The exhibition, and the wider museum encourages you to ask questions, with the balance-play between words and images and the story-telling carrying a kind of agency. A potency with the world and its surrealisms and insincerities of our contemporary being!

In the year of the centenary of Norman Thelwell’s birth, the Cartoon Museum presents a new exhibition featuring an extensive collection of Thelwell’s original cartoons. The exhibition centres around Thelwell’s 1971 publication The Effluent Society, featuring for a first-time display, the original drawings from this cartoon collection. These are presented wall to wall throughout the exhibition space. Thelwell is a devotee of a prolific life-long practice to document with deep revelling satire and humour the world and how we choose to live in it.

This exhibition is sectioned to follow the themes that underpin Thelwell’s work, from chapters of his book The Effluent Society. We are walked through the trials and shifting forecasts surrounding the environmental, and societal changes of the 1940s through to the 80s and its growing exploitative production and over-consumption. This had that point in time reached such an expeditated rate it had never been experienced before. Thelwell’s commentary mainly focused on environment-spurning, his drawings focussed on the people’s desire to smoke poison pollution, the overpopulation of the UK as people spill from the land and are surrendered to the sea. The tactless take on animal welfare, the feverish pace of urbanisation, and its endeavoured making of progress.

The viewer is introduced to the biography of Thelwell himself and original drawings from his sketchbooks which he carried with him through childhood. Moving to and digging lakes in the suburban village of Codswall, Thelwell’s environmental consciousness was ignited, and the addition to his distinct and most famously known pony motif grows into more commentary-based comic strips. The choice of the exhibition to not draw centrally from Thelwell’s most notable motif, the pony is an interesting direction taken and instead seeks contemporary relevance within our fast-accelerating environmental crisis. Thelwell is shown as incredibly pervasive and ahead of his time with his work, satire, and political cartoons.

This environmental consciousness, faithful to Thelwell’s own values, is also made visible and lends itself to the physical design and build of the exhibition itself. Particularly with the reuse of materials from previous installs and exhibitions to help make up the infrastructure, recycled materials for the prompts and stools, as well as collaborating with sustainable suppliers.

Interactive prompts and materials are laid out for the viewer throughout the exhibition encouraging you to draw along and stop and answer questions with Norman Thelwell. Information is signposted alongside, to contextualise the cartoons to the contemporary moment. For example, an interactive map created by Climate Central demonstrates the land that will be below flood level in the years 2030-2150. The exhibition, and to say the wider museum encourages you to ask questions, with the balance-play between words and images and the story-telling carrying a kind of agency. A potency with the world and its surrealisms and insincerities of our contemporary being.

A favourite aspect of being able to access the original cartoons comes from the pencil markings – the instructions for the position, funny liners for the titling, dates, measurement, pages no. and so forth, all feed the production and the finalisation of the drawings. We get a sneak peek at the process of the artist.

Thelwell’s love for drawing and depicting animals made his environmental awareness obvious. Whether willing or not, this became a version of a kind of protest – a quiet protest. The animals are not shown as living with the same consequence as the human characters, as secondary things instead. The pollution in the air by the burning of fossil fuels is seemingly inconsequential in the eyes of the characters portrayed, the effects of flooding drilled as a market opportunity. The characters are left simply a little mystified but not truly off-put by it all – truly tying it to contemporary times.

Another theme that Thelwell delves into slightly is the human condition, on a social commentary between human relationships with each other. The human desire to reduce that condition to protocols, technologies, and services – ‘I’m sorry mate! I don’t know the antidote.’ reads the caption of one cartoon. Sometimes humans can be very inhuman.

The closer to the exhibition is a mini dive into contemporary artists in collaboration with their chosen environmental activist ‘Ten years to save the planet? But how many fiscal years’ – reads very emphatically as the caption of Matilda BergstrÖm’s cartoon. Alongside Rudy Loewe’s cartoon response, extracts from Walter Rodney’s film What They Don’t Want You to Know, are gifted to the listener and put in the conversation. This voicing the charge for activism regarding climate colonialism and that an explicit change in our world is a returned connection to our land and the prospected potential of a single individual’s impact in that.

For more information and tickets visit Normal Thelwell Saves the Planet — The Cartoon Museum

Review by Devika Pararasasinghe

Devika lives and works in London, by trade an artist and snake oil salesperson. Devika graduated, last September with a research MFA at Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

Read Devika’s latest review here Review: Civilization-The way we live now- Saatchi Gallery, until 17 Sept – Abundant Art

Incredible technical skill and botanical wonderment: The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2023 truly blossoms at Saatchi Gallery. 

Returning for its third year at Saatchi Gallery, the exhibition showcases work from leading botanical artists and photographers from all over the world. Entries to the show are carefully selected by an expert panel, judging scientific accuracy and artistic skill, with prizes awarded accordingly. 

This year, the themes explored in The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2023 are varied and interesting – from the climate crisis and human impact to ‘hardy survivors’ and plants to forage. This delightful exhibition is a celebration of the delicate and intricate beauty of the natural world. 

Youngran Choi’s Lamiaceae Plant in Living Korea is a particular highlight. Here, the artist depicts the entire blooming process of the plant in a beautiful and educational display. The delicate brush strokes seamlessly blend hues and shadows, creating an ethereal quality that transports viewers to the heart of the Korean countryside. The attention to detail in these works is truly remarkable – Choi depicts every petal, leaf and stem with precision.

Throughout the exhibition, the artistic diversity on display is awe-inspiring. From traditional botanical illustrations to modern interpretations that push the boundaries of conventional representation, the exhibition captures the essence of botanical artistry in all its forms.

The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2023 at Saatchi Gallery is an exhibition that truly delights. It showcases the power of art and photography to illuminate the beauty of nature, drawing attention to the details that often go unnoticed in our fast-paced lives. This exhibition has been a delight for all and specifically for those interested in art, ecology or the natural world.

Image: Saatchi Gallery presents RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2023, 16 June – 9 July 2023.©Paul Debois

Review by Amy Melling

Amy is a Curator and Creative Producer whose practice is centred around community-led arts projects. Her current research is focused on curatorial methods for exhibiting artworks outside. Amy has a keen interest in the arts and recently completed an MA in Curating and Collections at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.

Read Amy’s latest Review: Twelfth Night by Shakespeare in The Squares – ‘perfect way to spend a warm summer’s evening’- until 7 July – Abundant Art

Footnote:

Participating  artists and photographers have been awarded RHS Gold, Silver-Gilt, Silver, and Bronze medals, as well as a series of special awards including ‘Best Botanical Art Exhibit’ and ‘Judge’s Special Award’.

Entries for the show have gone through a meticulous pre-selection process, where the scientific accuracy, technical skill and aesthetic appeal of the work have been reviewed by an expert judging panel.

Award-winning works this year include:

Best Botanical Art Exhibit
Nina Mayes for the exhibit: Macrophytes in the Emergent Zone of Britain’s Fresh Waters

Best Botanical Artwork
Eunike Nugroho for the artwork: Hoya latifolia G.Don / Bold under (Sun) Stress

Judges’ Special Award
Hiroko Kita for the exhibit: Japanese Cultivated Evergreen Azalea and Their Parental Species

Best Portfolio Photography Exhibit
Irene Stupples for the exhibit: Faded Iris

The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show is supported by Riverstone Living. 

A symphony of laughter, love, and mistaken identity: this summer, see Shakespeare’s classic Twelfth Night performed in idyllic green spaces around London.

This delightful production by theatre group, Shakespeare in the Squares, breathes new life into the beloved comedy, perfectly capturing it’s playfulness and infusing it with a contemporary twist. The play centres twins Viola and Sebastian, who are separated in a shipwreck – both thinking the other is dead. Mistaken identity, marriage and much laughter ensues. Further still, all shows are performed at beautiful open-air stages in garden squares around London. 

Shakespeare in the Square’s Twelfth Night effortlessly strikes a delicate balance between honouring Shakespeare’s original text and injecting it with a modern sensitivity. The production’s ability to seamlessly blend tradition and innovation is a testament to the skill and creativity of its ensemble. The cast deliver exciting, mastered performances full of energy – truly making the story accessible to audiences of all backgrounds.

The set is minimal – a table, a chair, a flower covered archway – but is more than enough given the picturesque backdrop. Trees sway gently behind the actors as they perform and noises from the streets beyond create a gentle sound track. At key moments, the cast come together with live music and singing, adding further depth to the storytelling. The songs are often modern pop songs, performed on traditional historical instruments. These interludes create a lively atmosphere, immersing the viewer and fusing the gap between the audience and actors.

Shakespeare in the Squares Twelfth Night is a theatrical gem, with its captivating performances and quirky backdrops this production is the perfect way to spend a warm summer’s evening. Twelfth Night will leave you full of laughter, love and a renewed appreciation of Shakespear’s enduring genius.

Twelfth Night is showing in Squares across London until the 7th July. Tickets and more information are available here.

Image: Twelfth Night-Shakespeare in The Squares, credit-James Millar

Review by Amy Melling

Amy is a Curator and Creative Producer whose practice is centred around community-led arts projects. Her current research is focused on curatorial methods for exhibiting artworks outside. Amy has a keen interest in the arts and recently completed an MA in Curating and Collections at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.

Read Amy’s latest review here Review: RESOLVE Collective: Them’s the breaks-Barbican Curve Gallery, until 16 July – Abundant Art

In Fredrich Nietzsche’s eye, photography gives us more eyes on the matter at hand, on a world lost in spectacle. The vast expansion of the utilisation of photography to attempt to transverse the new world order. All the long haul travelled terrain, the dystopic rearranging, the stolen rhetoric, and the finally found hope. Civilization The Way We Live Now is an epic of an exhibition, a forever list of world-renowned photographers invited and collated together for this awe-display. In this crucible of irrationality, these 150 photographers are documenters, we see through their eyes what human civilisation and its global societies spanning continents endeavour to achieve and fail. Challenging the notion that there is nothing new under the sun, the photographers trail through massive overconsumption, catastrophe, and modern warfare, to resolute human ingenuity.

The exhibition is broken down across 2 floors and into the following chapters. HIVE: where we live. ALONE TOGETHER: how we relate to one another. FLOW: how we move our bodies and goods. PERSUASION: the power of influence. ESCAPE: how we relax. CONTROL: maintaining order and discipline. RUPTURE: breakdown and disorder. NEXT: new worlds on the horizon.

Hive gives huge monoculture energy. It is all urban pageantry with Roger Eberhard’s photos which are Airbnb-aesthetic personified. Cities losing their contextual identity, this slinky-flatness is inescapable, his photographic series [2015-1016] tours Hilton hotel rooms worldwide, surveying Venice, Tokyo, and Mexico City to name a few, and the views accompanying them. The rooms look so alike, making a uniform for these standardised spaces, everything mirrors as this reproductive dumb enclave form finds no envied other form.

This is the growing epidemic of contemporary default urban architecture. This homogeneity masquerading as diversity is inseparable from a capitalistic consumerist culture and is a marker of a globalised generic city. The Hive is megacities traded in as geological excursions as told in the initial chapter of this exhibition. KDK delivers with his photo SF.M-1[2005] with Stanley Kubrick levels of a hopeless space, a dystopian realism, and the staggering growth protocols gone too far to ever seem redeemed.

Alone Together sees full favour with the collective people as a primary force. These moments come and go, they ebb and flow between us and KIM TAEDONG’S photograph DAY BREAK-034 [2011] takes on the relentless centre. He sees the claustrophobia of waves of humanity, and instead places intention in the in-between moments however unwelcoming and austere they may be. A resting moment captured on a walk, a quiet reflection, for things do happen outside the centre, significant things that make or break us.

Alone Together is about people and the moments they share; the social encounters are colourful slip rendered. This is epitomised in MASSIMO VITALI’s photograph CEAGESP SAO PAULO ANALOG DIGITAL DIPTYCH [2012]. This photo aims to show all life’s textures, from its urban concentrations and party scenes to the mundanities of collective life as niceties are exchanged in the business of life.

Flow knows the body can be pulled. That the body is an instrument to show emotion. FLORIAN BÖHM strikes in parallel to the tracks of human movement. His photo 48TH STREET / 5TH AVENUE [2005] depicts a crowd waiting at a red light, with a model centre-positioned in a vicarious hunt. It is a lost shiny flaunted consumerism, a dead-ended materialism, and the tension of lives lived as ambitions get greater.

EDWARD BURTYNSKY does not deal in softly rendered work but in stark imagery. He takes the lead in the chicken processing plant, as the identically dressed workers in rows vanish into the distance. MANUFACTURING #17, DEDA CHICKEN PROCESSING PLANT, DEHU CITY, JILIN PROVENCE, CHINA [2005], steals attention, the gaze is aggressive and comes from a place of uneasiness as the efficiency of production is contextualised. It is after all about that drum beat – aren’t they what make up the mycelium network?

Persuasion asks what is the human vantage point, – that is where the stimulant is. Trapping the masses in seductive zeal, ANDY FREEBERG’S photograph SEAN KELLY [2010], acutely depicts what lies behind the varnish of these so-called sacred art world interactions. The powerplays, the art product doppelgangers, the plain hard sells, and all the intrusive thoughts that accompany them.

Quite primal, seductive presentations, the symbols of a moment, are representative of DOUGIE WALLACE’S photograph HARRODSBURG [2016]. It is the visual cacophony of a spend-ing itinerary. Its visuality is anonymous, but these products will compliment an ideal of a self-image. The desire to see is linked to the product. In the fetishisation of commodity. As a commodified object, we are dealing with an almost dead thing.

Rupture: a failed philosophy. What is there but disconnect and disarray?Rupture is the disavowal of the infrastructure, as entire landscapes have become e-wastelands, filled with this not-so-latent tech iconography. The work, B12 from XING DANWEN’S DISCONNEXION series [2002- 2003] is a landmine of 2000’s brick and flip phones. The cropped close-up nature of the image makes clear that this leads to a stretch of vastness. An expanse from which hundreds of thousands of workers across the coast of Southern China earn their living dismantling and burning electronics for their core component materials.

Part 2 of Rupture, WORK, WORK, WORK [2012] by WANG QINGSONG, drew central attention in the room and is a truly magnetic image. Everything with a wink, satire finds a home here. Social change is vehemently rapid in China, and Quingsong plays to these very theatrics of our legend-making work goals. The visual vocabulary is deep, as the paper is taped over screens, everyone is collaged together as they wear the same uniform, and the urban plan moulding falls to the ground. It is claustrophobic, a sordid compression technique, – nihilistic. A gormless thing.

Control is an intrusion into the body – ‘what’s inside the body, – coming out? OPEN DOOR III [2014], is part of a series by SOUTH HO SIU NAM, centred on the Occupy Movement in Hong Kong. The open door is a blackout. Towering edifices, the relations between China and Hong Kong stagnate. Where an empty space is full, the odour never refrains from circling the room. EDWARD BURTYNSKY returns with PIVOT IRRIGATION/SUBURB, SOUTH OF YUMA, ARIZONA [2011], which is an aesthetic shot. A photographer’s landmark language is light, but this takes the turn of the visually strange, sublime, but a not sublime, surreal, not-so-surreal image of global and USA treatment of water resources. Burtyntsky is questioning how we handle our responsibility and management of our world’s water and the landscapes it is altering as a result of our decisions.

Escape, you cannot go on, times have changed, – we are in pieces. OLAF OTTO BECKER comes from a place of defacing, of refacing. A clear glaze of white over blue, a dystopic erosion overlaps our current climate. POINT 660, 2, 08/2007 67’’09’04’’ N. 50’01’58’’W’ALITIDE 360M [2008] is an overhead view of tourists in the foreground, and trailing off into the distance taking photographs/being photographed on the Artic-plane. The visual culture of extraction and its resultant exploitation, ecological or self-image making has ultimately changed the geological strata of a once unspoiled vista-view. The climate catastrophe, its image production, reproduction, and its ensuing image dissemination have warped things as instead of climate action, tourists travel on short-stays for self-prosperity and souvenirs to show off back home. This is the end of the history of landscape.

Taking a different escape, sensitivity through interaction finds SIAN DAVEY in her images, this is specialised with LAST SUMMER KISS [2017]. The photo is romantic in an impractical kind of way, the gaze is intricate. A bow down to your friend kind of moment. The opening of the body, a new second skin, a genuine thing, – a last summer kiss.

What’s Next? Cyber-space is not an island of the bless. Computers have fugitive status outside the box. Data, sounds, and images fall off screens and become incarnate objects and experiences, pressing into view. Cryogenic technology, bionics, robotics, and genetic engineering all challenge our current imaginations of the world and the way we choose to live in it. The photographers in this last chapter seek to challenge and test this very real potential weaponisation through their medium of photography. ROBERT ZHAO RENHUI’S photographic series, A GUIDE TO FLORA AND FAUNA OF THE WORLD [2013] shows us a square apple, man-made grapes, a painted Indian Glassy Fish, and more. These genetically modified species are here already and live among us. Renhui compiles the man-made, the partially genetically altered, and the fantastical with the same aesthetic and documenter’s treatment. What relationship with nature do we have now? This digital culture simulacrum is repeatedly consumed, regurgitated, reshaped, and repackaged into space, nature, or otherwise. Once the sublime was natural and native to the land, now it has become technological.

The gaze changed; this is truly a marathon of an exhibition. Civilization The Way We Live Now is on view until 17th September at the Saatchi Gallery.

Review by Devika Pararasasinghe

Devika lives and works in London, by trade an artist and snake oil salesperson. Devika graduated, last September with a research MFA at Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford.

Devika’s latest review Review: The Ugly Duchess: Beauty And Satire In The Renaissance- The National Gallery, Until 11 June (abundantart.net)

Footnote:

Image: Lauren Greenfield, High school seniors (from left) Lili, 17, Nicole, 18, Lauren, 18, Luna, 18, and Sam, 17, put on their makeup in front of a two-way mirror for Lauren.

Saatchi Gallery, London presents CIVILIZATION: THE WAY WE LIVE NOW (2 June – 17 September 2023)

For tickets and information visit CIVILIZATION – Exhibition – Saatchi Gallery

Exhibiting photographers:

Max Aguilera-Hellweg, Andreia Alves de Oliveira, Evan Baden, Murray Ballard, Olivo Barbieri, Mandy Barker, Lisa Barnard, Olaf Otto Becker, Valérie Belin, Daniel Berehulak, Mathieu Bernard-Reymond, Peter Bialobrzeski, Florian Böhm, Michele Borzoni, Priscilla Briggs, Paul Bulteel, Edward Burtynsky, Antony Cairns, Alejandro Cartagena, Philippe Chancel, Edmund Clark, Che Onejoon, Olivier Christinat, Lynne Cohen, Lois Conner, Raphaël Dallaporta, Siân Davey, Susan Derges, Gerco de Ruijter, Richard de Tscharner, Sergey Dolzhenko, Natan Dvir, Roger Eberhard, Mitch Epstein, Andrew Esiebo, Adam Ferguson, Vincent Fournier, Jermaine Francis, Andy Freeberg, Matthieu Gafsou, Andreas Gefeller, George Georgiou, Christoph Gielen, Ashley Gilbertson, Katy Grannan, Samuel Gratacap, Lauren Greenfield, Han Sungpil, Nick Hannes, Sean Hemmerle, Mishka Henner, South Ho Siu Nam, Candida Höfer, Dan Holdsworth, Hong Hao, Aimée Hoving, Pieter Hugo, Tiina Itkonen, Leila Jeffreys, Jo Choonman, Chris Jordan, Nadav Kander, KDK, Mike Kelley, Kim Taedong, Alfred Ko, Irene Kung, Benny Lam, Sonia Lenzi, Gjorgji Lichovski, Michael Light, Mauricio Lima, Sheng-Wen Lo, Pablo López Luz, Christian Lünig, Alex MacLean, David Maisel, Ann Mandelbaum, Edgar Martins, Jeffrey Milstein, Mintio, Richard Misrach, Andrew Moore, David Moore, Richard Mosse, Michael Najjar, Walter Niedermayr, Noh Suntag, Simon Norfolk, Trent Parke, Cara Phillips, Robert Polidori, Sergey Ponomarev, Cyril Porchet, Mark Power, Giles Price, Yan Wang Preston, Reiner Riedler, Simon Roberts, Andrew Rowat, Victoria Sambunaris, Sato Shintaro, Dona Schwartz, Paul Shambroom, Chen Shaoxiong, Nigel Shafran, Toshio Shibata, Corinne Silva, Niki Simpson, Alec Soth, Jem Southam, Henrik Spohler, Will Steacy, Thomas Struth, Larry Sultan, Shigeru Takato, Eric Thayer, Danila Tkachenko, Eason Tsang Ka Wai, Andreas Tschersich, Amalia Ulman, Brian Ulrich, Penelope Umbrico, Johanna Urschel, Carlo Valsecchi, Cássio Vasconcellos, Reginald Van de Velde, Massimo Vitali, Robert Walker, Dougie Wallace, Richard Wallbank, Wang Qingsong, Patrick Weidmann, Thomas Weinberger, Damon Winter, Michael Wolf, Paolo Woods and Gabriele Galimberti, Raimond Wouda, Xing Danwen, Ahmad Zamroni, Luca Zanier, Zhang Xiao, Robert Zhao Renhui, Francesco Zizola.

The critically acclaimed podcast ‘Brown Girls Do It Too’ is live at the Soho Theatre. The dynamic duo, Poppy and Rubina, are here to dive into the complex realities of being a British South Asian woman, from sex and relationships to identity and culture, this is a conversation which is breaking the silence in the South Asian community.

Dressed in typical 90s outfits, the duo sat on the vibrant set resembling a teen bedroom, which makes the show feel like genuine, passionate conversation between friends. As a British Pakistani myself, I am able to resonate with the topics, as they discuss their childhoods, families, exploring their identities, and navigating through relationships in adulthood. The show is a mixture of chit-chatting, impersonations, and skits (‘Coconut Crisis Hotline’ is a personal fave).

Poppy and Rubina began their podcast ‘Brown Girls Do It Too’ in 2019, as they felt there was a lack of brown women speaking about sex in the media, and the community in general. Anything related to sex, love or relationships is difficult for Asian women to speak about, which is damaging as it leads to a lack of sex education and awareness. The duo particularly focuses on how second-generation British Asians represent a fusion of cultures, which can be challenging to navigate. This emphasises the importance of creating a space for these conversations to occur, especially as British Asian culture continues to expand. It particularly stands out to me that the podcast aims to define what it means to be brown and asks if it is possible for us to fully be ourselves. This is an important question, and the podcast seeks to break down barriers that prevent brown women from expressing themselves fully.

The duo frequently mentions the ‘trolling’ which they receive, mainly from those within the community, and also refers to the culture of shame and judgement within the community.These conversations are truly impactful and empowering.

Throughout the show, they explore prominent, serious issues such as the casual misogyny in a strict Asian/Muslim household, racism and colourism, and the challenges of growing up in the 90s-00s as a brown girl surrounded by white/British culture. However, as serious as these issues are, Poppy and Rubina tackle these discussions with just the right amount of comedy and relatable stories. We also learn A LOT about the duo – from first orgasms, relationships and teen crushes, which definitely make us all feel like friends having a chat.

The show ends with the two women reading out letters to their mothers, expressing their feelings about their relationships and how these could differ if there are less harsh cultural expectations.

Overall, the show is a perfect blend of comedy and heartfelt conversations, which feels both liberating and comforting. I would definitely recommend this show whilst it runs until 10 June 2023.

Review by Ridha Sheikh

Ridha is a volunteer writer for Abundant Art. She is a recent History and Politics graduate from Queen Mary – University of London. Ridha is excited to explore and share her strong passion for London’s art scene.

Read Ridha’s latest review here Review: Beyond The Streets London – ‘Captures monumental moments from the world of graffiti, street art and more’- Saatchi Gallery, until 9 May – Abundant Art

Footnote:

Image by Mark Senior (c)

Tickets: https://sohotheatre.com/events/brown-girls-do-it-too-mama-told-me-not-to-come-2/

Brown Girls Do It Too (‘Best Podcast of the Year’ British Podcast Awards 2020, Asian Media 2021)

Please note: This show contains language that could be deemed offensive, such as swearing and adult references.

Performance BSL interpreted by Sharan Thind and Sandy Deo – Sat 10 Jun, 2.30pm

Le Otto Montagne presents the tale of two young boys, one a city boy and the other un montanaro (mountaineer), whose childhood friendship patiently observers the unfolding of their different life paths. Much more than a coming of age story however, Le Otto Montagne centres the broader struggle of finding one’s purpose in life, even if only for a moment. Tradition, curiosity, determination, resentment, imagination, these are the contexts that influence the zig-zagging of each of their paths. Sometimes they cross over and sometimes they diverge, but what provides the resilient thread to their adult friendship is their shared love for the mountains.

The majority of the film is shot in and around a small village in the Italian alpine region of Valle D’Aosta. We whiteness the two boys explore the luscious landscape, playing in the streams and going on long hikes. Their exchanging of local regional dialects adds to romanticisation of this place which experiences pace of life and values that contrast that of the northern Italian cities. Regardless of whether one is specifically familiar with these nuances between regional Italian accents and cultures, the beauty of the film’s scenery distinctly punctuates it with a desire to spend time in the vastness of the mountain landscape.

Yet, as the film develops, this idyllic gesturing of nature, its symbol as a nurturing safe space, is complicated by the characters’ illusions, aspirations, and acts of agency. As its backdrop, the mountains therefore provides the space for the film to explore the undulation of life’s highs and lows. Over the curvatures of the Alpine horizon, from mountain peaks to urban life, and across streams of emotions, Le Otto Montagne is certain to leave viewers with a self-reflective sensibility towards where they see their own next turn (svolta, the much nicer Italian word) to take them.

Review by Michela Giachino

Since studying History of Art at The University of Oxford Michela has continued to pursue her interests in art and culture. She particularly enjoys considering how contemporary and historical art forms are presented to the wider public through exhibitions and viewings at art institutions. Michela’s favourite mediums include photography, film, painting and drawing, and she is always excited to learn about new art.

Read Michela’s latest review here Review: Souls Grown Deep like Rivers: Black Artists from the American South- “Giving space to art as experience.” – Royal Academy, until 18 June – Abundant Art

Footnote:

Director-Felix Van Groeningen, Charlotte Vandermeersch

With Luca Marinelli, Alessandro Borghi

Italy 2022. 147min, Digital, Certificate 12A, English subtitles

A Picturehouse Entertainment release

For tickets and more information Buy cinema tickets for The Eight Mountains | BFI Southbank

The current exhibition at the RA is unique because it doesn’t centre any particular artistic movement or artist. Instead, the art it exhibits was produced by a selection of Black artists who are grouped together for not having participated in the 20^th century historical event known as the Great Migration. While a large percentage of the Black communities in the deep South migrated to more northern states in the U.S between 1930 and 1970, the artists that the RA here chooses remained in the American South.

I am interested by this. Does the exhibition therefore consider a sort of counter-history, is it treating the historically tangential? If so, I envision it like this: if a historical event were a shape, then this exhibition considers the space around this shape – the ‘negative space’ of history.

Upon entering the exhibit one is immediately confronted with the use of a lot of scrap metal, assemblage sculpture, earthy pigments and materials, and craft-like techniques. Not having known what to expect, my first reaction was to compare these aesthetics to the Italian art movement, Arte Povera, and other similar aesthetics that pertained to the 1960s and 1970s, such as that we saw in Noah Purifoy’s 66 sigs of neon exhibition (1966) in Los Angeles. However, although the exhibition at hand includes work which was made during these same years, one of its features is that it includes art from across the 20^th century and beginning of the 21^st century. In fact, delving into how the exhibition embraces a broad time period uncovers how my initial comparisons completely miss the point.

The formal styles that I picked up on at first are informed by these artists’ choice to address the violent history of slavery, racial inequalities, and the social marginalisation of Black communities, while rooting these themes in their everyday experience of the deep South. Religion, music, and the African traditions with which these artists were actively reconnecting, are all interwoven into their often stark style. Referencing back to the broad time period of the exhibition, it becomes clear that at its crux it strives to demonstrate the cycles of oppression, resilience, family and tradition that these artists faced across time.

By bringing forward the ‘negative space’ of history, ‘Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers’ prompts one to consider how art history has failed to account for artistic expressions of experience that aren’t defined by novelty or fleetingness. In this instance, we are presented with reactions to race inequalities that can’t be expressed by a contained movement or ‘shape’ because of their very repeated and systemic nature. While we may know that individual historical periods are often used to delineate the story of art history, we don’t always realise what we are missing. The current exhibition at the RA does an excellent job to shed light on the expansive potential of thinking about art history across new planes of time and experience, waking us up from the pretty shapes we are used to literally as well as metaphorically.

Featured Image: Lonnie Holley, Keeping a Record of It (Harmful Music), 1986. Salvaged phonograph top, phonograph record, animal skull, 34.9 x 40 cm. Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta. © 2023 Lonnie Holley / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / DACS, London. Photo: Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio

Review by Michela Giachino

Since studying History of Art at The University of Oxford Michela has continued to pursue her interests in art and culture. She particularly enjoys considering how contemporary and historical art forms are presented to the wider public through exhibitions and viewings at art institutions. Michela’s favourite mediums include photography, film, painting and drawing, and she is always excited to learn about new art.

Read Michela’s latest review here Review: Christine Sun Kim: Edges of Sign Language- ‘Canvases as multifaceted explorations’- Somerset House, until 21 May – Abundant Art

Footnote:

For more information and tickets Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers | Exhibition | Royal Academy of Arts

Drawing its title from the work of Langston Hughes, Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers brings together sculpture, paintings, reliefs, drawings, and quilts, most of which will be seen in the UK and Europe for the first time. It will also feature the celebrated quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and the neighbouring communities of Rehoboth and Alberta.

Artists include Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Hawkins Bolden, Bessie Harvey, Charles Williams, Mary T. Smith, Purvis Young, Mose Tolliver, Nellie Mae Rowe, Mary Lee Bendolph, Marlene Bennett Jones, Martha Jane Pettway, Loretta Pettway, and Henry and Georgia Speller.

Exhibition organised by the Royal Academy of Arts, London in collaboration with Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta.

This exhibition contains images that some visitors might find upsetting. Please contact us for more information.

Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism, is a sensational display of dynamic brushwork, impasto surfaces, pastel colours, soft, sun-clad interiors, pensive expressions and intimate depictions of Morisot’s loved ones. Unconventional in their more personal perspective in comparison to Morisot’s male colleagues, Morisot’s scenes are more often than not domestic and indoors (since it was more difficult for Morisot to paint outdoors as a woman), depicting family such as her daughter, Julie, her niece, her husband and her sister.

Dulwich Picture Gallery’s curatorial stance for this exhibition, which has been based on new research, is focused on the way in which Morisot was influenced by, responded to and translated eighteenth-century French art, particularly that by Rococo artists Fragonard and Boucher, as well as British art by Reynolds, Gainsborough and Romney. The work of these artists have crept their way into 13 out of 43 of the exhibits, focussing on Morisot’s predecessors, particularly Fragonard reinforcing comparison.

The best rooms are the first and last, which display works almost entirely by Morisot, whilst in the middle of the exhibition the narrative veers towards the work of other artists from the previous century. Whilst Morisot was clearly responding to the Rococo era and eighteenth-century painting, re-working Rococo colours and motifs such as the reclining woman, her work is starkly different and an entirely new language altogether.

The world created by Morisot’s paintings was a reflection of her position as an upper middle-class woman with access to an informal art education (particularly from the landscape painter, Camille Corot) and the economic freedom to pay for childcare. As a result, Morisot flourished as a professional artist, exhibiting at the salons in Paris from 1860s onwards. However, Morisot did have to be strategic in the way in which she painted, working at dawn or in spaces where she would be less visible to the public, such as out on a boat away from the public gaze.

Morisot’s position as a woman within a male-dominated art world meant that her works often represent the peripheries of metropolitan Parisian life, capturing women indoors in their homes more often than outdoors, or alone with their thoughts in private spaces. Indeed, Morisot’s ability to communicate a mood of pensive introspection is profound, and beyond being sentimental, her work is breathtakingly alive with emotion and a quality of momentary intimacy.

Image: Berthe Morisot, Woman at her toilette,1875-80. Image courtesy of The Art Institute of Chicago, Stickney Fund.

Review by Lucy Evans

Lucy’s passion for the arts began with drawing and painting at a young age and developed later on into a love of landscape painting and a degree in Art History, with a focus on Modernism and gender. Lucy has grown to love literature and acting in particular, and her experiences acting at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival have been formative, convincing her that performance can be an essential tool for communication and connection, as well as of course being a valuable source of entertainment.

Lucy’s latest review here Review: Akram Khan’s Jungle Book Reimagined-Sadler’s Wells Until 15 April (abundantart.net)

Tickets and information: Berthe Morisot: Shaping Impressionism | Dulwich Picture Gallery

Footnote: 

About Berthe Morisot
Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (1841-1895) was a French painter and a founding member of Impressionism. In 1864, she exhibited for the first time in the highly esteemed Salon de Paris. Her work was selected for exhibition in six subsequent Salons until, in 1874, she joined the “rejected” Impressionists in the first of their own exhibitions, which included Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Alfred Sisley. Morisot went on to participate prominently in almost all of the following eight Impressionist exhibitions between 1874 and 1886; she missed one in 1878 when she gave birth to her daughter Julie who she had with her husband Eugène Manet, the brother of her friend and colleague Édouard Manet. In 1894, she was described by influential French art critic Gustave Geffroy as one of “les trois grandes dames” of Impressionism alongside Marie Bracquemond and Mary Cassatt.

Musée Marmottan Monet
The Musée Marmottan Monet is housed in a magnificent townhouse once owned by writer and art collector Paul Marmottan. In addition to its collection of pre-modern paintings, sculptures and illuminations, it boasts the world’s leading collections of works by Claude Monet and Berthe Morisot. This outstanding Impressionist treasure is further enriched by works from Delacroix, Boudin, Manet, Degas, Caillebotte, Sisley, Pissarro, Gauguin and Rodin, with Chagall representing the modernist period. http://www.marmottan.fr

This Spring sees RESOLVE Collective take over Barbican Curve Gallery with their unconventional exhibition, them’s the breaks. 

The exhibition is built on-site, with one side staging sculptures formed using materials salvaged from other institutions: large plastic signage from Camden Art Centre, cork bricks from the Royal Academy, sheets of mesh from Barbican itself. The other side of the space details the behind-the-scenes: sketches of parts to be built, annotated production schedules, messages left on scraps of wood. Here, RESOLVE completely unpick the idea of what an exhibition is.

RESOLVE Collective is an interdisciplinary studio, making work at the intersection of architecture, technology, art and social change. Them’s the breaks continues their exploration of these themes. Part exhibition, part community hub – throughout the opening the space will be activated by a series of public events developed in collaboration with local organisations and creatives. 

As a collective, RESOLVE aims to provide a platform for the production of new knowledge and ideas through design, they say “design carries more than aesthetic value; it is also a mechanism for political and socio-economic change”. Them’s the breaks certainly does this. It is a thought-provoking exploration of the role of the institution with our communities. 

Further, them’s the breaks encourages the audience to reconsider the use and malleability of materials. One of the strengths of the exhibit is that it provides visitors with an opportunity to engage with artworks in a way that is not always possible in traditional galleries – viewers are encouraged to touch, scale and interact with the works.

Them’s the breaks is a prime example of how art can be used to create conversations about real-world issues, thereby triggering much needed social change. RESOLVE Collective present complex issues in a way that is both engaging and inspiring, using the Barbican’s unique brutalist space to its fullest potential.

Them’s the breaks by RESOLVE Collective is showing at Barbican Curve Gallery until 16th July 2023. Tickets are free and more information is available here.

Image: RESOLVE Collective:them’s the breaks, Installation view, The Curve, Barbican, 2023© Adiam Yemane

Review by Amy Melling 

Amy is a Curator and Creative Producer whose practice is centred around community-led arts projects. Her current research is focused on curatorial methods for exhibiting artworks outside. Amy has a keen interest in the arts and recently completed an MA in Curating and Collections at Chelsea College of Arts, UAL.

Read Amy’s latest review here Review: Mike Nelson: Extinction Beckons – ‘A gallery turned into an apocalyptic wasteland’-Hayward Gallery, until 7 May – Abundant Art

Footnote:

An inter-disciplinary design studio with its roots in South London and extended across the UK, RESOLVE Collective use their commissions to platform local organisations and spark social change. Taking over The Curve, a series of public events, developed in collaboration with a network of exciting artists, activists, writers, DJs, and designers, occupy this transformed gallery space. As part of the display, they’ll use technology usually found in structural engineering to visualise what’s happening inside the Barbican’s concrete structure: using the cracks that naturally occur in a building as prompts for how we consider the structural decline of our systems, institutions, and buildings.

Disney’s Jungle Book of my childhood: jovial, comic and full of dancing bears eating prickly pears, remains unrecognisable in Akram Khan’s dark re-telling of Rudyard Kipling’s tale. The focus is now on climate change and impending doom, whilst Mowgli’s fate feels closer to fact than fiction. Set in a post-apocalyptic city, submerged under water, the narrative essentially resembles the plight of a climate refugee fleeing her indigenous land and escaping rising sea levels. Mowgli is separated from her family when she falls from the raft she is sharing with her parents, but is then brought to the surface on the nose of a blue whale – a moment which contributes to one of a number of surreal and creative elements in an otherwise entirely contemporary and urgent story of climate-induced displacement and catastrophe.

This dance-theatre retelling of The Jungle Book combines numerous story-telling devices in order to deliver a powerfully emotive narrative. Dance, music, animation and voiceover come together to deliver an exciting and unique production, unparalleled in the London theatre scene at the moment. This pioneering quality is mostly delivered by YeastCulture’s incredibly beautiful animation, which adds layers to the story  (both literally and metaphorically) without distracting from the choreography. A favourite moment features the elephants striding steadily across the front of the stage like an updated, contemporary moment from the Lion King. Their immense scale is effectively communicated when their digital selves interact with the real life performers on stage.

The weaker part of the production is the voiceover, which accompanies the animalistic dance-like movements. It felt confusing trying to work out, if the voices are in sync with the individuals’ movements, or whether trying to match the two up wasn’t the point, let alone which voice went with which performer, as every character was wore the same. This means that the voices actually distract from the beautiful dance. When the dancers are moving, the overall effect is profound and solemn, but when they are animated by sound, they are suddenly reduced to seemingly simpler characters with less emotive potential than when they are mute as physically expressive dancers. The storyline in the second half also becomes quite complicated and hard to follow, whilst the constantly appearing golden box carried by Mowgli remains elusive, other than being a reference to her past life with her family.

Jocelyn Pook’s music is fascinatingly eclectic and heady, adding suspense, atmosphere and emotion to the story. The tone of the music is melancholy, mesmerising and hypnotic, with a general mood evocative of chanting. The most beautiful and memorable piece for me was, ‘Where we Came From’, which combines traditional Indian singing with kyrie, eléison chants.

YeastCulture’s animation is one of the most captivating and exciting elements of the production. Transparent screens allow line drawings to come to life as animals, or rain to dash across the sky. Chil, the Kite, soars across the space and flashbacks of Mowgli with her mother simultaneously play out alongside Mowgli’s current situation amongst the animals in the concrete jungle of a dystopian city. These flashbacks add poignancy to the tragedy of Mowgli’s story and bring attention to the reality of separation at the heart of refugee struggles and the climate crisis. Another clever stage device is the use of props, as Kaa, the snake, was made up of a number of cardboard boxes, animated into a sinuous line by the dancers, and a mesmerising, lit-up sheet created a rippling body of shimmering water in one of the closing scenes.

The narrative crux of Akram Khan’s Jungle Book lies in the relationship between humans and the natural world. Mowgli’s love for the animals is anomalous as the only other human character, the ostracised hunter who has been rejected by his own kind, eventually turns destructive and kills Chil, the bird who has been faithfully watching over Mowgli.

At the heart of this production is a poignant mix of beauty and destruction, tenderness and violence. It examines the tension between survival and death and animal and human livelihoods.  Khan’s message concerns the relationship between human and nature, with Mowgli representing hope and breaking the destructive trend of human destruction of the planet. Through a unique co-creation of mediums, the urgency of climate change is communicated in this emotionally engaging performance.

Image: Akram Khan’s Jungle Book reimagined ©Ambra Vernuccio

Review by Lucy Evans 

Lucy’s passion for the arts began with drawing and painting at a young age and developed later on into a love of landscape painting and a degree in Art History, with a focus on Modernism and gender. Lucy has grown to love literature and acting in particular, and her experiences acting at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival have been formative, convincing her that performance can be an essential tool for communication and connection, as well as of course being a valuable source of entertainment.

Lucy’s latest review here Akedah-‘Two sisters pushing each other to the edge’ – Hampstead Theatre until 18th March (abundantart.net)

 Tickets and information –   https://www.sadlerswells.com/whats-on/akram-khan-company-jungle-book-reimagined/