South London Art Gallery
Ryan Gander Exhibition - Heralded As The New Black
The South London Art Gallery presents a solo exhibition of acclaimed British artist Ryan Gander, organised in partnership with Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. Comprising a body of work made during a 'year off' from exhibiting, and including a number of works made exclusively for the SLG space, Gander's show is highly anticipated both in the UK and internationally. The exhibition consists of entirely new installations, interventions, films and by-products which derive meaning from their location and context. The exhibition is a diverse and playful investigation into facets of the making, presentation, history and documentation of art and design.
A local street map will be available for visitors to take away. Gander has altered it to include streets that existed before 1914, bringing the structure of civic space into question. Another work, The New Alphabet (2008) is an installation of thirty-six wooden printers' blocks made in response to the utopian 'new alphabet' typeface designed by Wm Crouwel in 1967. The new alphabet was radical in its use of only vertical and horizontal strokes making certain letters unrecognisable. Gander's version is a series of additional marks rendering Crouwel's alphabet legible again. The two typefaces work in symbiosis so that Gander's typeface, presented out of context in a pile on the gallery floor, proves to be as illegible as the original.
Humour underpins much of Gander's work, rescuing it from mere 'institutional critique', engaging us with its dead-pan, self-deprecating knowingness. It is as rigorous as it is strangely accessible. A catalogue, the first to articulate a critical in-depth examination of his practice, accompanies the exhibition.
Ryan Gander was born in 1976 in Chester and now lives and works in London. He studied at Manchester Metropolitan University before studying at the Jan Van Eyck Academy, Maastricht from 1999-2000 and the Rijksakademie, Amsterdam from 2001-2002. Exhibitions have included solo shows at the Cornerhouse, Manchester 2004, Mumok, Vienna 2006 and the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam 2007 and 2008. He participated in the Tate Triennial in 2006. He has received numerous awards including the ABN AMRO Art Award, the Dena Foundation Award and the Paul Hamlyn Award.
The South London Gallery receives core funding from Arts Council England and Southwark Council and ongoing support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, Helen Thorpe, Outset Contemporary Art Fund and the Moose Foundation for the Arts.
The SLG is in Peckham Road. The exhibition: 25 April-22 June admission free. Tuesday-Sunday 12-6pm.
Dulwich Picture Gallery - Coming of Age of American Art 1850s to 1950s
Paintings from the Addison Gallery of American Art, Massachusetts.
Marine paintings by Winslow Homer, portraits by Thomas Eakins, genre paintings by Eastman Johnson, landscapes by John Singer Sergeant and James McNeill Whistler, and abstract art by Jackson Pollock will be among the famous works in this exhibition about American Art. Over the course of the one hundred years from the 1850s to the 1950s, American art and culture came of age, evolving from the provincial to the international and moving from literal depictions of the particular to abstract interpretations of universal ideals. Organised by the American Federation of Arts and the Addison Gallery of American Art, Coming of Age will explore the complex and extended process of maturation that took place throughout this formative century of American art.
The exhibition focuses on the key movements during a period in which American art matured and took its place in the international arena. It will begin with mid-nineteenth century American landscapes, followed by late nineteenth and twentieth century paintings. Turn of the century works by American Impressionists such as Childe Hassam and Maurice Prendergast will contrast with Ashcan paintings by artists such as Robert Henri and John Sloan. Twentieth century modernist masterpieces by Stuart Davis, Georgie O'Keefe and Marsden Hartley, among others, transition in to mid-century abstract works by artists such as Hans Hofmann, Franz Kline, László Moholy-Nagy, and Jackson Pollock. The selection will offer a comprehensive look at the major developments in a period of one hundred years marked by the rise of modernity and by a dramatic change in the physical and social landscape.
The Exhibition opens 14 March - 8 June.
Accidental Death of an Anarchist - The Dulwich Players
Written in 1970, Accidental Death of an Anarchist is Dario Fo's best known and most popular play. In the first four years of its production it was seen by an estimated one million people.
Dario Fo's mischievous yet haunting satire of bureaucratic conspiracy, totalitarianism and cover-up is the story of a notorious liar, conman and certified maniac; who stands alone as a bastion of honour and justice. Fusing the spirit and energy of Italian Comedia Dell'Arte with the madcap farce of a Marx brothers film, this riotous comedy is brilliant, witty, bitingly acerbic, acutely political, and one of the most acclaimed pieces of comic theatre of the twentieth century.
The play will be performed at The Edward Alleyn Theatre, Dulwich College on 3rd, 4th and 5th April at 8pm. Tickets £8 from The Art Stationers, Dulwich Village.
