Elusive artist Banksy is back at his “Walled Off Hotel” in the city of Bethlehem in Palestine with a new stunt to celebrate the festive season with a “festive spectacular” titled Alternativity, and continue to raise media awareness in one of the most troubled parts of the globe. Alternativity features a play directed by Rihaam Issac and Danny Boyle and other surprises.
As a nod to the biblical events, two versions of the Alternativity flyer feature a heavily pregnant Mary sitting on a donkey while Joseph is looking perplexed at the separation wall while the star is shining on the other side. How do they cross?
Nearby the hotel, Banksy just unveiled two brand new street pieces.
The first piece “Peace On Earth” is a text based work which reads “Peace on Earth *terms and conditions apply.” Located in front of the Milk Grotto Church. The clever text-based works juxtaposes the spiritual and universal ‘Peace on earth’ quote and religious Christmas Star with a consumerism message ‘Terms and conditions apply’, highlighting the sarcastic turn of our modern day society.
It also references to the delicate balance to maintain peace.
The second piece shows two stencilled angels, equipped with a crowbar and trying to breakthrough the separation wall. One of the angels is wearing a handkerchief to cover his face while the other has a little beanie in true vandal style to carry out their mischief. As usual with Banksy, its a perfect placement for this cute and cheeky artwork.
The piece was supposedly painted a few days / weeks ago and hidden in plain sight with a banner announcing the event.
In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Lisson Gallery, the gallery is partnering with The Vinyl Factory to stage an ambitious group exhibition called ‘EVERYTHING AT ONCE‘, inspired by a quote by John Cage in 1966 “Nowadays everything happens at once and our souls are conveniently electronic (omniattentive).”
More than ever before, contemporary art, like life, assaults us simultaneously from all angles and from anywhere on the globe, existing also as multi-sensory visions of an accelerated world. Time and space are no longer rational or linear concepts and great distances can be traversed with an instantaneous click.
Through 45 new and historical works by 24 artists, ‘Everything at once’ is a multi-sensorial experience, an interconnected journey exploring effect and event, invoking immediacy and immutability in the 180 Strand building, home to the Vinyl Factory.
Participating artists include : MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ – AI WEIWEI – ALLORA & CALZADILLA – ART & LANGUAGE – CORY ARCANGEL – TONY CRAGG – RICHARD DEACON – NATHALIE DJURBERG & HANS BERG – CEAL FLOYER – RYAN GANDER – DAN GRAHAM – RODNEY GRAHAM – SUSAN HILLER – SHIRAZEH HOUSHIARY – ANISH KAPOOR – LEE UFAN – RICHARD LONG – HAROON MIRZA – TATSUO MIYAJIMA – JULIAN OPIE – LAURE PROUVOST – WAEL SHAWKY – LAWRENCE WEINER – STANLEY WHITNEY
In parallel to the exhibition, Ryoji Ikeda’s ‘Test Pattern [No.12]’ – commissioned by Store X The Vinyl Factory – is a discombobulating experience, in which black and white bar code-like patterns pulse in the darkness. The Japanese artist and electronic composer converts data from music and photography into monochrome binary patterns, immersing gallery-goers in a dazzling kinetic environment.
To kick off the exhibition, the ground floor contains important sculptural statements from the last century by Anish Kapoor – At the Edge of the World II (1998) , a UFO like installation that floats above head height, receding seemingly impossibly into space and time – while Richard Deacon presents his own takes on materiality and multidimensionality.
Ai Weiwei’s giant wallpaper installation stretches 50m along the building and depicts people’s continuing movement across the globe, paired with a landscape of blasted tree roots – together speaking of displacement, conflict and alienation, a reference to the ongoing global refugee crisis.
Cory Arcangel’s video projection features ‘MIG 29 Soviet Fighter Plane and Clouds’ depicting elements of a hacked video game from the early 1990s.
Richard Long created a 60-metre long mud work called ‘Pelopennese Line’, using his hands dipped in slip from the river Avon.
Stanley Whitney is exploring the formal possibilities of colour within ever-shifting grids of multi-hued blocks inspired by music and dance.
Works by Ryan Gander present four metallic sentinels in dramatic postures displaying a range of emotions while remaining faceless, as well as a draped mirror and a stairway to Heaven.
‘Minster’ totemic sculptures by Tony Cragg built from scraps of rubber, stone, wood and metal recall the spires of a cathedral .
Susan Hiller’s installation entitled Channels, showcases a series of 104 analogue television screens with a collection of audio accounts and oscilloscope recordings of people who have experienced death and returned to tell the tale. These vivid stories in many different languages constitute a remarkable contemporary archive, whether the accounts are regarded as metaphors, misconceptions, myths, delusions or truths.
Everything at Once Until 10 December 180 The Strand, London, WC2R 1EA
London based artist Alexander Chappell debuted his solo show entitled ‘Nobody‘ at StolenSpace, exploring the path of anonymity in a society obsessed with being ‘somebody’.
Featuring 12 graphite portraits of graffiti writers: Astek, Bonzai, Chu, Conor Harrington, D*Face, Eine, Inkie, Insa, Joe Holbrook, Tizer and Xenz. Contrary to today’s obsession with fame, the depicted artists have led their artistic career through anonymity, using an alias and not showing their faces.
After photographing them, Alexander Chappell painstakingly recreated the portraits in fine detail using graphite and white marker. The depicted writers added their tagged signature in red on the framed portraits.
The show also features a self portrait of the artist, with a collaboration with Conor Harrington.
Alexander Chappell – Nobody
Until 19 November 2017
StolenSpace
17 Osborn Street,
London UK E1 6TD
One of Bristol’s most renowned street artist Rowdy is gathering forces with legendary London screenprinter Aida Wilde for a duo show ‘Rowdy and Wilde’ at Clifton Fine Art in Bristol.
Aida Wilde was born in Iran and arrived in the UK in the mid 80’s as a political refugee. Aida’s artistic career has been a diverse one. She has been a professional screen printer for the last twenty years.
Her work has been featured at the Victoria & Albert Museum since 2011 and The Women’s Art Library (see our coverage here). Her HASHTAG series of works was used for the Brandalism project (covered) and the global project Subvert The City, which saw the world’s first coordinated international ad takeover & over 60 creative actions in 38 cities in 18 countries around the world. Aida still continues with her facilitating role with various workshops and community projects through Print Is Power – Reclamation Nation & more currently, Sisters In Print (All female international print collective).
Hailed by many as a screen-printing genius, Aida’s process is her art. She prides herself on her perfect printing technique and continually pushing the boundaries of this once traditionally considered art form. The artist’s skill is second to none when it comes to print making. Her unique style expresses her ongoing battle to bring alternative elements together, the graphic and the classical, whether this is through pop colours, texture (glitter, velvet…) or through image. Aida’s most recent experiments feature the use of the screen as a mono-printing tool to develop her ‘Life: Still’ edition.
Rowdy, member of the Burning Candy crew, is an integral part of the Bristol graffiti scene. His work appears worldwide and can be found in the most unlikely places, from underground rural settings to highly visible urban reaches. Rowdy’s trademark crocodiles are often huge in scale and are indicative of the playful nature of the imagery in his work.
Burning Candy Crew in London 2009
Rowdy’s abstract cityscape paintings show skyscrapers constructed out of the tiniest marks a spray-can can make, floating colour fields combined with 1980’s graffiti fades. Some are bustling and hectic, recalling markets and highways, motion and change, whilst others show a more meditative side to the city, haze and city lights hover within an expansive luminous ground.
The two artists bring an explosion of vibrant colours with bright, uplifting, and innovative works to Clifton Fine Art Gallery: upon entering the gallery a screen printed leopard rug with velvet feel by Aida Wilde is framed on the floor while abstract landscape paintings by Rowdy and still- life and neon pink screen-printed artworks by Aida adorn the walls. Rowdy signature monumental crocodile wooden sculpture is a playful delight for small children and guests.
Jake and Dinos Chapman (covered), known for their provocative and pessimistic ruminations on human violence and barbarity , have created seven bronzes of suicide vests for Blain|Southern Gallery.
Made from images found online, the “life and death vests” are extremely detailed and real, apart from one which is based on a Hollywood film prop used in a Jackie Chan film.
The Chapmans’ work is often a response to the work of other artists. In this case, they were inspired by Jeff Koons’ Aqualung from 1985 (check our coverage on Jeff Koons retrospective here )
Jeff Koons Aqualung 1985
The bronzes clearly address world events but the artists have declined to speak about the new works. Each bronze is being sold as a one-off, apart from the one based on a prop used in the Jackie Chan film Rush Hour, which the brothers bought from a movie props website. That comes in an edition of six.
Also on display, Jake & Dinos Chapman continue to expand on their career-long preoccupation with Francisco Goya’s series of etchings, The Disasters of War. The Disasters of Everyday Life presents three full sets of Goya’s prints, each set substantially reworked in collage, watercolour and glitter by the Chapman brothers with their own wit to depict the absurdity of war.
Jake and Dinos Chapman The Disasters of Everyday Life Until 11 November 2017 Blain|Southern 4 Hanover Square London W1S 1BP
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