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London Galleries: Jan 2022

A walking tour and full day of London culture curated by Tabish Khan. Beat off the January blues with @Londonartcritic in a big loop around London's galleries Learn More.

Exhibition Stories

London Art Critic

Curator

Featured

Kaws

Custorian

Curator

Featured

Kaws installation shots

London Art Critic

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Featured

Alex Prager

London Art Critic

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Featured

Alvaro Barrington

London Art Critic

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Featured

Anthea hamilton

London Art Critic

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Featured

Marcus Coates

London Art Critic

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Featured

James Crowther

London Art Critic

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Featured

Miko Veldkamp

London Art Critic

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Featured

Teraphim @ James Freeman

Custorian

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Custorian Intro

Custorian

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Tabish at Kaws

Custorian

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Featured

Alex Prager @ Lehmann Maupin in Cromwell Place

Custorian

Curator

Featured

Emalin: Nikita Gale, LOCKED LUNGS

Custorian

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Featured

Conference for the birds - Marcus Coates

Custorian

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Featured

Rene Daniels - Erik van lieshout

Custorian

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Costume for Squash 2018 - Anthea Hamilton

Custorian

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New Art Projects

Custorian

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Miko Veldkamp: Workplace

Custorian

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Featured

Ian Andrews & Carlos Zapata

Exhibition Guide

New Fiction - Kaws

Serpentine North Gallery - 18 Jan - 27 Feb

Artwork Alex Prager Lehmann Maupin 2022 Resized

Lehmann Maupin - Alex Prager

Cromwell Place - 21 Jan - 5 March

Hand to your ear - Alvaro Barrington - Nikita Gale

Emalin 19th Nov - 22 January

Artwork Marcus Coates 2022 Katemacgarry Resized

Notes on protesting - Marcus Coates - Peter Liversidge - Goshka Macuga

Kate MacGarry - 21 Jan - 26 Feb

Artwork Erikvanlieshout Maureen Paley 2022

Erik van lieshout: René Daniëls - Erik van Lieshout

Maureen Paley - 14 Jan - 27 Feb

Systems we have - Various Artists

New Art Projects ~19th Feb

Ghost Stories - Miko Veldkamp

Workplace East: 22 Jan - 6 March

Artwork Carlos Jamesfreeman 2022 Resized

Teraphim - Ian Andrews - Carlos Zapata

James Freeman Gallery 13 Jan ~ 5 Feb 2022

Alex Prager

Alex Prager (b. 1979, Los Angeles, CA; lives and works in Los Angeles, CA) is a photographer and filmmaker who creates elaborately staged scenes that draw inspiration from a wide range of influences and references, including Hollywood cinema, experimental films, popular culture, and street photography. She deliberately casts and stages all of her works, merging past and contemporary sources to create a sense of ambiguity. Her familiar yet uncanny images depict worlds that synthesize fiction and reality and evoke a sense of nostalgia. Prager cultivates the surreal in her photographs and films, creating emotional moments that feel like a fabricated memory or dream. Each photograph captures a moment frozen in time, inviting the viewer to “complete the story” and speculate about its narrative context. Prager’s work often makes the viewer aware of the voyeuristic nature of photography and film, establishing the uneasy feeling of intruding upon a potentially private moment. The highly choreographed nature of her photographs and films exposes the way images are constructed and consumed in our media-saturated society.

Carlos Zapata

Carlos Zapata is an artist whose sculptures echo the devotional object as a means of addressing challenging contemporary themes. Originally from Colombia, his works are rooted in the complex issues of his native country, in particular the social conflict that is the legacy of colonialism and an identity shaped by a European culture grafted onto a subjugated host. Many of his sculptures are reminiscent of Catholic icons but simmer with a raw, elemental quality as if to emphasize how religious narratives are but one possible articulation for fundamental human experience. A torso echoing an arrow-riddled St Sebastian suggests gunshot wounds in an allusion to the violence that has plagued Colombia for decades. A haunting carved head and shoulders with a coin in its mouth refers to Charon’s Obol, the payment to the ferryman to take the dead across the River Styx. A Mary Magdalen with waist-long hair echoes the Western tradition but with hints of a golden undershirt suggesting the cultural syncretism that is so particular to south and central America. Accompanying busts are rough-hewn, burnt, or scratched, their patina suggestive of a life lived through conflict, but Carlos’s work is distinguished by the gentle empathy with which he addresses his subjects. His use of wood is important: it emphasizes the shared organic nature of both his materials and his subjects, and in so doing lends his work an emotional candour that brings a humane tenderness to his often difficult themes.

Erik van Lieshout

Erik Gerardus Franciscus van Lieshout is a Dutch contemporary artist most widely known for his installations.

Goshka Macuga

Goshka Macuga works across mediums from Jacquard woven tapestries to sculptures and robotics. Born 1967 in Warsaw, Poland is an artist based in London Goshka was one of the four nominees for the 2008 Turner Prize.

Ian Andrews

Iain Andrews was born in 1974 and lives in Manchester, UK. He studied painting at University College of Wales, Aberystwyth and art psychotherapy at Sheffield University. Andrews’ work mixes the colour palette of contemporary abstract painting with the cracked paint and varnish associated with Renaissance masters and nostalgic Victorian painting, from which he also appropriates various compositional and figurative elements. He has exhibited nationally and internationally, with his most recent show being in Beijing, China, and he has also won several awards including the Marmite Prize for painting and National Art Open and has work in several private and public collections including Walsall Art gallery, Warrington Art gallery, Progressive Collection, Ohio and Yantai Art Museum, China.

Kaws

rian Donnelly (born November 4, 1974), known professionally as Kaws (stylized as KAWS), is an American artist and designer. His work includes repeated use of a cast of figurative characters and motifs, some dating back to the beginning of his career in the 1990s,^[1] initially painted in 2D and later realized in 3D. Some of his characters are his own creations while others are reworked versions of existing icons.

Kaws’ sculptures range in size from a few inches to ten meters tall,^[1] and are made from various materials including fiberglass, aluminum, wood, bronze, and a steel pontoon inflatable raft.^[2]^[3]

Kaws’ influences come from traditional high art painters like Gerhard Richter, Claes Oldenburg, and Chuck Close,^[4] and he has been compared to the likes of Andy Warhol^[5]^[6] for his cross-market appeal and ability to blur lines between commercial and fine art. His work is exhibited in galleries and museums, held in the permanent collections of public institutions, and avidly collected by individuals^[7] including music producer Swizz Beatz, internet figure PewDiePie, rapper Pharrell Williams,^[8] and members of South Korean group BTS. A number of books illustrating his work have been published.

Kaws lives and works in Brooklyn, New York, creating sculptures, acrylic paintings on canvas, and screen prints while also collaborating commercially, predominantly on limited edition toys, but also clothing, skateboard decks, and other products.

Marcus Coates

Marcus Coates is a contemporary artist and ornithologist living in London. His works, including performances and installations that have been recorded as video art, employ shamanistic rituals in communication with “the lower world”, and contrast natural and man-made processes.

Miko Veldkamp

Miko Veldkamp (b.1982, Suriname) is a painter who grew up in The Netherlands and has been based in the United States since 2014. He currently lives and works in NYC.

Various Artists

A selection of various artists.

Tabish Khan is an art critic specialising in London's art scene and he believes passionately in making art accessible to everyone. He visits and writes about hundreds of exhibitions a year covering everything from the major blockbusters to the emerging art scene. Tabish has been visual arts editor for Londonist since 2013. Contributions include reviews, previews, news, experiences and opinion pieces. He is also a regular contributor for FAD with a weekly top exhibitions to see in London and a column called 'What's wrong with art'. Tabish is a trustee of ArtCan, a non-profit arts organisation that supports artists through profile raising activities and exhibitions. While art is Tabish's primary focus, he has written about film, theatre, food and many other experiences in London.

London Galleries: Jan 2022

A walking tour and full day of London culture curated by Tabish Khan. Beat off the January blues with @Londonartcritic in a big loop around London's galleries Learn More.

Exhibition Stories

London Art Critic

Curator

Custorian

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

London Art Critic

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

Curator

Custorian

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Exhibition Guide

New Fiction - Kaws

Serpentine North Gallery - 18 Jan - 27 Feb

New Fiction - Kaws

Serpentine North Gallery - 18 Jan - 27 Feb

Lehmann Maupin - Alex Prager

Cromwell Place - 21 Jan - 5 March

Lehmann Maupin - Alex Prager

Cromwell Place - 21 Jan - 5 March

Hand to your ear - Alvaro Barrington - Nikita Gale

Emalin 19th Nov - 22 January

Hand to your ear - Alvaro Barrington - Nikita Gale

Emalin 19th Nov - 22 January

Notes on protesting - Marcus Coates - Peter Liversidge - Goshka Macuga

Kate MacGarry - 21 Jan - 26 Feb

Notes on protesting - Marcus Coates - Peter Liversidge - Goshka Macuga

Kate MacGarry - 21 Jan - 26 Feb

Erik van lieshout: René Daniëls - Erik van Lieshout

Maureen Paley - 14 Jan - 27 Feb

Erik van lieshout: René Daniëls - Erik van Lieshout

Maureen Paley - 14 Jan - 27 Feb

Systems we have - Various Artists

New Art Projects ~19th Feb

Systems we have - Various Artists

New Art Projects ~19th Feb

Ghost Stories - Miko Veldkamp

Workplace East: 22 Jan - 6 March

Ghost Stories - Miko Veldkamp

Workplace East: 22 Jan - 6 March

Teraphim - Ian Andrews - Carlos Zapata

James Freeman Gallery 13 Jan ~ 5 Feb 2022

Teraphim - Ian Andrews - Carlos Zapata

James Freeman Gallery 13 Jan ~ 5 Feb 2022

Further Reading

About Exhibition

Alex Prager

Carlos Zapata

Erik van Lieshout

Goshka Macuga