Leo Fitzmaurice: Between You and Me and Everything Else, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
Liverpool-based artist Leo Fitzmaurice has curated a selection of portraits from the Arts Council Collection and National Museums Liverpool’s own collection, with his choices ‘dictated by the direction in which the sitters seem to be looking’. With more than 30 portraits, featured artists include Frank Auerbach, David Bomberg, Milena Dragicevic, Ken Kiff, Marie-Louise von Motesiczky and Philip Sutton. Highlights include Dragicevic’s Supplicant 101 (detail), in which the sitter’s face is partially distorted by a beak, and Richard Hamilton’s pop art collage, Portrait of Hugh Gaitskell as a Famous Monster of Filmland, which depicts the Labour politician famous for refusing to endorse a non-nuclear policy.
Until 17 March 2019. www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk
Jesse Darling: The Ballad of Saint Jerome, Tate Britain, London
The latest in Tate Britain’s ongoing Art Now series of free exhibitions showcasing emerging talent features Berlin and London-based artist Jesse Darling. His varied practice includes sculpture, drawing and objects that explore the vulnerability of the human body, gender, sexuality and disability. Everyday materials fill the gallery and are transformed so that their appearance takes on that of ‘wounded and liberated shapes’, including contorted mobility canes that look like snakes and cabinets trying to walk away on their bent legs. Read Fisun Güner’s review of Tate Britain’s Turner Prize exhibition here.
Until 24 February 2019. www.tate.org.uk
Michael Porter, Newlyn Art Gallery, Penzance
Newlyn-based artist Michael Porter presents a new series of watercolours that explore soil, plants and the natural world. The works are based on ordinary bits of grass and clumps of earth, with the artist’s time-consuming and elaborately detailed painting bringing into focus everyday objects that would otherwise go unnoticed. Part of the Newlyn Art Gallery’s Picture Room series of shows, with all profits from work sold directly helping to support the gallery’s learning and exhibition activities.
Until 5 January 2019. www.newlynartgallery.co.uk
Andrea Galvani: The Universal One, The Ryder Projects, London
The title of this show references the American painter, sculptor and natural philosopher Walter Russell’s seminal 1927 publication of the same name, which fused science with spirituality. It features a site-specific installation that explore cycles of ‘integration and disintegration, what changes units of energy into atoms, and the phenomena that brings all things into existence’. The focal piece of the show is Galvani’s monumental neon sculpture Study on Walter Russell (1871-1963): Elements of Matter, whilst the exhibition also features sporadic vocalists and performers working with light and sound.
Until 10 November 2018. www.theryderprojects.com
Not Yet At Ease. Firstsite, Colchester
Delhi-based Raqs Media Collective’s latest work is a powerful exploration of the history of psychological disorders caused by conflict and the stigmas attached to them. It features an immersive artwork inspired by letters written by soldiers during wartime, with Raqs reworking letters, photographs and documents dating back to the first world war. Video and sound installations tell the story of the condition known at the time as ‘shell shock’, exploring how attitudes have changed towards those affected by the psychology of war. The work is a co-commission by Firstsite and 14-18 NOW.
Until 20 January 2019. www.firstsite.uk
Images:
1. Milena Dragicevic, Supplicant 101 (detail), 2008, Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre, London. © the artist, courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna
2. Jesse Darling, Lion in wait for Jerome and his medical kit (rather go free than get healed), detail 2018. Courtesy: Arcadia Missa. © Jesse Darling 2018
3. Michael Porter, Left Dirt 15-04-18, Right Dirt 13-04-18. Courtesy: Newlyn Art Gallery
4. Andrea Galvani, The Universal One, 2018, installation with 6500K neon, cobalt blue, lilac, and pink blown glass, metal structures, cables, electricity. Dimensions variable with architecture. Courtesy: the artist and The Ryder Projects
5. Raqs Media Collective, Not Yet At Ease, 2018. Courtesy: Raqs Media Collective and Frith Street Gallery
More on a-n.co.uk:
Frieze Week 2018: art fairs and events across London
“A blank canvas for artists to experiment and create new work”: Sheffield’s Site Gallery reopens after £1.7m development
A Q&A with… Rabiya Choudhry, painter of “joyous, demented expressions” at Transmission, Glasgow
