(This) precious stone set in the silver sea, Copperfield, London
This group exhibition aims to explore how island territories have been represented throughout history and what it means to be an islander. Highlights include Oscar Santillán’s work Blister, which focuses on our interest in exploring unimaginable remote lands, while his co-authored work with Yoko Ono, Cuerpo de Agua, is composed of two anonymous footsteps, one collected in the coast of Japan and the other on the opposite side of the Pacific Ocean, in Ecuador. For her work Theretofor, Inés Camara Leret collected samples of seawater, donated by people based across the world, which were then combined with satellite imagery and rendered into souvenir-like magnets. Other artists exhibiting include: Erola Arcalís, Irene de Andrés, Yorgos Petrou, and Stéphanie Saadé.
Until 6 March 2020 www.copperfieldgallery.com
Elizabeth Eade, HIX ART, London
Winner of the 2018 HIX Award, installation artist Elizabeth Eade’s first major solo show explores her attitude towards a range of social and political issues, some serious, some frivolous. It includes People who’ve pissed me off, a kinetic installation which sporadically produces the names of people who have – as the title suggests – ‘pissed Eade off’. Amongst the thousands of people featured in this work are the Kardashians, Piers Morgan, almost all of her friends and Pol Pot. On a more serious note is Net Realisable Value, (NRV), which was produced in response to the deaths of 26 teenage girls who, it is believed, were being trafficked from Nigeria into the sex industry, and were found drowned off the coast of Italy in 2017. The work is comprised of an identical number of clay and copper figures, which were immersed in sea water, to form green crystals on their surfaces.
Until 15 March www.hixrestaurants.co.uk/restaurant/hix-art/
Shezad Dawood: Encroachments, New Art Exchange, Nottingham
This new virtual reality installation by Shezad Dawood features neon, wallpaper, sculpture and print to explore the relations between Pakistan and the US since partition in 1947. The central element of the VR is the proposed US embassy in Karachi designed by Austrian-American Modernist architect Richard Neutra. Its construction began in 1959, but by the time it was completed, the capital was moved to the new city of Islamabad and Neutra’s building was downgraded to a Consulate. On the journey to the Neutra building and onwards, the VR user moves through various parallel environments, with each scene punctuated by a different track from the music scene that developed in the late 1960s in Pakistan. The result is an intriguing show that highlights ideas of sovereignty, private property and the politics of space.
Until 15 March www.nae.org.uk
Pacita Abad: Life in the Margins, Spike Island, Bristol
The first exhibition in the UK by Filipino American artist Pacita Abad includes 20 large-scale ‘trapunto’ paintings and works on fabric made between 1983 and 2002. Characterised by their vibrant colours and intricate construction, her works combine a broad range of styles, subjects and techniques, including social realist tableaus incorporating indigenous textiles, Korean ink brush painting, Indonesian batik and Papua New Guinean macramé. This show focuses on Abad’s depictions of the experiences of immigrants and her engagement with diverse cultural traditions, and offers an idiosyncratic perspective on transnational art and culture.
Until 5 April www.spikeisland.org.uk
France-Lise McGurn: In Emotia, Tramway, Glasgow
Glasgow-based artist France-Lise McGurn works predominantly with painting to create layered installations that incorporate the gallery walls, floors and ceilings. Her figurative painting and wall drawings feature bodies and limbs that overlap and interact in various spaces and at parties, night clubs, on streets or lying in bed either side of paper thin walls. Working intuitively rather than through direct appropriation, the results are a series of energetic compositions which suggest intimacy, ecstasy, sexuality, violence and loss.
Until 29 March www.tramway.org
Images:
1. Oscar Santillán, Blister, found shoe, beetle, water, magnet and mechanism, 2019.
2. Elizabeth Eade, people who’ve pissed me off (detail).
3. Pacita Abad, The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling, oil, plastic buttons and beads, painted cloth on stitched and padded canvas, 300x270cm, 1998. Courtesy: the Pacita Abad Art Estate. Photo courtesy: Pioneer Studios, Manila
4. France-Lise McGurn, Easy Emotia, (detail), 2019. Courtesy: the artist
More on a-n.co.uk:
Islington Mill secures National Lottery Heritage Fund award to complete capital fundraising project
