeley Square today and spotted this cool circa 1885 Wedgwood Jasper ware set and a beautiful still life of grapes by Eliot Hodgkin, who is the uncle of Turner prize winner Howard Hodgkin. There is also the very chic 1927 bangle by Suzanne Belperron, one of the greatest designer jewellers of 20th century. We love this sculptural design made of lacquered silver and turquiose.

How We Age: 60 years in 5 minutes

http://vimeo.com/74033442 Filmmaker Anthony Cerniello created this really cool video of a face aging 60 years in five minutes. Cerniello used tons of photographs that were taken of similar looking family members at a family reunion last Thanksgiving at his friend Danielle's. Talking about his project, Cerniello says "I attempted to create a person in order to emulate the aging process. The idea was that something is happening but you can't see it but you can feel it, like aging itself." The final result is quite remarkable. If you pause the video at any minute, it looks like a plain portrait as the transitions are slow enough that one is only vaguely aware of anything happening. But be patient and watch the whole thing from beginning to end -  you won't be disappointed.

London's 5 Hidden Hot Art Spots

We live in a time of excess, there seems to be too much of anything that becomes remotely popular and in fashion. Just like with art spaces. From established big leagues such as the Tate or Gagosian, to the ones taking first steps, London art scene is buzzing with energy and talent. Here we recommend 5 art spaces that you may have overlooked unknowingly:

Jonathan Viner Jonathan Viner is a contemporary art gallery project based in London, with no fixed abode and with an extremely busy schedule of international shows. Tasked to create a visual identity that would apply to print, site specific and digital collateral, they aim to create a rigorous, manageable and elegant system for each show, explicitly connecting the name of the proprietor, his current activity and the location.

Laura Bartlett Gallery Based in Bethnall Green in London’s east, Laura Bartlett’s contemporary space was among the first to champion the rising art star Cyprien Gaillard.  The gallery is now getting ready for their upcoming show with the Canadian artist Allison Katz, due to open on 28^th of September.

Cell Project Space This gallery operates outside the international, commercial world of art fairs. It is non-commercial and has been designing and creating artists’ workspace in East London for over ten years. As such, it’s a creative hub for the surrounding area and the community, promoting, championing and creating opportunities for collaboration and creative cross-fertilization at every turn. Art is available to buy, but all sales go towards commissioning and exhibition costs. Their new exhibition, Rachel Reupke, ‘Wine & Spirits’ opens tomorrow evening.

Carl Kostyál An exhibition space with twin locations in both Stockholm and London, Carl Kostyál is located on the famous Savile Row of London. Carl is also an avid art collector, and his interest in different media and discovering young talent is reflected in his exhibition programme. In addition to his interest in Scandinavian artists, such as Matias Faldbakken, he also supports young names like Helen Marten and Oscar Murillo, who has just been picked up by David Zwirner.

Project Native Informant Ensconced away in Mayfair’s Brooks Mews, walk past it and you could miss it. However, Project Native Informant is one of the foremost exhibition spaces in London. The current exhibition is of Loretta Fahrenholz, with her video “Ditch Plains” that was shot in Brooklyn around the time of Hurricane Sandy, and free-styles an abstract narrative about the fatal coupling of subjects and systems in a time of permanent crisis.

Back to Work Special: Art Works from Office Supplies

As September begins, we are all returning from summer holidays back to work. So to go with this mood, we are sharing some interesting art works that are made with office&school supplies, from staples and packing tapes to pencil shaves and crayons : to get inspiration as we begin the new art season!

Milan's Secret Museum

Come and discover one of hidden gems in Milan: Poldi Pezzoli Museum. This extraordinary 'secret' museum is a few meters away from the famous Teatro alla Scala and full of Renaissance paintings and other treasures, all displayed in a beautiful domestic setting. The museum was the former home of the Milanese nobleman Gian Giacomo Poldi Pezzoli, who died in 1879 and donated his home and collection for public use and benefit. Similar to the Frick Collection in New York, the Isabella Stewart Gardner in Boston, or the Musee Jacquemart-Andre in Paris. Here you will see masterpieces by Botticelli, Mantegna, Pollaiolo and sculptures, arms and armour, jewels, porcelains, lace, glass, furniture --- list goes on!

Amongst the highlights are the stunning "Madonna of the Book" by Florentine master Botticelli, "Imago Pietatis" by Giovanni Bellini, Piero della Francesca's monumental "St. Nicholas of Tolentino" and finally the symbol of the museum; "Portrait of a Woman" by Piero del Pollaiolo. The museum also holds interesting exhibitions with contemporary art works.

A recent show was "Symbols and geometry in Piero della Francesca: A reading of Chiara Dynys" which gave focus to Francesca's "St. Nicholas of Tolentino." This Renaissance work represents the saint in hieratic position that raises the index upwards in the direction of the stars and the sky which inspired the contemporary artist Chiara Dynys to create a dialogue between ancient and modern alchemy, particularly because Francesca was a mathematician as well as a painter. So next time in Milan, remember to make a stop at this little gem.

Irene Kung's Dream-like Photos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gOVPOYPmes Taking inspiration from everything that surrounds us, Irene Kung creates haunting photographs that inspire a pause for reflection and meditation. The Swiss photographer transforms urban spaces and buildings in cities across the world, as she takes snapshots where tourist take pictures but turns these daytime shots into night. She also separates her subjects from any surroundings, and illuminating them in such a way that adds the dream-like quality. When asked what concepts she aims to emphasize her images, she answers:

Silence and immobility. To stop and see, feel, think and dream. I aim to respond to people’s inner being at this time when our world is rushing towards decline. The void. Unfilled space, the darkness around the subject is more important than the subject itself. Today there is too much of everything around us, and I concentrate on elimination and the creation of voids. Empty space offers the chance of giving time a dimension.

Kung works with Michael Goedhuis Gallery in London and Valentina Bonomo in Rome.

Peckham Takeover at Victoria & Albert Museum TONIGHT

We are all getting used to the Peckham art kids appearing everywhere we go these days! Hannah Barry and her team created the wonderful Palazzo Peckham in Venice this year and now this evening Peckham force is taking over the Victoria & Albert Museum for the second part of a four-part series of Friday Lates at the museum (first one was Dalston Takeover in June). For these special free admission nights, the museum invites London's creative communities to take over the museum for an evening, presenting a range of music, art, design, architecture and more. Here is what you can expect from this evening, but be warned the list is long!

MUSIC & PERFORMANCE

Al Dobson Jr

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Join Al Dobson Jr as he spins a selection of soul, African, highlife, jazz, funk, and reggae, as well as performing a percussion ensemble in between sets. Listen out for Al’s own productions as well as music from his extended family in Peckham.

Rhythm Section

John Madejski Garden 19.15 – 21.30 Rhythm Section is a twice monthly Peckham-based community; a friendly place to dance your troubles away, all night long. It advocates simplicity at its heart; vinyl only, no set times, no photos and no nonsense. Founder, DJ, host and programmer Bradley Zero brings his records to the Museum, capturing the Rhythm Section ethos and spirit.

Reprezent Radio

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 Tune in to a live set by Peckham’s hot young under 25s DJs. Reprezent 107.3FM broadcasts across the capital to young Londoners and across the world online. Featuring DJ Neptizzle amongst others, join them as they bring their unique line up of house and afrobeat to the Museum.

City Love

Lucy and Jim are alone. To the world they seem to be OK: They have jobs, friends, and ambitions (well sort of). However, their chance meeting on the number 12 night bus in Peckham spirals them into a world of love, pain and (mis)communication. To celebrate their forthcoming production of City Love by Simon Vinnicombe at the Bussey Building, Peckham-based theatre company The Orange Line Collective presents an extract from the play in pop up locations around the Museum.

TAKEOVERS

Day Job

Medieval & Renaissance, Room 50a 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham-based illustration collective Day Job take over an area of the Museum, inspired by their home turf of Rye Lane. Experience the buzz of a bustling and multicultural high street through a playful installation, juxtaposed with the elegance of V&A sculptures. Alternatively, exchange a drawing or object for some Bank of Day Job Peckham Pounds (Pecks) at a value negotiated by a pawnbroker. Watch them displayed over the course of the evening in Day Job’s Pawnshop window.

Hannah Barry Gallery

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 A staple of Peckham’s burgeoning reputation as a hub for contemporary art, Hannah Barry Gallery brings the work of three South London-based artists to the Museum. Collectively, these three demonstrate the variety of approaches to art-making embraced by the Peckham movement.

• Tom Barnett performs as Colden Drystone: uniformed in a future-age suit created by Lee Roach, his performance incorporates the recital of poetry and found texts, Dada-esque sound pieces of the artist’s own composition and patterns of repetition and feedback.
• James Capper designs and builds functional sculptures that mark the environments in which they are deployed. Incorporating the strategies and techniques of mechanical engineering, Capper’s work describes a physical relationship to the place in which it is stationed.
• James Balmforth presents a beautiful short film exploring his preoccupation with the fragility of objects and symbols, a concern he also pursues in his sculptural practice.

The Bussey Quarter

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Get involved in The Bussey Quarter, a cross-disciplinary collaboration presented by Lou-Atessa Marcellin gathering a selection of creative practices together from the Bussey Building in Peckham. Engage and interpret the notion of portraiture, through literature, set design, photography and locally crafted music by DJ Tristram Bolletti.

• Doost Studio run by Lou-Atessa Marcellin, will present a pop-up photo-booth with a cardboard throne designed by Sarah Medvedowsky, emphasizing the visual and spatial identity framing the sitter.
• Lucie Beauvert and Paol Kemp (LBPK) create a unique atmosphere interlacing the context of the V&A and the practices within the Bussey Building.
• Library of Independent Exchange (L.I.E.) run by Christopher Green and Mark James, will display individual collections of books that reflect readings by local artists throughout the evening.

Peckham Springs

Sackler Centre (1st Floor) 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Springs is an art gallery and bar situated in two railway arches beneath Peckham Rye Station. The gallery programme features a range of exhibitions, film screenings and live art events by exciting new artists, alongside a bar which serves a range of carefully crafted cocktails. Peckham Springs invite you to experience a typical evening at their space with a selection of work from past and future shows at the gallery and a Peckham Spring Water cocktail in hand.

INSTALLATIONS

Churches

Grand Entrance 18.30 – 22.00 Take in photographer David Spero’s quiet and contemplative photos of unassuming churches in often surprising locations – revealing the lesser known and invisible structures, lifestyles and architecture of Peckham.

Rye Lane Khanga, Gele and Aso Oke

Fashion, Room 40 18.30 – 21.30 A collaboration between South-London design label Chichia and Rye Lane Market dress shop, Pachito: Chichia London College of Fashion graduate and Chichia designer Christine Mhando showcases pieces from her upcoming collection, fusing East African Tanzanian Khanga with contemporary stylings. Pachito Self taught African dress maker Patricia demonstrates a range of African head wraps, including the iconic Nigerian Gele, Aso Oke and Ghanaian styles, using bespoke Chichia fabrics.

Peckham Rising Revisited

Lydia and Manfred Gorvy Lecture Theatre 18.30 – 21.30 This installation revisits the exhibition Peckham Rising, curated by urbanist and curator Paul Goodwin at the Sassoon Gallery in Peckham in 2007. Experience a temporary space of contemplation exploring black urbanism and the other side of Peckham through a critical assemblage of street photography, sound and text. Featuring the works of Daniele Tamagni and Thabo Jayesimi and Janine Lai.

WORKSHOPS

Garudio Studiage

John Madejski Garden 18.30 – 21.30 Join Peckham-based creative collective Garudio Studiage in a duo of workshops:

• The Lucky Skip: A Very Peckham Lucky Dip

  Rummage through the delights of a very Peckham lucky dip, through a handmade skip, with a chance to win a dizzying selection of prizes. All prizes are handmade or hand selected by Garudio Studiage, wrapped in hand screen-printed wrapping paper.

• Nation of Shopkeepers

  Create your own fantasy shop for Peckham’s Rye Lane. Using pens, pencils and crayons, customise blank line drawings of every shop on the street, which took over 500 man-hours to draw. Watch the street grow as the evening goes on, and take part in re-imagining this diverse and changing London neighbourhood.

Peckham Space – Peace Blanket!

Sackler Centre Reception 18.30 – 21.30 Peckham Space presents the interactive artwork Peace Blanket, created by Camberwell College of Arts graduate Mhairi Macaulay and over 700 participating residents from Peckham and beyond. In August 2012, Peckham Space invited visitors to stitch a square for peace to celebrate the wall of post-it note messages for Peckham which grew on Rye Lane in response to the riots of 2011. Take a look at the original sayings on the Peace Blanket and contribute your own through the course of the evening.

Peckham Print Studio

Sackler Centre Art Studio 18.30 – 21.30 Installing a series of custom built screen printing units, Peckham Print Studio will transform the V&A Art Studio into their own working studio. Pull your own print and engage with the process from start to finish. The studio will also be joined by a selection of artists and illustrators who will produce a series of custom works to be printed at the event.

Illustrate Camberwell

Lunchroom 1, Sackler Centre 18.30 – 21.30 Firmly rooted in the border between Peckham and Camberwell, Camberwell College of Art has built up a formidable reputation within the area. Enroll as a fresher, learn how to illustrate with current Camberwell BA Illustration students, hang your final work in your degree show and see what grade you get. Don’t forget to top off your newly acquired degree with a photo in your graduation robes.

TALKS & FILM

Artist Maps

Prints & Drawings Study Room (Accessed via the Sackler Centre) 19.30 – 20.15 Inspired by Tom Phillips’ Map Walks Nos. 1 and 2 which focus on the artist’s relationship with the Peckham and Camberwell area, V&A Senior Curator of Prints and Drawings Gill Saunders walks us through the enthralling world of the artist map. Take an intimate look at specially selected maps in the Museum’s collection.

Peckham Past and Present

Seminar Room 1 19.30 – 20.30 Listen to local resident, architect and Peckham Vision conservation specialist Benny O’Looney in conversation with Ben Eastham (Hannah Barry Gallery/The White Review) and Biz K, editor of The Peckham Complex: A Cultural and Social Snapshot of Inner London, as they discuss the area’s cultural scene, architecture and social history.

Peckham Vision

Seminar Room 2, Sackler Centre 20.40 – 21.25 Join local resident and co-ordinator of community group Peckham Vision Eileen Conn as she chairs a Peckham Vision community meeting, starting with a visual tour of Peckham’s diverse parallel communities and economies. Get involved in a lively discussion about wider issues of connections, integration and realising the potential of our town centres.

Aesthetica Magazine Presents

Hochhauser Auditorium 19.00 & 20.00 (50 minutes) Aesthetica presents a screening of films from Aesthetica Short Film Festival (ASFF) 2012, providing a wider context to Peckham as an area. Paper Mountains shows a young girl’s love of ballet in the midst of a hard and difficult life but also presents her aspirations for the future. Notes from the Underground is a portrait of life on the tube, whilst the remaining films question morality and depict the hardships of addiction. The reel aims to capture vignettes of everyday life, offering a glimpse into the lives of others.

Hendzel and Hunt’s Peckham Yacht Club

National Art Library 20.30 – 21.15 Join Peckham-based design studio Hendzel and Hunt as they present their latest project, L’Abeille Noir des Porquerolles. Specialising in working with reclaimed wood, they joined forces with landscape architects Elinor Scarth and Etienne Haller. The group embarked on a three week adventure in the south of France where they built and sailed a seven meter long boat entirely made from scavenged materials.

Peckham Social Archives

Sculpture, Room 21a 18.30 – 21.45 Explore the local entrepreneurs of Peckham’s diverse community, first screened at Peckhamplex as part of Chelsea College of Art and Design’s Consume Peckham event. Chaz Hairdressers by Tom Brushwood, Didi Blackhurst and Shraddha Depala, follows George the owner as he reflects on the history of his shop in Peckham. Born and Bread by Jack Haslehurst, Isabel Gibson and Joe Myers, is a day in the life of a wholesale bakery in Peckham.

Hot Young Heir to the American school of Pop

Since his New York debut last year at Joe Sheftel Gallery, Alex Da Corte has been getting much attention in the art scene and keeping busy!  A graduate of the prestigious MFA program at Yale, Da Corte has been named as a hot young artist, an heir to the American school of pop. But his Americanism comes with a taste of South America (where he spent part of his childhood) especially with his appreciation of bright colors, swirling surfaces and celebratory life-and-death imagery.

Sheftel, who met Da Corte while he was still at Yale, says, “I think there are very few people interacting with objects the way he is.” Da Corte’s work ranges in different media, but his favorite is sculpture. He hunts grocery stores, street corners and IKEA for materials for his assemblages that utilize everything from Coca-Cola bottles to fingernails – basically anything what we, as a culture, consume and discard.  For his debut show at Joe Sheftel, one of the found objects was a video for Soul for Real’s 1995 song “Candy Rain” --- we look at this thing that was number one on the charts and now it’s completely foreign! For his abstract paintings, Da Corte re-purposes everyday products like discount shampoo, and by doing so asks the viewer to re-examine the items placed closest to their bodies. He is a painter and a consummate collaborator who grays the lines between collecting, absorbing and embedding.

Da Corte has been getting a lot of press, as well as having two exhibitions on this summer! One is a solo show “Fun Sponge” at the Institute of Contemporary Art at Maine College of Art, and the other in a two-person solo show at Oko Gallery in New York. Read here an interview from June 2013 where Da Corte talks about his art and inspirations.

Sculptures behind the Renaissance

When you think of the great Renaissance works, one tends to focus on oil paintings and the painters. But without the sculptors who paved the way, we would have no Botticelli, Leonardo or Raphael. Renaissance really began in a few decades at the beginning of the 15th century in Florence, and a superb exhibition "The Springtime of the Renaissance" at Palazzo Strozzi in Florence maps out this artistic revolution and brings together a treasure-studded retrospective of sculpture through Western art's most important era. Speaking of the exhibition, curator Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says "the exhibition aims to show that the origin of this revolution, which lasted two centuries, was sculpture."

Works by masters including Donatello and Masaccio, Brunelleschi and Paolo Uccello have been loaned for the unprecedented show, with works coming from collections including the Louvre in Paris, the Bargello Museum in Florence, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Bode-Museum in Berlin, the Metropolitan in New York and the National Gallery in Washington.

Amongst the loans is the Cortona sarcophagus, carved with Amazon warriors and plunging centaurs, that Brunelleschi is said to have walked all the way from Florence to see. The Bode-Museum lent a magnificent work by Donatello known as the "Madonna Pazzi" -- a marble statue used to create molds that were then used to cast copies in bronze. Speaking of this work, Beatrice Paolozzi Strozzi says:

"These moulds in terracotta or stucco were not that costly so that any store or convent could afford the statues in Florence and elsewhere. This allowed the aesthetic revolution to spread, including outside of Italy."

Copies of the molds were made especially for the exhibition and put on display where visitors are encouraged to touch them.

Congratulations are due to the three institutions behind this show: the Louvre and the Bargello Museum, both of which have amazing permanent holdings, and Palazzo Strozzi. The exhibition ends in Florence on 18th of August, and will travel to the Louvre in September, on view until 6th of January 2014. So plenty of chance to see it.