#londonopen2015

[nicolabenford]

Alexander Duncan brought the beach to @whitechapelgallery & above @carolinelaurawalker's pool #londonopen #londonopen2015 (at Whitechapel Gallery)

[eilidhmccormickcurating-blog]

A second visit to the London Open

Today I visited the Whitechapel gallery to take a proper look at the art selected for the London open Exhibition. The 48 exhibiting artists are presented across the two floors of the gallery. 

Entering on the ground floor two juxtaposing installations greet the visitors, the grounded wall ‘All in a day, Brian’ by Demelza Watts that explores labour and the labour of the artist and the precarious hanging glass ‘It’s all good fun’ by Ben Woodeson that transforms and questions the everyday in its display. In this space there are two complimentarily discomforting films that evoke tension and unease through the use of the human body and risk of harm. Nelmarie Du Preez’s ’Loops of Relation-to stab’, ‘Loops of Relation-to hit’ and ‘Loops of Relation-to rely’ in which the artist has documented herself interacting with technology with the potential to inflict pain and Mitra Saboury’s ‘Pothole’ and ‘Hardscape’ sees long nails scratching grouting and barefeet walking on uneven grounding. Another film work on the ground floor projected onto a small piece of perspex is ‘Gold House’ by Lucy Joyce and shows metallic gold material being blown onto a house and ultimately transforming it with a mix of organic movement and the manmade. Jane Bustin’s ‘Tabitha’s cape’, Nijinksy’s Window’ and ‘Nijinksy 1′ explores texture and colour in her simplified wall works and Jodie Carey’s ‘untitled (pot)’ explores the material qualities of her medium that is plaster in the form of a vase, wall hanging and floor covering. The first work the visitor meets on the second floor is Sarah Roberts’ installation ‘AMBERSANDS [Fairbourne a& Margate a&)’ that explores manmade materials using a designed display of plastics lights and fans that transform the space. Through to the larger room on the upper floor the visitor is greeted with what appears to be a pile of stones spreading across the floor titled ‘Cove’ by Alexander Duncan but this is an illusion as the shapes are discarded man made materials. An artist looking at traditional techniques and simplified forms is Gaia Fugazza in the works ‘Woman eating contraceptive pill. Moons’, Virginity is not a contraceptive. Shooting star in Pisces’ and ‘Woman cleaning. Coil and breast implants’ with references the modern world in the subjects of the work that has the aesthetic of cave-like art in form and medium. Orgainc and sculptural forms are depicted in the paintings ‘Untitled’, ‘Structire I’ and ‘Janus’ by Damien Meade that sit in opposition to the architectural and cubic plinthed sculptures of Heather Power titled ‘Channel’, ‘Alleyway’ and ‘Abridged’. A further reference to architecture is found in the work of Marco Godoy as he explores his personal family history in ‘What we still have to talk about’ with a cast of a war-damaged building that is supported by political/personal text and family photographs. A work that alludes to the personal while being distant are the transformed postcards of Roy Voss who presents the personalised yet generic objects with a single word cut from the back and turned to face the front and ultimately create the titles of ‘Fall(iv)’, ‘Down(iv)’, ‘Spent’, ‘Look(i)’ and ‘Look(ii)’. An artist that investigates process is Laura Santamaria whose work ‘Hypnero(Erotic Dream*)’ is made up of organic marks on the wall using smoke which is simple yet effective. Contrasting this is are works by Dominic Hawgood that present the body in a modern way in ‘Rise up you are free’ with led illumination and the vinyl created ‘This is where the darkness lies’. Madalina Zaharia looks at language and aesthetic in her work ‘Cheeky. Cheek E’ that is also simple while it plays with language and form in a reduced and modern way. The final work in the space that acts as a soundtrack to this entire room in the exhibition is the ‘Studio based Practice’ projected work by Dominic Watson that sees him dancing to pop music in a playful and performative way.

The variety of works is exciting and the curation of the space allows for comparisons that don’t confuse but compliment the majority of the work. Many names to watch in a full exhibition of London-based international artists.