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Category Archives: Contemporary Art

Recap: Bartek Świątecki AKA Pener – ‘Chasing The Wind’ @ Chenus Longhi

Last weekend saw the conclusion of Bartek Świątecki’s Chasing The Wind exhibition at Chenus Longhi in Paris. It seems that Poland has produced a disproportionately large number of artists who started out writing graffiti and have then stretched the movement’s foundational principles to oblivion in their own unique ways, creating new languages of expression in the process. Świątecki, also known as Pener, was part of the Spectrum crew alongside the likes of Proembrion and later painted walls in Bydgoszcz with Sainer and Bezt before increasingly […]

Showing: Invader – ‘Invader Space Station’

For three months, visitors are invited to step aboard Invader Space Station to experience the Parisian artist’s most artistically and physically expansive exhibition to date. The show is being held in the modernist edifice which was once home to Libération, the newspaper whose pages the artist invaded in 2011. Upon entering, visitors are met with a barrage of sound and light emanating from an installation which occupies the entirety of the first of nine floors; the classic Space Invaders arcade game has been reimagined in […]

Opening: Sickboy – ‘Optical Delusions’ @ Harvey Nichols (Bristol)

Mixing art and fine dining, Sickboy (interviewed) is kicking off his latest show at the high-end department store Harvey Nichols tonight with a launch dinner and artist’s talk. Optical Delusions is presented by Fluorescent Smogg and builds upon his ever-expanding use of semiotics to create a dream-like world that glows and radiates light. The Bristol-based artist has long experimented with an array of unorthodox mediums: from painting on bell-jars in the early 2000s, to creating tapestries a decade later and onwards to the lightboxes which […]

Showing: José Parlá – ‘Phosphene’ @ Ben Brown (London)

Closing today after a four week run, Phosphene is José Parlá’s second show at Ben Brown Fine Art’s London location. The title references the phenomenon of seeing light without any external stimulus and the exhibition features 11 large scale canvases infused with kinetic and sensory energy. For many, graffiti is a means to exist beyond the corporeal and social confinement of our current circumstances and the now Brooklyn-based artist’s Ease tag was like a visual mantra repeated across south Miami in search of personal perfection. […]

Showing: Alistair Canvin – ‘Do Not Over Inflate’ @ Plan X

Earlier this week, Alistair Canvin presented his debut solo exhibition at Plan X Gallery in Milan. The show, entitled Do Not Over Inflate, presents a series of photorealistic paintings depicting deflated flamingoes, crocodiles and beach balls set against a backdrop of water-refracted pool tiles. The partial use of an airbrush captures the tactile, plasticky feel of those objects and evokes memories of holidays in the sun. At first glance, the work’s aesthetic appears to reference youthful simplicity and the carefree optimism of childhood. But, this […]

Preview/Art Focus: Futura – ‘Breaking Out’ @ University of Buffalo

Retrospectives are rarely as overdue as the one opening on Saturday at the University of Buffalo Art Galleries. Breaking Out spans both of the university’s locations – UB Center for the Arts and the UB Anderson Gallery – and provides a comprehensive survey of the five decade-long career of Futura. So, it seems like a timely opportunity for us to take a look back at the life and works of one of the most innovative and influential artists of our time.  Leonard Hilton McGurr was […]

Showing: Banksy – ‘Cut and Run’ @ GOMA

After a sold-out 10 week run at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art, Banksy’s first solo show in almost 14 years comes to a close next week. The exhibition, entitled Cut and Run, gives the public the opportunity to rediscover paintings which have appeared around the world over the last 25 years; many of these can no longer be found on the street and, in some cases, the streets themselves no longer even exist. The exhibition displays the original stencils used to create many of his […]

Releases: Top 10 Books of 2022

Despite the indisputable importance of digital media in the art world, the appetite for physical books remains undimmed and this year has seen the release of some beautifully crafted works. So, in no particular order, here are our favorite books published in 2022. ‘4000’ by INVADER The Parisian-artist’s global invasion is undoubtedly one of the largest and most ambitious art projects that has ever been undertaken. In addition to photos of all the 4000 pieces which he has created in 80 cities worldwide over the […]

Releases: Barry McGee – ‘Reproduction’ Book

‘I don’t feel like a photographer’ Barry McGee once confessed. So it’s no small irony that Aperture has just released Reproduction, his first book dedicated exclusively to that medium. The book is printed on a contrasting combination of the kind of thick gloss paper which is familiar to the publisher’s usual fine art photography publications and the thinner matte stock which McGee’s images are more commonly printed on in his many zines.  The book collates just a small number of the many photographs that the […]

Recap: Maya Hayuk – ‘Spin Cycle’ @ Alice Gallery

Last weekend saw the conclusion of Maya Hayuk‘s Spin Cycle exhibition at Alice Gallery in Brussels. The influence of Hayuk’s history, identify and personal narrative stand visually proud in her abstract compositions: the X’s are evocative of the cross-stitching her grandmother taught her as a child, the kaleidoscopic rainbow of colors underscores her sense of queer kinship and the visual engagement of her work reflects her long history of social activism. But, her use of multiple transparent and opaque layers take individual paintings far beyond […]