Not that we need another reason to visit the white isle, but if we did then the burgeoning arts and culture scene is it. Nestled in the cute neighborhoods of the North, Gathering has opened a double-height gallery as a sister to their London space. Envisioned by Alex Flick, the gallery boasts an admirable bar and restaurant in the courtyard with artworks installed, including artist Tai Shani’s festoon of breasts hanging above the bar.

Harminder Judge’s vibrant pieces are the solo exhibition hosted within the chic gallery through December.

For Cliff and Cleft, the large plaster wall works act as mesmeric portals and echo the palette and natural forms of the island. This follows A Ghost Dance, a monochrome dual exhibition at Matt’s Gallery and the Sunday Painter in London which drew upon traditional funeral rites and spiritual processions. Ibiza, a site of spiritual pilgrimage for some visiting Es Vedra and others for the resonance of DC10, adds layer of meaning to Judge’s transcendent reflections and ritual processes.

To make the works, he applies primary pigments to wet plaster in a controlled chance mechanism, with a practiced hand still leaving space for serendipity. He then polishes the works so they gleam and glow. In this carefully considered hang, the works have conversations between themselves – one imagines as a whispering between realms. Embracing the ineffable, these works are more then the sum of their parts and some third place is conjured beyond the picture plane, or sculptural surface.

Untitled (rock risen cleft cliff) covers the custom poured floor of the top mezzanine level . It appears as a natural form, echoing the Balaeric landscape and natural portals of the island. It is at once organic and inanimate and bodily.

If heading to the island in winter isn’t your thing, keep an eye out for Judge as his star continues to rise, and add Gathering to the group chat for the 2025 season.

‘Harminder Judge: Cliff and Cleft’ Gathering, Ibiza,
28 Sep – 22 Dec 2024.
Courtesy of Gathering.

Tags: exhibition, Harminder Judge, Ibiza, Painting

This year feels like an extra huge bumper Frieze Week. Every single gallery,
institution and numerous project spaces are opening shows to coincide. Aside from the obvious visit to Frieze, Frieze Masters and the freebie option Frieze Sculpture Park in Regents Park, here are eight things to check out courtesy of our arts editor Francesca Gavin:

Frieze Film X ICA
The ICA have teamed up with Frieze for a second year of artist film screenings projected in a continuous loop. There are some incredible people in their year but keep a special eye open for Sung Tieu, Onyeka Igwe and Jacolby Satterwhite. And if you cant make it the films are also free to view on line for the duration. (The Guemhyung Jeong performances at the ICA on October 8 and 9 will also be unmissable.)
Oct 8 – 13, ica.art

Seb Patane at Maureen Paley
This is the most welcome return pairing of the year. Seb Patane made his name on Maureen Paley’s roster with incredible drawing work, sound performances and graphic installations that touched on photographic history, the memory of war and the echoes of time. ‘In the Sharp Gust of Love’ is Patane’s return to the gallery in Paley’s Studio M offshoot. If you’re East, go see.
Until Nov 9 Seb Patane at Maureen Paley, Studio M, Rochelle School
maureenpaley.com

Magdalene Odundo at Thomas Dane
This is cult favourite Odundo’s first London exhibition in over two decades. Inspired by diasporic ceramic and vessel sculpting techniques, her pieces are unforgettable (and have fans including Jonathan Anderson and Nadege Vanhee). The pieces on show here are described as fusing British studio pottery, ancient ceramics, ceremonial vessels from Kenya and Nigeria, and modernist sculpture.  
PV October 8 6-8pm
Exhibition runs until Dec 14

Mire Lee at Tate Modern
In case you thought a Mike Kelley retrospective wasn’t enough, the Turbine Hall is being given a dose of Berlin-style cool from Mire Lee. The young artist who is showing in the UK for the first time is known from abject and absorbing sculptures that drip, twitch and shudder. (Schinkel Pavilion paired her with great success with HR Giger). Imagining her neo-gothic liquid techno oddness supersized is VERY exciting.
Oct 9-Mar 16
Tate Modern, tate.org.uk

1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
Somerset House’s regular is always a thankful respite from the market machine of Frieze itself. This is a the fair where you will discover artists – Lina Iris Viktor and Anya Paintsil for example both had their breakthroughs here. Looking at artists in the broadest sense from the African diaspora, keep a special on their special projects from people like Nigeria Art Society UK.
11-13 October, Somerset House, Strand, WC2
1-54.com

Yayoi Kusama at Victoria Miro
You can’t help but love a bit of Kusama. If the lines for Tate have been to painful, quickly book to go see her latest works at Victoria Miro. There is a new Infinity Mirror Room with a tech edge that looks delicious as well as a series of intimate new paintings entitled Every Day I Pray for Love. Sounds like a good thought for today.
Until Nov 2, Victoria Miro, 16 Wharf Road, London N1

Bloomsbury and Farringdon
The explosion of emerging and fresh galleries in the Bloomsbury and Farringdon area is so good they even printed their own postcard sized map. If you want a taste of emerging London now, go to Hot Wheels Athens, Union Pacific, Brunette Coleman, A Squire, Phillida Reid, South Parade, and book a place to view the solo show by British painter Lewis Hammond at the incredible The Perimeter and finish at the hottest space in town, Ginny on Frederick.
theperimeter.co.uk

Minor Attractions
The is the second year for the parallel fair Minor Attractions founded by the burst of energy that is Jonny Tanna (Harlesden High Street) and Jacob Barnes. Focusing on non-profits and emerging galleries, this year it takes place in Fitzrovia’s Mandrake Hotel and is a place to see some killer spaces like Tblisi’s Artbeat and Salford’s Division of Labour (plus some late night programming for those looking for something after.)
Oct 8-13

Special mentions (because its insane not to highlight some of the amazing shows out there!): Lauren Halsey, and Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, at the Serpentine, Haegue Yang at Hayward and the Chronoplasticity show curated by Lars Bang Larssen at Raven Row, Nicola L and Jack O’Brien at Camden Arts Centre, Olivia Erlanger at Soft Opening, and Stanislava Kovalcikova at Emalin.

Text by Francesca Gavin

Tags: exhibitions, exhibitions in London, Frieze, Frieze London, Frieze Week

Daria Blum’s art star has been rising since her graduation from RA schools in 2023. In this solo show brilliantly titled Drip Drip Point Warp Spin Buckle Rot at Claridge’s Art Space, she develops her well-honed performance practice into a slick installation well worth a visit.

Blum won the inaugural £30,000 Claridges RA Schools prize selected by judges Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA and Eva Rothschild RA. The prestigious award was presented by performance artist Marina Abramović and introduced by actor, author and co-host of Talk Art Russell Tovey at Claridge’s last September.

This impressive site-specific installation in the subterranean Mayfair space evolves the artist’s research into the relationship between physical space and muscle memory, choreography and embodiment, and notions of institutional power in relation to dance and architecture, influenced by her own background as a ballet dancer.

A central three-channel video work follows Blum’s fictional character as she moves through rooms and corridors of a deserted 1970’s office building and discovers a collection of documentation and ephemera including portraits of her late grandmother Ukrainian ballerina/choreographer Daria Nyzankiwska, archival recordings of dance rehearsals and footage of a 2022 performance by Blum herself. Through a series of live performances, the artist further inhabits a live character who “disrupts and criticises, pointing fingers at the bodies on-screen and the voices offstage”.

Blum’s multi-layered, constellatory work blends pop and classical in referencing both the online circulation of popular dance trends and influential theorists such as Arabella Stanger and Beatriz Colomina whose sociopolitical assessments track gender, violence, and power across bodies, dance and architecture.

The artist discusses classical dance as an ‘archaeological site’, and questions what it means to re-perform choreographies that contain a range of misogynistic and colonial tropes, including how French ideals inspired Imperial Russia and in mapping her family tree tracks how choreography “travelled via bodies across state lines”. One to watch, this will no doubt be the first of many solo presentations by this thoughtful and captivating artist.

Claridge’s ArtSpace Café
Brook’s Mews London,
W1K 4DY

Monday – Friday: 8am – 6pm
Saturday & Sunday: 10am – 5pm
Admission to the exhibition is free.

Tags: claridges, claridges artspace, Daria Blum, exhibition, London Exhibition

Last weekend Twin’s very own Francesca Gavin helmed the new look Viennacontemporary art fair. The biggest edition in recent years featuring 98 galleries and 6 institutions from 24 countries, Gavin is putting this art fair firmly on the Autumn pre-Frieze map and as she describes, “the aim was to create a fair with it’s own identity that showcases some of the incredible emerging talent coming out of Central and Eastern Europe … I wanted to curate a pan-European fair that had a sense of curatorial excitement”.

43 Austrian galleries, 33 Eastern European galleries and 22 galleries from the rest of the world showcased a wide range of works, with a focus on emerging artists.

The CONTEXT section presented 20th century masterpieces by artists who continue to influence Austria today, and ZONE1 curated by Bruno Mokross presented artists living or working in Vienna.

Sustainability and Energy were a key focus of the fair, explored in the curated section VCT STATEMENT: The Color of Energy, curated by Mirela Baciak and two VCT STATEMENT Talks at the intersection of art and energy production and the fair’s Talks program features the coming together of leading artists, designers, gallerists, industry leaders, patrons, and market specialists, sharing insights into the latest trends of the art world alongside a new Open Call prize, ‘Art for Stronger Democracies’, which honored artists whose work confronts the challenges and opportunities facing democratic societies. 

Tags: Vienna Contemporary

As well as the annual summer party, the stunning Nan Goldin fim staged in the former church above Below Stone Nest, the pavilion opening and Serpentine Ecologies, this gallery has been in our diaries more than most this Summer.

The major exhibition is by trailblazer Judy Chicago, and surprisingly presents the first major interdisciplinary, immersive institutional exhibition in London of her work. As well as drawing, new and lesser-known works are on display alongside preparatory studies, and the expected audio-visual works.

Revelations, a moniker taken from an unknown illuminated manuscript by Chicago, was created in the early 1970s and now published for the first time with Thames & Hudson. The manuscript details the stories of women that have been persistently subjugated in the socio-political imaginary, in a radical retelling of human history.

With never-before-seen sketchbooks, films and slides, video interviews of participants from her iconic work The Dinner Party (1974–79), audio recordings, and a guided tour of The Dinner Party by Chicago herself, this exhibition is not to miss.

REVELATIONS is on view at Serpentine North from 23rd May to 1st September 2024

Tags: exhibitions, exhibitions in London, Judy Chicago, Serpentine Galleries, Serpentine Gallery

A unique installation by artist & designer Brett Westfall, longtime collaborator of Comme des Garçons & member of the Dover Street Market Paris umbrella, lands at Sorry Thanks I Love You (STILY) in Sydney this July over four weeks.

So-Cal born Westfall is a multi-disciplinary artist working across painting, sculpture, assemblage, installation, fashion, video, film, music and photography. His brand WESTFALL began with the idea of extending his ideas into clothing design that would read like poetry.

For this installation, canvas paintings and wooden pallets feature as walls, interlocking bicycles make up the roof and each hand-painted artwork incorporates Westfall’s signature motifs, hand-crafted and distressed style. “FRESH”, strawberries, and Westfall’s daughter’s version of “Snoppy” add a personal touch to the mix of eclectic found objects. STILY’s adjacent cafe is also in on it, serving a Westfall-inspired menu including custom-made treats from Tokyo Lamington and Gelato Messina in exclusive flavours.

The launch coincides with Westfall’s inaugural art showcase in Australia and to complement Westfall’s FW24 collection and mark the project, STILY and Westfall have co-designed a custom t-shirt, available exclusively in- store at STILY.

Sorry Thanks I Love You has an ongoing partnership with Dover Street Market Paris Brand Development and in addition to Westfall, STILY also offers DSMP BD labels Sky High Farm, Honey Fucking Dijon, and the recently introduced New York-based, Vaquera at their Westfield Sydney store.

The Dover Street Market x Westfall x Sorry Thanks I Love You collaboration will run at Sorry Thanks I Love You from 1 July – 28 July 2024.

K1006/188 Pitt Street, Level One Westfield, SYDNEY NSW 2000

Tags: Brett Westfall, Dover Street Market, Sorry Thanks I love You, Sydney, Westfield Sydney

MiArt New Talent: Julija Zaharijević by Twin Art Editor Francesca Gavin

Julija Zaharijević exhibited wall sculptures with Eugster from Belgrade at Miart.. The gallery was in the emergent section of the Milanese fair  – in a great section in the fair which happens each April, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini.

The Cabbage series depicts realistically recreated cabbages – complete with faked insect nibbles and decay. Each cabbage subtly varied in colour so it was clear they are the real veg on the wall. Pyschadelic, emotive and beautiful, the works play with the art historical tropes of beauty, decay and the sublime. They are stand ins for roses or flowers. Part of what makes her cabbages so engaging is how that question what is real, what is beauty, what is meaning.

Julija Zaharijević was born in 1991 in Serbia and lives and works between Vienna, where she studied, and Berlin. Still only a recent graduate, Zaharijević’s practise has incorporated performance, collage, text, that touches on the experience of class, gender and reality.

Highlights value systems that are innately built into the purchase and visual consumption of beauty and art in a wider sense. They are mirrors to our heads, emotions and performative selves.

www.julijazaharijevic.com; miart occurs April annually miart.it

Tags: Julija Zaharijević

On this solar eclipse in Aries, we celebrate Seana Gavin’s archive that serendipidously includes the eclipse free festival, photographed by Gavin below.

Following on from her phenomenally successful book “Spiralled” published by Idea Books, the artist and former raver opens her new exhibition Hidden Tracks at Gallery 46. This exhibition continues her exploration of the legacy of sound systems that put on illegal raves in the UK and across Europe in the nineties, and acts as a document of the creativity, vitality and community of the underground party scene in which Gavin features heavily. From 1993-2003 she spent long periods of time travelling in friends’ mobile homes, in convoy with the sound systems, living in nomadic communities, attending raves and parties in France, Spain, Holland, Italy, Berlin, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.

“It was more than just a night out. I wasn’t a photographer or journalist I was part of this world and these people were my family. We were un-materialistic and survived with minimal funds without limitations.” – Seana Gavin

Whilst the book is aesthetically and nostaligically pleaseing, it also serves as a reminder about the radical potential and rebellious energy of the free party movement, which emerged as a rebellion against the over commercialization of Acid House that had developed in the UK at the time.

Even today we are left with the legislation that became ‘The Criminal Justice Act’, catalysed by the police response to Castlemorton festival – a week long free unlicensed rave which took place in the British countryside and was shut down by the police. As an underage teenager the artist’s adventurous spirit led her to other like minded wanderers as news spread before mobiles and the internet, and 20- 50,000 people came together by word of mouth alone.

The exhibition which opens this week, includes Gavin’s personal documentation including flyers, ephemera, diary entries and a large body of photographs that capture the build-up and aftermath of the raves across Europe alongside the characters and friends who defined this scene, and demonstrates the ethos and spitit of community and freedom.

Exhibition runs  10 – 28 April 2024

Gallery46, 46 Ashfield St, London E1 2AJ

www.gallery46.co.uk

Tags: exhibitions, exhibitions in London, gallery46, Hidden Tracks, London Exhibition, Seana Gavin

Artist, technologist, and pioneer in artificial intelligence arts, Refik Anadol presents his new exhibition of eye-candy works at London’s Serpentine Gallery.

Anadol’s collaborative generative process with AI plays here manifests to present “years-long experimentation with visual data of underwater landscapes and rainforests”. This large scale digital work features Artificial Realities: Coral (2023), which immerses viewers in an Al’s imagination of underwater landscapes. Made by training a unique AI model with approximately 135 million images of corals openly accessible online and generating abstracted coral images, “the AI then constructs new visuals and colour combinations based on the dataset.”

This is also the UK premiere of Living Archive: Large Nature Model which was first introduced at the World Economic Forum 2024 in Davos, Switzerland. To make this, Anadol worked with the data of major institutions, including the Smithsonian Institution and London’s Natural History Museum to create the model, “centred around archival images of fauna, flora and fungi, will expand over the coming years.”

As far as spectacular exhibitions go, this is a sure fire crowd-pleaser.

Tags: ai, Art, artificial intelligence, exhibition, exhibitions in London, Refik Anadol, Serpentine Gallery

Following the success of Incubator 21, Angelica Jopling is back with Incubator 22, a six-week-long programme spotlighting six new London-based emerging artists who have never had a solo show. The consecutive exhibitions showcase London-based emerging artists, Mary Stephenson, Xavia Duke Richards, John Richard, Archie Boon, C. Lucy R. Whitehead, and Alicja Biala.

In residence at London’s A. Society in Chiltern Street, Twin caught up with the exhibition’s founder and curator, Angelica Jopling, to discuss platforming young artists and her collaborative approach to curation. 

Can you explain the intention behind Incubator 22?

The idea for ‘Incubator’ stemmed from a failed grant proposal I wrote in 2018. I wanted to provide a platform for young artists to show their work in a collaborative space with maximum freedom. The general aim was, and continues to be, to reflect the energy and shifting cultural face of a city through the eyes of emerging artists. One of the hardest stages of an artist’s career is the beginning when they’re attempting to articulate a sensibility. Emerging artists rarely have the opportunity to present their work in a solo capacity. Yet this can paradoxically be a great catalyst for artists to take risks, be experimental, and create a cohesive body of work for a show.

Can you explain how you decide which artists to feature?

It varies. I typically visit many different artist’s studios before deciding who will be shown at Incubator. Beyond the work itself, the attributes I’m most drawn to in an artist are a genuine passion and confidence in their work as well as a distinct vision of what they wish to execute in the space. 

How do you approach your role as curator?

I love working with artists at the beginning of their careers and giving them the space to create freely. I like to spend a lot of active time in the studios, discussing their process, refining ideas, and understanding their inspirations and what drives their work. All of which influences the approach when it’s time to install. The collaborative approach extends to my work with Clara Galperin -Incubator’s curatorial consultant – who has helped to shape the vision. 

Incubator 22 is now open at A. Society, 2 Chiltern Street, London, W1U 7PR by appointment

A landmark event in the annual photography calendar, The Palm* Photo Prize shines a spotlight on the photographers to watch. The team behind the prize has announced its shortlist for 2022. With an overwhelming 6800+ submissions this year, they have painstakingly whittled it down to 108 photographs. And they do not disappoint.

A mix of portraiture and landscape works, the shortlist reflects the international appeal of this competition. From London to Brooklyn, Kyiv to Tel Aviv, there is a breadth to this year’s shortlist that showcases each photographer’s unique aesthetic. 

Michelle Sank’s posed portrait of Miss Drag SA, as well as Megan Eagle’s intimate portrait of a mother breastfeeding her young child are standouts in the selection.  Elsewhere there’s Camille Lemoine’s capture of a young girl astride a horse and a simple evocation of play in a black and white portrait of a boy skimming stones by Isabel Martin.

The judges, which include the likes of Alastair McKimm and Lola Paprocka, will work on the selection of 20 finalists, and eventually decide on first and second place. Shortlisted images will also be in the running for the Canvas Represents Mentorship Award and the People’s Choice Award will be decided by a voting system open to the public via the website. 

The Palm* Photo Prize exhibition will be on display at 10 14 Gallery from 5th May – 5th June, sponsored by Spectrum & INK and partners Picter, Canvas Represents, Lock Studios, 10 14 Gallery, Labyrinth Photographic and i-D.

I’d like to get to know you is a tentative exploration into a reimagined sibling relationship against the backdrop of British summertime. Shot at their mother’s house in rural Devon over the course of one summer, the uniquely singular relationship between sisters is explored and reframed. For the intimate series Francesca Allen turns the camera on her younger sister, Alida, and unravels the theme of family ties, re-tied. 

The sun-soaked images of poppies in bloom and swims in rivers, sports shorts and high-legged swimsuits, paints a vivid picture of a complex sisterly relationship and reveals, not only in how Francesca sees Alida, but how Alida sees herself. Intimacy and confrontation – a push and a pull, – are seen in Allen’s personal approach. Allen admits her and Alida’s relationship growing up was never particularly close. Portraiture, in this instance, is configured as a two-sided exchange opening up space for empathy and exploration.

The London-based photographer straddles the worlds of fashion and documentary photography, across themes of friendship, female bonds, and interchange between photographer and subject. Her first monograph Aya saw Allen spend a month in Japan photographing musician Aya Yanase. This second monograph is a testament to her developing practice and a celebration of sisterly bonds and the beauty of the British countryside.

I’d like to get to know you is available to buy from 23 March 2022. The exhibition is open by appointment at 1014 Gallery, Dalston, London

WE ARE MADE OF STAR STUFF asks us to step into deep time. From 4th – 27th March, the HOXTON 253 art project space is unearthing the layered entanglements that exist between humans and their natural environment and inviting us to enter into a geological worldview.

“All of the rocky and metallic material we stand on, the iron in our blood, the calcium in our teeth, the carbon in our genes were produced billions of years ago in the interior of a red giant star. We are made of star-stuff” wrote Carl Sagan in 1973 in “The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective”. 

Rocks, minerals, ice and the crust of the ground we walk on collect evidence of slow ‘deep time’. No longer bound to the dominating constructs of capitalist time, deep time is a way of seeing the world across multiple timescales. Curated by Berta Zubrickaitė and featuring work from Lydia Brockless, Ilana Halperin, Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė, Matthew Needham, Josephine Pryde, Georgia Somerville Watts and Maël Traïca the works draw attention to the ways in which human and non-human agencies are wrapped together. 

Textiles in collaboration with Syrian women in Istanbul to upcycled toe-trainers and toe heels. Immersive video essays to imaginary subterranean worlds. WE ARE MADE OF STAR STUFF rethinks our relation to temporality and points towards a plurally determined existence. 

HOXTON 253 art project space is a green and sustainability-conscious initiative. Highlighting artistic voices that challenge the current system, they create environments that question our communal and individual responsibilities to the world.

Theatrical staging, high-drama and luxurious technicolour – photographer and filmmaker Alex Prager’s large-scale photographs feature ensemble casts that teeter between reality and artifice. 

In this intimate series classic American archetypes are presented in the cinematic colour palette of a Hollywood Western. A cowboy, a cherub, an air stewardess, all frozen, suspended mid-air. Artefacts of modern American life seem to float  – or fall – alongside them.

Part One: The Mountain at London’s Lehmann Maupin gallery continues her exploration of the hyperreal. The series was created as a response to the last two years and the effects of the pandemic. Prager’s meticulously constructed characters are paired with details from the character’s backstories – casino chips, prozac and a pair of high heels capture our human idiosyncrasies. 

Prager plays on the tradition of classical portraiture as a way to encourage people to really look at one another again. After such a long period of isolation and polarisation, she works to flatten people out and then hone in on our emotional states. These questions are infused into each portrait, creating a spiritual death and consequently – rebirth. Shot in her hometown of Los Angeles, The Mountain draws on the themes of revelation, pilgrimage, achievement, and adversity. 

Alex Prager’s Part One: The Mountain is at London’s Lehmann Maupin gallery until March 5 2022.

A tale of two cities: New York and London, circa 2017 to 2020 – this is the setting for Jermaine Francis’ Rhythms From The Metroplex. The photography book can be read as an anthology that takes the viewer on a journey through a pre-pandemic world, a world that is innocent and yet to be consumed by Covid; it acts as a prequel to Something That Seems So Familiar Becomes Distant (Francis, 2020).

Francis’ work illuminates the different cultural parallels between New York and London – the ways people choose to communicate and fill the space (or lack thereof) and the somewhat theatrical essence between the two major cities.

Each image is taken from a selection of frames, all layered together to create the narrative: some faces blurred and others in direct focus. The pictures play with a sense of closeness and distance, speaking to how people used to interact and exchange with one another.

‘In many ways, this book is about time and its intrinsic relationship to photography, but it is also about the poetic mystery of time. Time courses through us, like a heat wave in a vortex. It is a warm kind of whiplash, as life flashes before our eyes.’ – Oliver Kupper

Rhythms from the Metroplex is a 106-page visual experience that encapsulates a time before now – one that shows the unbridled hustle and bustle of everyday life.  

The book was released on September 13^th 2021 and be purchased on Francis’ website jermainfrancis.co.uk and clairederouenbooks.com.

The internet, NFT’s, and memes: what do all of these things have to do with digital art and its consumption? The Mona Lisa Effect seeks to answers these questions, through a live-streamed auction championing artists of the new digital era.

Taking its inspiration from Darian Leader’s book Stealing the Mona Lisa (2002), where he argued that the theft of Leonardo’s painting was the cause for its universal popularity. The absence of the piece became the enigma, which built up the anticipation for when it returned.  

The artists featured in the exhibition embody the task of displaying a reinvigoration in the consumption of art in the digital space. Sarah Judy, James ‘Scorpion Dagger’ Kerr, Damien Roach, and Thomas Webb all explore the binary of absence and presence – balancing between the two ideas, and in some way, finding a point where they meet in the middle.

This exhibition is led by curator and co-founder of Manifesta11: Francesca Gavin, known for her editor position at LIMBO, contributions at the Financial Times How to Spend It, and widely for her book Watch This Space which delves into how digital screens have a direct impact on society, culture, and the self.

The live exhibition is set to take place on 30^th May 2021 at 2pm (GMT) and will be hosted on Croy Nielsen and Emanuel Layr’s gallery site cnl.casa

Header image credits: Thomas Webb, Art Kids Online (2021). Courtesy of the artist and CNL.

Considered by many to be the first art, dance came before language: early humans communicated and expressed themselves through gesture and bodily movement. After all, dancers know that how you are in your body relates to how you are in your mind and how you move through the world. 

And in today’s increasingly saturated world of communications, it is rare to find someone who understands this and can merge a passion for communication, community and dance poetically. 

Cue Eva Alt. Perhaps known to many on Instagram, as Glossier’s doe-eyed former Head of Social Media, Alt has, over the past few years, not only become known for building Glossier’s digital presence, but also managed to enchant New York’s fashion and beauty scene with her charme, wit and with her passion for dance. 

“It always seemed to me, as a person who is a “feeler”, that through dance and watching dance, I was able to inuit things that you can’t necessarily express with words. There’s power in that,” she stated during a Zoom call from her apartment in New York City. “So there is something very honest about communicating through gestures and, you know, you can’t lie!”

A former professional ballerina, Alt’s trajectory into the world of ballet started when she was a little girl, realizing she wanted to get into dance seriously around the age of 11 or 12. After a brief summer stint at The School of American Ballet in New York, at 15 she auditioned for the Boston Ballet and was accepted. This then led to years of strenuous training in the Balanchine method by a former principal of The New York City Ballet. 

However, the world of ballet can be especially tough for young adolescent girls growing up and getting to know their bodies. 

“In dance, at fifteen not only are you going through puberty but that’s also the moment when you start partnering. And all of a sudden your body is changing and it’s also being handled by the male dancers and that’s a very odd experience,” she recalls. 

And while many stereotypes regarding how a dancer’s body should look have now been broken, looking back, she wishes she had the knowledge she has now of her body. A lot of ballet is about the perception of line, and growing more self-aware of her form with time, has helped Alt embrace her body instead of working against it. 

“One of the things that continually amazes me about the human body, and through dance I am so in tune with my body and myself, is that we are changing all the time. We are constantly making new cells and regenerating. My body feels very different one day to the next! Yet, somehow, the body stores memories,” she quips. 

Alt stayed with the company until she decided to take a break and try out different things. This break then led her to fashion and after interning at a few publications and assisting a few stylists, she was then hired by Emily Weiss to work on Social Media at Glossier, and was there for six years, until she left this year to pursue her own personal projects. 

Yet, dance was always lurking around the corner and never really abandoned her in time of need. However, it was only after she joined Moves, her friends’ jazz class that she felt ready to get back to dancing full time and became what she believes is a truly rare being: a happy dancer.

“When I was returning to dance and getting in shape, in a lot of ways I felt like I was waking up again. My body wanted to remember the feeling of these movements, and in a lot of ways, it did.”

It was then she decided she would create her very own ballet class open to all levels: Ballet1. The class proved to be so popular because of its diverse and inclusive spirit it attracted dancers from every borough of New York, and it also helped Alt discover her ultimate purpose: creating a safe and happy space for a diverse community of individuals passionate about dance who may not necessarily be professionals.

“My purpose in ballet is that of creating more space for people. And something that is really important to me is performance, specifically for mature ballet dancers, or mature dancers. In a former company, there are lots of amazing dancers who dance for many years and then retire. I feel like there are things like broader life experiences, motherhood, you know, going to school, a job, whatever it is, that add something really valuable to people’s artistry and I feel like there is really no context for that idea to exist. I want to create that. I want to create a platform for mature ballet artistry. So that’s something that is going to be pretty central to the project,” she concludes.

Tags: Ballet

Of all the people and places photographer Jane Hilton has documented over the past three decades there is one location that she can’t quite shake – Nevada. The sweeping desert state in America’s west is of course home to the brash and bawdy Las Vegas, but beyond the neon lights there is a grainier side of life she is drawn to.

The London-based photographer first travelled to the States in 1988, sparking a fascination with all things Americana that would become a hallmark of her career.

“I just fell in love with it,” she says of that first visit which took her to Tucson, Arizona.

 “It was like being in a film. It was those 180-degree, blue sky vistas, and the sunsets, and the light – it was the light! I’m so passionate about lighting and they’ve got it there, “god’s light”. They might not have got other things right but they’ve got the light.”

In 1992 she first visited Nevada on a job shooting the desert landscape, which covers the majority the state. Nevada is home to both Las Vegas and Area 51, with a transient allure that, beyond the casino tourists, attracts a myriad of characters often looking to either get rich or get lost. Over the past 25 years the photographer has documented many of the people that often inhabit the fringes of the place, including burlesque dancers, cowboys and sex workers.

“It’s in stark contrast to the way I was brought up in English suburbia. I think had I gone to New York first, I might have a different relationship with America. I’m more interested in the American west and the way that genre (of Westerns) has played out.”

It was the Western genre that inspired her latest project, Drag Queen Cowboys, which was recently shortlisted as a finalist in the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards. Drag Queen Cowboys is a series of black and white portraits of Las Vegas drag performers in Western-inspired costumes shot out in the desert. Hilton was largely inspired by 1961 film The Misfits, written by Arthur Miller and starring Marilyn Monroe, Clark Gable and Montgomery Cliff. In it, Monroe plays a recently divorced woman who meets an aging cowboy, Gable, and his friend, played by Cliff.

Since its release the film has been trailed by a macabre notoriety due to the death of all three stars within five years of its release. Gable died of a heart attack ten days after filming wrapped; Monroe of a suspected drug overdose some 18 months later; Cliff’s health deteriorated and he was dead by 1966. It was the last film Gable and Monroe ever made, and it is said that Miller’s marriage to Monroe was also a casualty of the film. Despite the playwright specifically writing the part for her, their relationship disintegrated during the lengthy and over-budget shoot.

“Arthur Miller himself went to Reno to get divorced so he could marry Marilyn. There were all these divorce ranches on the outskirts of Reno where people wait and have a good time while they are waiting,” Hilton explains.

“In the thirties and forties they were full of mostly housewives because their husbands had sent them there to get a divorce within six weeks, which was unheard of. They’d do that, then party with some cowboys while they had left the husband at home with his mistress.”

“So Miller went there because he knew about getting a divorce in Reno and the strange displacement of people who go to Nevada looking for a new life. Whether they are hiding from something, or trying to find something… In all my experience that is how Nevada is for me too; it’s people searching or trying to cover something up.”

After discovering the strange legacy of the legendary film, in February 2020, just before the pandemic hit, Hilton drove a handful of drag performers in their stage makeup and Western outfits in her ’66 Mustang to an isolated stretch of desert on the outskirts of Vegas.

“I was looking for another community, a different community, that I could document, one I didn’t know much about,” she explains of the process of choosing her subjects.

“I started to go to drag bingo in Vegas and got to know some of the girls. I was thinking about how they are perceived and how post-Ru Paul, social media has gone mad with drag queens. They are always literally lit with flash, it’s so artificial, with so much retouching or a filter, so that their imagery looks almost homogenous because of the way they all photograph themselves. I decided I wasn’t going to do that.”

Instead, Hilton photographed each performer in natural light, shooting on a 5×4 plate camera and black and white film, with no flash or retouching. Rather than just being passive subjects the performers worked with Hilton on creating the visuals, each creating their own Western-inspired outfit for the shoot. By removing the drag performers from their usual environment, that of a dimly lit bar or nightclub or karaoke stage, the portraits subvert the type of image often associated with drag performers and create a contrary energy that is both powerful and poignant, and typical of Hilton’s work.

As a documentarian she has long been drawn to sub-cultures; in 2000 the BBC commissioned a ten-part documentary from her about two brothels in Nevada, the only US state in which sex work is legal. She has spent the past few years filming the ‘The Last Lion Tamer’, following a family’s fight to save their livelihood as the government moves to outlaw the use of wild animals performing in circuses. Currently the photographer is riding out lockdown in her London home working on various projects, eager to start shooting again. As always, there is one place in particular she is waiting to revisit.

“I am doing a book about the state of Nevada because I’ve spent a lot of time here – almost too much time! No matter where I go, I seem to end up back there…”

Jane Hilton is a finalist in the Sony World Photography Awards 2021: Professional Competition. Overall winners will be announced on 15th April 2021. www.worldphoto.org/

Header image credits: Jane Hilton, United Kingdom, Finalist, Professional competition, Portraiture, Sony World Photography Awards 2021

A sanctuary carved out of a time of intense loss and hardships, “Breathing Pavilion” is Ekene Ijeoma’s debut outdoor installation. In collaboration with Downtown Brooklyn Partnership (DBP) and Van Alen Institute, the installation will be available to view in The Plaza at 300 Ashland, in the heart of Downtown Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Cultural District, from 16^th March – 11^th May 2021.

Ekene Ijeoma as an artist and professor of Media Arts and Science at MIT, fuses his research in social inequality across various fields and his own experiences to create thought-provoking and inviting artwork. Breathing Pavilion was created in the context of Covid-19 and in the wake of rising concerns over the rampant police brutality and violence against black Americans. Ijeoma poetically reframes these social issues, and in the process reveals the stark reality of how these forms of oppression intersect.

The installation comprises a 30-foot circle of 20 nine-foot two-tone illuminated LED inflatable columns which gradually change in brightness and mimic a deep breathing technique, meant to trigger a meditative feeling of calm. The structure invites the public to enjoy a moment of respite, losing themselves in the lull of the lights allowing them to breathe, without feeling the weight of the world on their shoulders.

“Between the ongoing struggles in the racial and political movements in the United States and the COVID-19 pandemic, it can be difficult to find the time and space to breathe deeply and rest well […] I held my breath for most of last year, waiting to exhale into a new administration and new vaccines. It will still take some time before we see large-scale change. Until then, in these next few weeks, this pavilion is here to invite the public to breathe into the change within each of us, in sync with one another.” – Edward Ijeoma, creator behind Breathing Pavilion.

Breathing Pavilion will be unveiled on 16^th March 2021 and will feature a performance from Grammy-award-winning musician Keyon Harold, who will perform a trumpet solo. The piece performed by Harold will emulate the contemplative nature of Ijeoma’s structure and will be the first performance of many throughout the installation’s duration in Brooklyn.

“As we head into spring, outdoor public spaces remain at the core of our shared experience and Breathing Pavilion will serve as artwork with intention that can bring us together at a time when we must remain physically distanced. This innovative installation stands out as an entirely unique public art project that offers a much-needed moment for reflection after a challenging year. We look forward to sharing this thoughtful new public art project with our community.” – Regina Myer, President of Downtown Brooklyn Partnership.

To find out more about Breathing Pavilion, visit vanalen.org

Header image credits: Ekene Ijeoma, Breathing Pavilion (2021) Rendering

Ireland has undergone tumultuous social change in the past three decades. The queer creatives who have come of age during this period are seeking to change the narrative when it comes to documenting LGBTQI lives.

The nineties were punctuated by a slew of queer pop culture moments that are still referenced today for their bolshy, unashamed arrival into the mainstream. KD Lang and Cindy Crawford indulged in a homoerotic barber shop sitting on the cover of Vanity Fair; talk show queen Ellen came out live on TV, and even the soaps, that most pedestrian of pop culture institutions, featured the first gay character and lesbian kiss on Brookside in 1994.

These iconic moments gave the impression that queerness was slowly but surely creeping from the fringes into a suburban sort of conventionality, but real life for LGBTQI people was far from that. In Ireland, still a social conservative country in the hedonistic nineties, homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1993. The Catholic church had an iron grip on many institutions (and indeed, still does) including the public school system and many hospitals.

Conservative and liberal ideology would continue to clash for the next few decades, culminating in the 2015 referendum that brought in same-sex marriage, and the 2018 one that legalised abortion. It was against this backdrop of seismic social change that a generation of queer kids were brought up, sort of as changelings of the Old and New Ireland. Now in their twenties, Gen Z and young Millennial creatives have a particular viewpoint of how they want to document and express the experiences of LGBTQI people.

Donal Talbot, 25, is a model-turned-photographer whose work has featured in publications including i-D and The Face. Most recently his portraits were chosen by Benjamin Wolberg for his latest book, new queer photography, which showcases work from breakout and established queer photographers from around the world.

“My work tends to challenge how we, as a culture, see things like intimacy and queerness, and how those things correlate. There’s a softness and stillness that I try to capture in my portraits that aims to rewrite a narrative about how queer people communicate and interact with each other,” Donal says.

“I find a lot of inspiration from meeting people in gay bars and queer spaces but I’m interested in seeing what happens past that; the still moments of capturing someone after the lights go down in the club, or the day after a party in someone’s house.”

The photographer studied at Ireland’s foremost art school, the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, and it was in his final year that he found his medium.

“For my final project I knew I wanted to do work around queer narratives, but I didn’t have an idea of how to do that. I was in drag going to a boxing ring, then I started to take pictures and realised that was what I like. The project came together in the last two months and it was a portrait series of around ten different LGBT and queer people I had met. I photographed and interviewed them and that springboarded me into the art I make today.”

Eoin Greally is a 23-year-old from rural Ireland who has already carved out an impressive career in fashion and portraiture photography. While back in the family home during lockdown, the young photographer began working piecemeal on a project that has evolved into a cathartic reflection of his own journey as a young queer person. His rural upbringing, once something that he feared, has given him a unique perspective on how he has evolved both creatively and personally.

“At first I didn’t know it was going to be a project, they were images I was simply collecting. It’s a lot of portraiture, and also trying to capture the essence of my home. There’s that idea when people ask, are you going home, or are you going ‘home home’?” he explains.

“Now I’m piecing together the images I have realised there is a huge queer perspective but it’s not the typical gay male perspective from a gay mecca like New York. It’s all about a place I was afraid of growing up. I was in rural Ireland and I was afraid of being queer.”

“I was lucky, I always had support from my family about being queer but it still came with its discomfort. A lot of the focus is on my dad – he’s my favourite person to photograph, but also because he was the only person I was afraid of disappointing by being queer. I never received that sentiment from him, it was totally coming from what I thought I had to be afraid of. This project definitely has helped getting rid of some of that discomfort. It was something I largely put there myself, and now I’ve been able to take it away but it needed time. It’s been a healing project.”

While lockdown has given rise to a lot of creative output, it has also stalled many planned projects and events. 22-year-old photographer and sociology student Niamh Barry was on the cusp of launching her exhibition, ‘Queer Hearts of Dublin’ last October until yet another lockdown was announced. The exhibition is a range of portraits of queer people Niamh met mostly through a casting call on Instagram, with the aim of documenting as diverse a group as possible; “It was about reconnecting to my queer community but also so that people knew it wasn’t just a white male perspective (of queerness). The image is different to what people think. I wanted to collaborate with people who wanted to tell their story but it was also intersectional- it was a new narrative but yet one that’s always been there,” she says.

“I reached out people on Instagram and that’s how I met one of my subjects, Mimi. Her story was really interesting. She is a black queer woman and hearing her experience was amazing. She’s two years younger than me but so confident; I was almost surprised by her confidence in those moments because at the same time she was telling how hard it was to grow up where she lives, which is a small country town, very inward looking.”

“She told what it’s like growing up as a black woman in Ireland and what it’s like to not really have representation, especially also being queer. That experience made me realise that this type of story is not being told in Ireland.”

The resulting portraits are intimate and raw, quietly communicating what it means to be queer and young and living in Ireland at this moment in time. It’s a sentiment that Eoin echoes when considering his next chapter in his work.

“I have realised my privilege within the queer community – I am a white, queer, cis gay male. I don’t by any means think that’s a bad thing but being a photographer gives me an opportunity to uplift other sides of the queer community that didn’t always get the limelight.

“What’s important to me now is focussing on the groups in the queer community that don’t always get the opportunity to speak. It’s still a work in progress, but that’s what I want to dedicate my time to now.”

Header image credits: Ming and their significant other Aisling, photographed by Niamh Barry