London Art Fair 2013 - Highlights

I managed to catch the very last hour of the London Art Fair, so had to rush around the 120 galleries as fast as possible trying to absorb all the art while noting down artist's names and the galleries that represent them.

I probably owe a few people apologies as I stuck to the cursory and rhetorical 'hi, how are you?' as I dashed past some familiar faces.

Anyhow, several works by artists I haven't come across before stood out to me, so I've listed them below, complete with images of the work:

Alberto Duman, View of the palace of Westminster and Big Ben. Courtesy England Gallery

If ever you needed proof that a picture paints a thousand words, this is it. Love the devilish sense of humour in using 'lots of people' and 'cloudy sky'.

Itamar Jabani, Man Holding a Child. Courtesy the artist

The version at the fair was similar but was protruding from the wall with a baby, as if offering it to passers by so that it may be saved.

Pamela Stretton, Skin Deep. Courtesy Mark Jason gallery

What's not visible is that this image is made up of tiny labels, all for skincare products such as Dove of Nivea. It's sensationalist yet the sepia tone gives it a more subtle feel. Still it does a great job of mocking the unsubtle marketing campaigns of the cosmetics industry.

Renaud Delorme, Angelina Jolie. Courtesy Absolute Art Gallery

This wasn't the exact picture there but loved the technique. Sure Nick Gentry's floppy disk canvases look better but Delorme adds the extra dimension of painting on plexiglass held over the mixed media background - this way the image looks different whichever angle you see it from.

Zac Freeman, Steve. Courtesy of the artist

Yet another inventive use of objects to create a portrait - this time it's toys. What I particularly enjoyed was that something playful has been used to create images where all the faces have a stern look upon them.

Russell West, Square Rainbow. Courtesy the artist

This brought a smile to my face, just the bright colours and chaotic style in which paint has been applied to an uneven frame is so expressionistic and bursting with creativity.

Carl Melegari, Merthr Miner. Courtesy Kooywood Gallery

It's great how the miner appears out of the gloom and the style reminds me of the work of Francesca Leone.

Jeremy Kidd, Thames 2. Courtesy of the artist

There were many photo-collages of cities on display but it's hard to go up against the superb work of Tom Leighton. However, the transition from day to night is a new angle and Kidd's sky above the HMS Belfast with Tower Bridge lit up in the background is glorious.

Tim Flach, Golden Tabby Tiger from Tiger breeding series. Courtesy Osborne Samuel

Firstly I didn't even know Golden Tabby Tigers existed but apparently they are a rare sub-species of the Bengal Tiger. On top of this the portrait is so unnatural, akin to a model shoot in a studio.

Emily Allchurch, Urban Chiaroscuro 4: Rome (after Pironesi)

This Escher-esque landscape also has a Da Vinci feel to it. It's a cauldron of so many different styles yet it works so well. Her larger works got more attention but this was the one that caught my eye as it felt like a real cityscape that's been contorted.

Matteo Negri, Lego's Mondrian Homage. Courtesy TAG Fine Arts

Another work with a great sense of humour about it and a knock at al of those who look at Mondrian's work and say 'anyone can do that'. I think it would've been more poignant if it was a replica of one of his famous compositions in red, yellow and blue, but still made me smile.

Helen Maurer, Eclipsed by the Boy. Courtesy of the artist

This viewpoint doesn't do this work justice but what's on the back wall is a reflection of the glass shelf that forms part of the work. It's an innovative piece, similar in technique to those of James Hopkins that are currently on display at Scream gallery.

Francesco De Molfetta, Snack Barbie. Courtesy of the artist

This one has been grabbing the headlines as soon as the London Art Fair opened. Yes it's another unsubtle reference to consumerist culture but the execution is brilliant. Barbie is often heralded as the reason for young girls having self-image issues so it's nice to see her getting her comeuppance so to speak.

Richard Estes, D-train. Courtesy Artnet and the artist

These hyper-real train views caught my eye. They seem to revel in both providing perfect detail yet also appearing dream-like.

The above are just the new artists I've noticed. There were plenty of old favourites on display including Andrew Salgado, Nancy Fouts, Suzanne Moxhay and Ye Hongxing.

Look forward to visiting London Art Fair again next year.

Doctors, Dissection and Resurrection Men

Verdict: Go see it

Where: Museum of London

When: 19 October - 14 April 2013

Wax anatomical model of female human head showing internal structure of skull, German(?), 19th century. Image courtesy Museum of London

There was never any doubt whether I'd be intrigued by this exhibition, after all I did spend much of my second and third year at university dissecting human cadavers. Even today, recounting stories of my dissection days merits askew looks and some revulsion from others at the thought of taking apart another human being.

This exhibition does an excellent job of highlighting how much more controversial it was back in the early 1800s. Religious superstition was prevalent and the commonly held belief was that your buried self ascended to heaven so dissecting dead bodies was on a par with mutilating a living person. Novels such as Mary Shelley's Frankenstein also had people concerned that doctors would be able to re-animate the dead. 

Yet at the same time medicine was advancing, and it needed to. This was a time when broken bones were treated with an amputation without anaesthetic followed by cauterising the wound - the pain must have been unimaginable. So doctors and medical students needed dead bodies to practice on but they were in short supply. Nobody would even consider donating their bodies and the only legitimate source of cadavers were from executed criminals.

To meet this growing demand an illicit trade in body snatching started up and these so-called 'resurrection men' would dig up bodies and deliver them to hospitals and private medical schools. The doctors would have known they were not legally sourced but they chose to turn a blind eye - perhaps convincing themselves that practising on these bodies would heal future patients and so this was all for the greater good.

All of this information and more can be found in this exhibition and it's remarkable the lengths that people would go to to prevent these grave robbers from taking their loved ones after they'd passed. There is an iron coffin from the period that was impregnable to attack by crowbar and a bear trap that would've been left in a graveyard for unsuspecting thieves.

But the depravity didn't stop there as some criminals went even further, resorting to murder and then passing the bodies over to doctors as having died of natural causes. The most infamous pair were Burke and Hare but there's also a video looking at three other criminals who murdered a boy and tried to pass him off as a disinterred corpse. But the fresh nature of the body led doctors to raise the alarm and they were arrested. The final irony being they were executed and therefore their bodies were used in dissections. The video itself is very much over the top with a cockney Ray Winstone-esque narrator who is more comedic than threatening.

It was only in 1832 that a law was passed that any unclaimed body could be used for dissections. It was a tough battle to get this law through as opponents argued it would unjustly single out the poor but proponents countering that the medical knowledge would help the poor who were in greater need of medical treatment. After the law came in it led to the closure of the private medical schools and also the end of the dark era of resurrection men. 

This exhibition is full of interesting facts about how dissection took place in the past even down to the fact that preserving bodies was nigh impossible at the time so dissections could only take place during the winter months. Yet despite primitive medicine being practised the wax and bone models used by medical students of the time are impeccably detailed (as seen above).

Even the decor fits in with the grisly past with paint splattered on the walls to look like dried blood and blood-red plastic curtains dividing sections of the exhibition.

We then move on to more recent discoveries. In 2006, excavations at the Royal London hospital produced the remains of several persons used for dissections, this is the event that triggered this exhibition. A room is dedicated to this finding but it's not as fascinating as the previous rooms.

The display ends brilliantly leaving visitors mulling over some philosophical questions. There's a video about whether people would donate their organs to save others and there's still a lot of stigma attached to this with people wanting to be buried 'whole' and one person believing an urban legend that doctors are less likely to resuscitate an organ donor. It even touches on whether the UK should have an opt-out rule so that everyone is an organ donor unless they explicitly opt-out.

The final thought I was left with was, as donated bodies for dissection are still hard to find, should I feel some guilt for having dissected two bodies (albeit shared with others) and not used that learning in my current career?

This exhibition is intriguing, entertaining and thought-provoking. An excellent insight into a grisly past and well worth the £9 admission fee.

Cotman in Normandy

Verdict: Worth a look

Where: Dulwich Picture Gallery

When: 10 October - 13 January 2013

John Cotman, Durham Cathedral. Image courtesy British Museum

John Sell Cotman was a Victorian era landscape painter and a contemporary of Turner. This exhibition is dedicated to his works – particularly those he painted of Normandy.

One of the straplines of this show is that Cotman outsold Turner in his time, but this has more to do with the popular appeal of Cotman’s works rather than a preference for his style of painting. Napoleon had just been defeated and so the British public were eager to re-discover France hence the mass appeal of Cotman’s landscapes.

Cotman’s attention to detail is immaculate as can be seen in ‘Chateau at Fontaine-le-Henri’. It’s almost on a par with Canaletto but lacks warmth in comparison. Contemporaries such as Prout and Bonnington are displayed nearby and though they may lack Cotman’s talent in capturing subtle details, their works also feel warmer and easier for the viewer to access.

Turner and Cotman’s lives did intertwine and the exhibition does a good job of recounting their stories but the gulf in creativity is vast. There is just one sketch from Turner on display – ‘Dieppe from the East’ – yet the bright evocative colours blow all of Cotman’s works out of the water; even the full scale paintings.

Cotman did a great job of capturing daily life yet the figures in his paintings never face the viewer and this gives his works a detached feeling; Cotman comes across as more of a documenter than a painter with artistic vision. His inability to impart emotion into his paintings is evident in ‘Abbatial House of the Abbey of St. Ouen’ – he struggles to reconcile the swaying trees in the background with the cold classical architecture in the foreground. It’s as if he’s painted two separate pieces and merged them together unconvincingly.

It’s disappointing that most of the works on display are sketches rather than large scale landscapes, this exhibition also shows Cotman next to his contemporaries and in their presence he comes across as fairly average. Despite these flaws Cotman’s works are aesthetically pleasing if not gripping, and this exhibition is an interesting insight into a lesser known British landscape painter.

William Klein + Daido Moriyama

Verdict: Give it a miss

Where: Tate Modern

When: 10 October - 20 January 2013

William Klein, Piazza di Spagna, Rome, 1960. Copyright William Klein

Klein and Moriyama are two photographers who loved to use black and white to capture their native cities - New York and Tokyo respectively. This exhibition explores how Klein's work influenced Moriyama's and how their work developed over time.

The exhibition is cleverly laid out to present a mirror image of the two artists work so that you fully experience Klein before moving on to Moriyama. Klein went about trying to capture New Yorkers going about their day and juxtaposing this with the surreal such as men engaging in a ritual dance while their heads are covered with dark sacks - it's a disturbing image.

Klein proves that he has an eye for a great image. My two favourites are a photograph of two models, one dressed in white the other black, as they cross a zebra crossing - the contrast in colours is perfectly framed. The other is of the sun overlooking New York where the lens flare creates a glowing ball hovering over New York. These images are works of patience as in the day before digital cameras it was all about the processing and manipulation - creating the right effects in the dark room could take hours per photo.

My only issue was that there aren't enough of these gripping photographs and his use of a blurred image to create a style of abstract photography often misses the mark. At first I thought this was because I have a restricted view in that abstract only works for paintings, but I'm a fan of Rinko Kawauchi's work yet these pieces don't have the same effect on me.

However, one of Klein's quotes is very insightful. He states that a photograph is taken in 1/125th of a second so 100 photos doesn't even capture 1 second of life. It makes you think whether holiday snaps can ever do a foreign country justice, in that a photograph is a snapshot of a time and place and can never capture a location fully as it will evolve over time.

Klein's section ends with a video montage of a superhero that satirically mocks the cold war propaganda that was seen in the '60's. At first you chuckle at the ridiculous nature of it all, but the video just keeps on going and anything more than 10 minutes of watching leads to boredom.

Now we move on to Moriyama. As I wasn't entirely sold on Klein, it's no surprise that Moriyama's early work, where he's trying to transpose Klein's style to Tokyo, was a big flop for me. He doesn't seem to have the eye of Klein and seems to capture daily life without injecting anything of himself into his work. 

It's only when Moriyama decides to venture away from mere imitation to create his own style do we see more inventive and thoughtful pieces. Capturing his studio through hundreds of close-up Polaroid snaps taken at different moments is a fascinating concept but the results are rather lifeless. 

His use of photo manipulation of the same image of a stray dog is intriguing. He shows us that just by altering the focus and sharpness of an image he can switch the dog from appearing friendly to a wild and savage beast. It's these later works that are more interesting and I wish there had been more of them.

In terms of showing us the evolution of Klein and Moriyama's work and how the former influenced the latter, this exhibition succeeds. But in terms of proving that these were two photography heavyweights, I'm not convinced. Both artists had flashes of brilliance but the majority of their work on display seems drab and uninspired.

Northern Renaissance: Durer to Holbein

Verdict: Worth a look
Where: Queen's Gallery
When: 2 November - 14 April 2013

Jan Gossaert, Adam and Eve, c.1520. Copyright Royal Collection, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

The Northern Renaissance wasn't an individual movement in itself but this exhibition explores how the artists of Northern Europe were influenced by the Renaissance. But enough with semantics and on to the exhibition itself.

As the title implies, the exhibition kicks off with a look at Durer's many prints. These are impeccably and horrifically detailed with many apocalyptic scenes to be found. They also highlight what an astute businessman Durer was in recognising that his prints were easily replicable and there was money to be made in selling them.

This is followed by three excellent paintings by Lucas Cranach, featuring his signature of dark yet detailed backgrounds and seemingly illuminated figures in the foreground. His depiction of Apollo and Diana is on a par with his Adam and Eve that hangs in the Courtauld Gallery.

After this the exhibition does lose some momentum and the works from France aren't too impressive but as we progress to the Netherlands, it picks up again.

There are some astounding works on display by Jan Gossaert such as Adam and Eve (pictured above) and 'The Children of Christian II'. This painting was created just after their mother's death and the grief is palpable in their sunken eyes and pallid complexions.

We're also treated to a work by Brueghel, who never disappoints with his scenes full of activity. His reproduction of the 'Massacre of the Innocents' is so harrowing that when the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II took ownership of the work he had many of the massacred children painted over. Now, thanks to infra-red technology, a nearby panel can show us what the original would've looked like - a real treat.

This room also gives us the chance to see some lesser know artists such as van Heemskerck's and his vision of heaven and hell. But truth be told, these 'lesser' painters pale when hung next to greats like Gossaert and Brueghel.

We finish with a room full of portraits by Holbein and though many are intricately detailed, none manage to capture the imagination like 'The Ambassadors' in the National Gallery.

This exhibition swings from masterpieces down to works that are significantly less impressive but there are enough great works on display to justify making some time for this exhibition.

Bedlam

Verdict: Go see it
Where: Old Vic Tunnels
When: 9-21 October

If you're a fan of horror movies and in particular of the series American Horror Story then this is one exhibition that you won't want to miss.

Before you even see the works of art, the dank dark surroundings infect you with their smell and the air feels heavy. Coupled with the surroundings shaking with the rumbling of trains passing overhead and the creepy droning soundtrack that penetrates into the tunnel network, and your senses are heightened already.

The exhibition starts off slowly with strange figures lit up in the darkness, some with tree branches pushing through them (see image). What's less easy to discern is that their faces are playing videos of surreal images, some that reminded me of The Ring.

Throughout this exhibition and just visible are artworks on the wall showing people behind cages painted into the wall - sometimes it's the whole body, other times just a pair of hands reaching out.

Our favourite macabre artist, Tessa Farmer, is also present with a disarray of shiny objects and dead mice and insects hanging from the ceiling - it's a mobile that would give any child nightmares.

The best room is reserved until last with three large scale installations. First up is a chair complete with straps that faces a tall screen full of shifting black and white images like the introductory sequence to the Twilight Zone. The shapes ebb and flow and the process is hypnotic but let your imagination wonder and devilish forms start to appear through the chaos and you'll want to prise yourself away.

At the other end is a swinging cage that people can sit in as it rotates but the creepiest effect is the shadow it casts on the wall as it swings. As the 'prisoner' spins around from light into dark, they take on the guise of an asylum resident.

In the heart of this room are repeating patterns on the ceiling and visitors are invited to lie back and experience them. As the patterns grow they envelop you and seem to draw you forward even though you're lying still. It's a surreal effect, somewhat ruined by people taking photographs with their flashes on but still enjoyable despite this.

This exhibition is designed to bring an insane asylum to life and it certainly succeeds and all viewers will leave a little disturbed by this emotive and encapsulating experience.

Burtynsky: Oil

Verdict: Go see it

Where: Photographer's Gallery

When: 19 May - 1 July

The photographer's gallery has always had a prime location just off Oxford Circus, but now thanks to a sizeable renovation they have a building to match it.

The top two floors are the main exhibition spaces and the opening salvo is a set of Edward Burtynsky's photographs around the central theme of oil.

He covers all aspects of oil including the vast mechanistic fields of 'nodding donkey' oil pumps. These act as both a reminder of our impact on the environment, as the ground around them looks desolate, and the achievements of humanity in creating such a powerful assembly line. This duality continues throughout the exhibition.

His mastery of the aerial shot is evident in both the aeroplane graveyards and the view of a intertwining motorway junction that sprouts a single road that seems to cut through the city and off into the distance.

A rarely seen angle to our era of mass production is what happens to massive ships at the end of their lives and the pictures of Bangladeshi workers stripping them into component parts is a reminder that though we produce so many modes of transportation, they don't all go to waste - unlike the massive tyre mountains in the US.

No survey of oil is complete without oil spills and this is where the environmental message of Burtynsky's work comes to the fore. The shot of two boats spraying dispersants onto an oil spill is oddly enchanting, due to the rainbows created by the sprays and the rich texture of the water that makes you want to lean in and touch the photograph.

Even though their is a strong message in this exhibition, the beauty of the photographs alone merits recommending that everyone should see Burtynsky's work.

Edward Burtynsky is also displaying some of his photographs at Flowers gallery.