Emma Kunz: Visionary Drawings, Serpentine Gallery, London
Swiss artist Emma Kunz was also a spiritual healer who used drawing to aid her sessions. Using a pendulum to decide the marks on large sheets of graph paper, she created over 500 drawings throughout her life, yet intriguingly never exhibited them. Instead, Kunz, who died in 1963, claimed they were better suited to the 21st century. The Serpentine Gallery’s exhibition features over 40 of her rarely seen abstract works, plus a new collaboration with the Cypriot artist Christodoulos Panayiotou who has created stone benches made from Aion A, a rock named by Kunz that she claimed had healing properties.
Until 19 May 2019. www.serpentinegalleries.org
Filip Markiewicz: Celebration Factory, CCA, Derry
This exhibition offers a meditation on the crisis of Europe, and features a raft of different hand-drawn multiples and assemblages. The subject matter is, as you might expect, pretty varied, including the ‘detritus from big nights out’ such as Polish Zywiec beer bottles, The Daily Mail’s Brexit front page and Albrecht Dürer’s Jesus portrait with Pepsi cans. There are also original films exploring various music scenes and ‘Fake Fiction’, plus a circular stage at the heart of the installation that invites artists and musicians to ‘activate’ the exhibition with their performances and voices.
Until 11 May 2o19. www.cca-derry-londonderry.org
Gary Hume, New Art Centre, Salisbury
Although Turner Prize nominee Gary Hume is probably best known for the pop art paintings he produced in the 1990s, this show focuses solely on his lesser-known sculpture. Legs and arms protrude at jaunty angles, hovering somewhere between abstraction and figuration, whilst there are also elements of his painting practice referenced through bright colours painted on the objects. At the time of his previous exhibition at New Art Centre, in 2010, Hume joked that he had tried his hand at sculpture, but “they kept falling over. That was my main trouble: gravity”. He’s clearly addressed such problems, with the work on show here some of his most compelling.
Until 12 May 2019. www.sculpture.uk.com
Hew Locke: Here’s the Thing, Ikon, Birmingham
The most comprehensive exhibition of Hew Locke’s work to date features painting, drawing, photography, sculpture and installation that explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power. Mixing historical source material with current affairs, he places special emphasis on the UK, the monarchy and his childhood home of the then newly independent Guyana. Through appropriating coats of arms and trophies, weaponry, naval warships, public statuary and the costumes and regalia of state, Locke critiques governmental authority, its iconographies and legacies.
Until 2 June 2019. www.ikon-gallery.org
Undoing, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
Featuring photography, models, sculpture and film by artists and architects, this show is a collaboration between Manchester School of Architecture, independent curator Tom Emery, and Castlefield Gallery that explores how ‘buildings, places and artefacts are re-used, reinterpreted and remembered’. Featuring work by: James Ackerley, Nazgol Ansarinia, Tom Dale, Connor + Darby, Malcolm Fraser, MAP Studio, Manchester School of Architecture, Abigail Reynolds, Larissa Sansour, Adrien Tirtiaux, and Sarah Westphal.
Until 26 May 2019. www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk
Images:
1. Emma Kunz, Work No. 003. Photo: © Emma Kunz Zentrum
2. Filip Markiewicz: Celebration Factory, installation view, CCA, Derry. Credit: CCA Derry-Londonderry and Simon Mills
3. Gary Hume, The Beach, in the gallery. Courtesy: New Art Centre
4. Larissa Sansour, In the Future, They Ate From the Finest Porcelain, 2015, film still © Larissa Sansour
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