Diary of a London Art Critic: Early August

Water, clouds and a portrait in a park

In this post, I summarise every exhibition I’ve seen over the last few weeks, not just those I write about in other publications, and you get my honest thoughts on them.

Saturday 27 July

The Discosailing performance in the Olympic Park

I arced from North-West to North-East London on a full day of art, starting with the Lonnie Holley exhibition at Camden Art Centre (until 15 September, free). His background in making works from found objects means he’s created some powerful sculptures including furniture wrapped in a fire hose and a basketball in barbed wire. I wasn’t sold on the abstract paintings though.

The venue also has an exhibition called ‘Den’ (until 18 August, free) that includes work from local schools, which is a great way to engage with the community. Across the road, there’s a great large-scale mural of London’s Jewish community and you can read more about it on Londonist.

Flux had a pop-up exhibition on Baker Street (now closed) filled with emerging artists including many I know. It’s always mixed quality but it’s great to get a chance to see a whole host of early and mid-career artists under one roof, including some I know. Lisa, who runs Flux, is also a kindred spirit as she set up her art exhibitions and magazine as a side hustle while working at Harrods.

My first visit to St Chad’s Project was for the final day of the ‘In Darkness of Bones’ exhibition (now closed) - a fantastic duo exhibition of bone-like ceramic sculpture by Cristiano di Martino and art across the walls by Oscar Chan Yik Long. It’s been set up by an artist, Pavel living in the old hospital as a guardianship until it’s destroyed and he has decided to set up a gallery space.

It runs on virtually no budget and he invites artists to go fully experimental in the space and has relied on word of mouth to get the word out - and I finally paid a visit for this the 12th exhibition. It’s a fantastic example of art finding a way when London rents and costs are so high. It’s one to keep an eye on and an appointment-only space because the artist has to leave his studio to unlock it and let you in.

Hannah Lim at Pangolin (until 14 September, free) is an artist of mixed British and Singaporean heritage who takes on the historical cultural appropriation in Chinoiseries where Europeans created snuff boxes and other objects in what they considered Asian style. Lim’s work re-appropriates Eastern symbols such as dragons and tigers to create intricate boxes of her own and works on paper.

Over in Shoreditch was my first visit to Ilenia to see work by Laura Langer (until 14 September, free). It’s another hidden gallery, within a new-build development, and you have to press a buzzer and head upstairs to find it. I liked the lead painting of a chicken, who doesn’t love a giant chicken? However, the other geometric paintings did nothing for me.

I finished the day over in Stratford, including a few exhibitions hosted in Hypha Studios spaces. If you’re unfamiliar with them, Hypha is a great organisation that finds temporarily empty spaces and allows people to apply to show in their spaces - allowing emerging artists and curators to show their works at a much lower cost than a traditional gallery space.

They have two spots in Sugar House Island, a new development in Stratford. Rinse and Repeat (now closed) featured all Indian female artists creating work that deals with repetition and while it was an interesting concept no particular artist’s work left an impact. I was there to see the other space and the Disrupting Mythologies exhibition (now closed) but sadly found it closed with no lights on, so had to give it a miss. A real shame as the website said it should be open - a particular bugbear for me and I’ve written a piece about it.

I then ventured into the Olympic Park (how timely) to see a Rasheed Araeen performance piece called Discosailing where members of the public and dancers float along the river Lea in a lovely piece that is hypnotic thanks to their red discs and yellow ponchos so looks a lot more synchronised than it probably is.

It’s also part of The Line public sculpture trail, which is a great way to spend a day in East London following the trail on a fair weather day. Fear not if you missed it as there’ll be another day of Discosailing performances on 27 September (free to view and details of performance times on the website).

I finished my time in Stratford at another Hypha Studios space for two group exhibitions (until 17 August, free). I was more drawn to the one on contemporary Surrealism, particularly the hybrid creatures in Lindsay Pickett’s paintings.

I finished the day in Royal London Hospital - just to be clear to see some art not because I’d suffered some art-related accident. Saad Qureshi has installed a stunning and highly detailed sculpture inspired by the stories of organ donors, donor recipients and their families. It’s just inside the Renal Unit entrance and anyone can walk in, and while it’s encased within glass for its protection it makes it very hard to photograph. This was a problem for me as I was trying to document it as part of my role as a judge for the Marsh Public Sculpture Award.

Below the paywall:

• Two impressive pieces of new public art

• A lot of clouds

• A 10-minute portrait

• Hockney meets his hero