Because hang-overs are better off with a Bloody Mary in hand, we cannot go high and dry after Art Basel last week. Below is a little selection of some of the best shows that you can still catch up in London this June.
Natalie Dray, Facelift at Studio_Leigh until 25 June
Masculine and feminine. Strength and frailty. Solid metal and pink. Materiality and the ethereal. Aggressive and delicate. Functionality and aesthetics… Binaries merge into this constellation of petals, twigs, socket covers and bended bars. Each individually crafted element, from the fold in a pewter-cast petal to the inside-out socket cover, embodies antagonisms and dualities. The weightlessness of the hundreds of petals in this room will pierce you if you let them.
Images courtesy of the artist and Studio_Leigh
Cecily Brown, Madrepora at Thomas Dane until 23 July
In the unusual move of leaving Gagosian last year to refocus her practice and reengage on smaller scale works, Cecily Brown’s first exhibition at Thomas Dane remains decidedly physical. Despite the abstract nature of her work, Brown’s preoccupation with the body brings to the fore the male nude and the suggested contours of torsos and limbs. Strongly linked to a male art history lineage within abstract expressionism, this exhibition presents darker smaller paintings and drawings which transport us to Velazquez and Goya’s somber tones. Do not miss the small selection of drawings; much more figurative but sparse, they condense the elusive narrative nature of the paintings.
Image courtesy of the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery
Image courtesy of the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery
Image courtesy of the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery
Image courtesy of the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery
Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hauser & Wirth until 30 July
Love happens between the gaps, in the margins. We see it in its absence. Fragments of love letters; empty beds; suspended lights. There is a sense of immense tenderness but also of severe nostalgia and loss in this exhibition. How intangible. How powerful. This is an exhibition in three parts with concurrent exhibitions focusing on different aspects of Gonzalez-Torres’ work at Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York; Massimo De Carlo, Milan; and Hauser & Wirth, London. It requires slow looking and a paused tempo. Don’t rush it. Don’t miss it.
