VSSL Studio’s second exhibition of FACET, as part of an ongoing series of five exhibitions, now holds June Lam at its centre. His solo show culminates years of artistic and interdisciplinary practice, across diverse mediums, of sculpture, performance, and dance. This exhibition showcases his collages, 25 of which play to stories of alternative renderings and new futures that bring his world into view. No unenvied cuts breach the walls of Lam’s collages. Narrative induced; they are built upon with intention. No matter surprises still occur – Intimate and mystic. Floating. An engine of being filled with dis/pleasure, loss, transgressive sexuality, death, and friction tracks itself along these walls painted in a gemstone-like bottle-green.

Slinky refraction cuts between constantly changing elements, – and what falls out of sight or frame is left for dreamwork. The visuals of the collages are like final credits, phone screenshots, and film stills, waiting on a caption to dramatize and disturb the power. Donna Marcus Duke offers an accompaniment text The Liberating Power of the Cut, which is for the loved and the reviled. This text is a plucky kind of forever love letter written directly to the collages on display. Referenced and moderated, it is a pull-on reason to contextualise and caption Lam’s work, and the extraordinary realities, mediations, and experiences it attempts to conjure.

The grasping is always visual, and if you follow the collages around in order: sex and death bookend the series. Your first point of call rubs elbows with inside(s) and outside(s): Tissue, [2020] reveres no complacent cut. Instead seeks a whole that we may slip, fall, and find ourselves in a cinematic kinship and quite at home within. Tissue makes anything he says sound like sex. The immediacy of the cut, the shape of its line, the instinctive rhetoric, the made-for-screen incidental waves, and charged references all are encapsulated throughout Lam’s collages, – vacant here are any grey areas. Blessing 2 [2023], is halfway to madness, and it is lucid in its investigation of the natural order. This relative and ambivalent lucidity places a seemingly ancestral deity to have exchanged its seat on a lotus flower for a magnified fish. Submerged into different scales, any extreme closeup of the macro vs the micro is cut-and-paste perception management.  Rinse [2020], also plays to this, it is simplistic and evocative, a pool inescapable through our shrinkage. All these collages marinade and lather in kinship, this of which prevails as the central theme throughout this exhibition, even as a solo traveller.

Fevered freshness, takes clutch with the additional 2 artwork print-run, made earlier this year: Offering to Guanyin [2023], and Bao Ngoc [2023]. These prints are magnetic and self-reflective. They are generous in exploring Lam’s personal history, the left out/ leftover history, and the intergenerational trauma that both bring up, stoking a connection to his ancestral parts. This is now made real as legacy on paper. These old sounds treble, and there is no loss through partiality, for the backgrounds of the collages contain writing drawn on like that of a confessional or a diary entry. This puts a delicate face on every family as a society and as their plane of reality.

Some collages shown in this exhibition are part of a former series, titled under Squeeze, which reckons to extend beyond the bodily limit. The series began its making journey during Covid, with Covid’s touch starvation as nothing but a devout reprimand. Stalling between a fissure and a connection, the collages ask if there is any hook to be held, for it is boundless, filled with yearning and touch deprivation. Skin Hunger, [2020], part of the Squeeze series is a cradle cataloguing the image of the body. The corporal/carnal compositing and translating of space for more or less body/ or more or less human-[touch]. Cistern [2020] also from the Squeeze series forges a reaching that is infectious, eats so whole, so much so it is a new form of watery embodiment, of exteriority. Reaching each other through reaching into each other, a kind of feeder is established. Their world is a riot. The depths of which are drunk from and ready to erupt for all to see.

We still can’t stop the wind with our hands, high pressure will start a fire, and June Lam stages a cut of his life. His practice of making collages is on view at VSSL Studio as a culminating cut-and-dry show, for your pleasure until the 27^th of August.

Featured Image: June Lam’s collage exhibit from his series Squeeze

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 Norman Thelwell Saves the Planet-The Cartoon Museum (abundantart.net)

Footnote:

Collage has a rich history in queer aesthetics and has been a favoured medium for many queer artists. The act of collage-making mirrors the world-making practices of queer culture, where individuals and communities necessarily have learnt to explode, edit, discard and reassemble societal norms and expectations to create their own forms of identities, communities and aesthetics. In this sense, collage can be seen as a form of resistance to dominant cultural narratives and a way to create new possibilities and futures. June Lam’s use of collage in his work for the FACET programme continues this tradition.

ABOUT JUNE:
June Lam (b. 1990) is a community organiser and multidisciplinary artist of Chinese and Vietnamese ancestry, working across performance, dance, sculpture and collage. Trained in MA Sculpture at The Slade, his work centres queer desirability politics, fag effeminacy, and embodied experiences of intergenerational trauma. His performances involve leading meditations, connecting with ancestral parts, and movement inspired by deity practice. Creating intentional community spaces is intrinsic to June’s artistic practice. He co-founded grassroots trans healthcare fund We Exist and founded queer East and South East Asian arts platform GGI끼. These both provide necessary direct action to centre marginalised communities and address the classism and inaccessibility of traditional arts spaces by working outside of them.

This includes bringing the ethos of community organising into nightlife. GG 끼 emerged from a need for nightlife spaces safe from anti-Asian hate and transphobia and offers relief from the fetishising gaze. GGI끼 showcases radical live performance, visual arts & DJs with a hard industrial sound, defying stereotypes around ESEA passivity. For We Exist, June produced group exhibition ‘In Dedication’ at The Koppel Project, featuring 28 trans artists from the UK and beyond. He is on the advisory board and programming team for This Bright Land at Somerset House and was a judge for Guildhall Futures Fund 2022. June has performed and been exhibited at Site Gallery, Volksbuhne, Performing Borders, Ambika P3, Tate Modern, Ford Foundation, The Koppel Project, and others. June has been featured in E-Flux, Resident Advisor, Gal-Dem, Gay Times, GQ, Hunger, Dazed, Vogue UK, Vogue US, I-D, Tissue, Something Curated and AQNB; and created cover art for the fifth edition of Somesuch Stories, 2021.

FACET acknowledges the potential of both art and queerness to shift societal norms, spark dialogue and imagine new worlds.

FACET opened with VSSL lead artist and curator Benjamin Sebastian exhibiting their work alongside the multifaceted artist Alicia Radage. FACET initiates a platform for invited artists to centre their individual perspectives while fostering a greater understanding of expanded queer experiences.

Between August 2023 and January 2024, four FACET exhibitions will be held at VSSL featuring June Lam, Rocío Boliver, and Marcin Gawin, as well as a group exhibition curated by Benjamin Sebastian this October.

June Lam‘s exhibition runs from August 10-27.  October’s group exhibition explores mediums such as performance, sculpture, video, photography, and installation. Artists showcase the interconnectedness of the queer artistic landscape. This runs from October 5-22 with an event date to be confirmed.

In November renowned Mexican artist Rocío Boliver presents a powerful photographic series defying society’s beauty standards and empowering ageing women to embrace their sexuality unapologetically. Running from November 9 until 26, VSSL will host a special event on Friday November 10.  In January 2024, the FACET programme culminates with a not-to-be-missed exhibition in  January from emerging artist Marcin Gawin – exploring the potential for transformation in the human body, investigating its practical and speculative functions.

For more information on the FACET programme and its participating artists, please visit https://vssl-studio.org/FACET

Hayward Gallery’s latest exhibition, Dear Earth brings together the work of 15 artists exploring climate change. The exhibition is an immersive exploration of our planet’s delicate ecosystems and its pressing environmental challenges.

The works on show are varied and intriguing – full size tree trunks fallen in the gallery, pyramids of green leaves, large projections reflected on water tanks. The works on display act as a means of both reflection and activism, often shining a light on the urgent issues facing our planet. Each piece serves as a stark reminder of both the fragility and resilience of our ecosystem.

Among the standout works are Ackroyd & Harvey’s portraits – a series of monochrome grass seed paintings grown from a projected photographic negative. The artists explain “where the light falls, the grass blades produce chlorophyll, the green pigment. Where there’s less light, they produce less green. Where there’s no light, they grow but are yellow”. Here, the artists explore the possibility of reclaiming ‘the commons’ – vital resources we all need and must share to sustain life on Earth: soil, water, air. Each portrait celebrates a different London activist including Paul Powlesland, a nature rights activist and barrister, Destiny Boka-Batesa, one of the founders of the clean air campaign Choked Up and Helene Schulze of London Freedom Seed Bank, which is building an urban seed commons and distributing London-grown seed for free. This powerful work is uplifting and inspiring, it showcases activists making real and important changes, in a delicate and thoughtful way.

Dear Earth at Hayward Gallery is a thought-provoking exhibition exploring the ever developing climate crisis and our relationship with it. Some accompanying information about Hayward’s own environmental policies, or even simply the environmental impact of the exhibition, would have really improved its impact. That said, the works are considered and diverse, making for an intriguing showcase.

Image : Installation view of Ackroyd & Harvey, Dear Earth: Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis (21 Jun –⁠ 3 Sep 2023). Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy the Hayward Gallery.

More information about the exhibition and tickets is available here.

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: Cuckoo – Equal parts harrowing and hilarious (abundantart.net)

Cuckoo is a bold exploration of mental wellbeing, familial dynamics and self-discovery. We follow Megyn, played by Emma Harrison in her professional debut, as she navigates coming of age in an increasingly digital and disconnected world. Themes of generational trauma, human connection and belonging run throughout. Above all, Cuckoo invites the audience to confront uncomfortable truths and challenges the stigmas associated with mental health.

The stage design is simple and understated, with the entire story contained in one space, the matriarchs living room. A dining table and 4 chairs sit in the centre, double doors open to show us a glimpse of patio garden and the gentle hum of a kettle boiling reverberates through the kitchen service hatch. The familiar design captures domestic life flawlessly.

Michael Wynne’s script perfectly captures casual familial conversation, often making the audience erupt with laughter or squirm with empathy. Wynne skillfully explores ideas of identity and the societal constructs that shape us, inviting the audience to confront their own preconceived notions and biases.

The themes of the story are mirrored further in Cuckoo’s sound and lighting design. At different points dramatic blackouts indicate the passing of time, rain pouring down mimics the somber mood and pop songs playing on the radio accompany characters with wide smiles. These visual elements work in harmony to create a world that is both captivating and unsettling.

Ultimately, Cuckoo challenges it’s audience to engage in a dialogue about what mental health means in our changing world. It is uncomfortable and unnerving, but leaves you with the hope that there is potential for healing. It is a testament to the power of theatre as a vehicle for social commentary and personal introspection.

Cuckoo ( in partnership with Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse) is showing at Royal Court Theatre until 19th August 2023. Tickets and further information is available here.

Featured Image by Manuel Harlan

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: The RHS Botanical Art & Photography Show 2023 ‘truly blossoms at Saatchi Gallery’ 16 June – 9 July – Abundant Art

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.