Mars Year Zero, Southwark Park Galleries, London
Through film, music and song, images, artifacts and performance, UK-based group Plastique Fantastique describes its latest show as a ‘performance fiction addressing precarious ecologies, nascent tech-life, animals that speak and a friends’ reunion in which human and non-human natures meet’. The overall narrative deals with a fictional International Space Station, and its inhabitants – three seed-tech-animals and their guardian and keeper CIMON. They flee the station and head for a new place to live, with the exhibition presenting their attempts to bring chaos to order and found a society of friends in a precarious and hostile environment. Intriguing stuff.
Until 10 November www.southwarkparkgalleries.org
Ashanti Harris: The Skeleton of a Name , Transmission, Glasgow
Glasgow based artist Ashanti Harris’ work explores themes relating to the movement of people, ideas and things as well as the broader social implications of these movements. With a particular focus on the diaspora of West Africa and The Caribbean, her latest work is focused on how the body can be used as a repository of incorporated histories, which are in turn communicated through dance and movement. The resulting show also references the research of a Scottish historian which highlighted the historical relationship between Guyana and Scotland, and in particular the number of Caribbean women who came to Scotland in varying ways over 200 years ago.
Until 26 October www.transmissiongallery.org
Cy Twombly, Gagosian, Grosvenor Hill, London
Although perhaps best known for his large-scale, free scribbling paintings, American artist Cy Twombly was also a proficient sculptor. Constructed from found materials such as plaster, wood, and iron, from 1946 onward he created numerous assemblages, although they were rarely exhibited. Often quite modest in scale, their textural coats of white paint reference traditional Egyptian, Greek, and Roman sculpture. In 1979, Twombly began casting some of his assemblages in bronze, which, like other works from this period, makes reference to the ancient artifacts the artist encountered on his travels across Europe and North Africa.
Until 21 December www.gagosian.com
Marc Bauer’s Mal Ȇtre / Performance, Drawing Room, London
Jointly commissioned by Drawing Room and De La Warr Pavilion, this show is the first solo exhibition in a UK public gallery by Swiss artist Marc Bauer. It features both small and large scale works on paper, plus a wall drawing and animation that explores the motif of people on boats throughout history, from ancient Greece to contemporary media footage. Drawn in graphite, and images are inspired by everything from fifteenth century Catholic ex-voto paintings, to Théodore Géricault’s The Raft of the Medusa, and Aquarius, the boat that rescued migrants in the Mediterranean Sea in 2018.
Until 17 November www.drawingroom.org.uk
A Trick of the Light, Grundy, Blackpool
This group show brings together a range of international artists whose works ‘cast shadows, conjure illusions and bring the inanimate to life’. Referencing pre-cinematic techniques and Victorian optical entertainments, it illustrates how light can be used to alter perception and trick the eye. Highlights include Mat Collishaw’s The Centrifugal Soul, a sculpture which uses stroboscopic lighting to animate a display of 3D printed flowers and birds, Rachel Goodyear’s hand drawn stop-frame animation, Dancing Devils, and ‘shadow’ works by Helen Maurer and Brass Art.
Until 14 December www.grundyartgallery.com
Images:
1. Plastique Fantastique Mars Year Zero, 2019. Video still courtesy of the artists
2. ‘The Skeleton of a Name’, Transmission, Glasgow
3. Cy Twombly, Untitled, 2004, bronze. Copyright: Cy Twombly Foundation. Courtesy: Gagosian
4. Marc Bauer, Untitled, Detail 2 Aquarius, 2018, pencil on paper, 50 cm x 50 cm. Courtesy: the artist and Galerie Peter Kilchmann
5. Helen Maurer, Cave Painting, 2003. Photograph: Angela Moore. Courtesy: the artist and Danielle Arnaud
More on a-n.co.uk:
Turner Prize 2019 exhibition in Margate: papier mâché people, acoustic evidence, feminist histories
The 16th Istanbul Biennial: plastic waste, playground fun and questions about our future
Curating disability part two: peaking beneath the artworld curtain
