From frocks to rocks: six budget-friendly exhibitions open now
Shana Moulton, Personal Steam Interface, 2019, exhibition view Zabludowicz Collection, London. Courtesy the artist & Zabludowicz Collection. Credit: Tim Bowditch.
Intimidating to navigate and often impossible to select, scouting out exhibitions in London can seem a little overwhelming. Fear no longer. Laura Toms gives a rundown of the best student-friendly exhibitions open in term one.
ART EXHIBITIONS
Zabludowicz Collection Annual Commission: Shana Moulton at the Zabludowicz Collection (see picture above)
This year’s Zubludowicz commission sees American artist Shana Moulton given her first UK solo show – and it does not disappoint! Through the medium of video, sculpture and performance we are transported into the fantastical and often bizarre world of Moulton’s alter ego: Cynthia. From her desire to become the next great environmental activist to her entrapment up a six-metre pink tower, Cynthia takes us out of the mundane and lands us in a world nothing like our own. Concerned with the relationship between female spirituality and consumerism, ecological protest and the personal wellness industry, this is an experience you do not want to miss!
Cost: Free Entry
Run time: 12th September - 15th December 2019
Location: 176 Prince of Wales Road, London, NW5 3PT
Opening times: Thursday - Sunday, 12 - 6pm
Mona Hatoum, Harmony Hammond and Dora Maurer at White Cube Bermondsey
Harmony Hammond Chenille 4 2016-17, courtesy the artist & White Cube Bermondsey.
Dora Maurer Quod Libet 47 19982000, courtesy the artist & White Cube Bermondsey.
This all-female line up exhibits an impressive span of artistic background. Hatoum’s first show since her 2016 display at the Tate Modern, reveals her superhuman ability to transform industrial building material into seemingly weightless forms. Hammond’s use of muted colours and unconventional materials creates alluring textured surfaces so good that you will want to touch (but please don’t). Last but never least is Maurer’s work. Coinciding with her larger display currently at the Tate Modern, White Cube presents her last 30 years of painting projects. Her ‘Overlappings’, ‘Quod Libet’ and ‘IXEK’ series’ highlights Maurer’s interest in rule-based composition and provides a pop of colour to the White Cube’s white walls.
Mona Hatoum Remains to be Seen 2019, courtesy the artist & White Cube Bermondsey.
Expect Form. Expect Texture. Expect a lot of art.
Cost: Free Entry
Run Time: 12th September - 3rd November 2019
Location: 144-152 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3TQ
Opening Times: Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 6pm / Sunday 12 - 6pm
FASHION EXHIBITIONS
Zandra Rhodes: 50 Years of Fabulous at the Fashion and Textile Museum
Dame Zandra Rhodes in her penthouse suite studio 20 March 2012, Courtesy of the photographer.
This retrospective explores the genius of Zandra Rhodes, an icon of the British fashion scene. With the establishment of her own fashion house in 1969, Rhodes was part of the generation of British designers that helped place London at the heart of the international fashion stage. The 50 looks and 30 original textiles exhibited at the Fashion and Textile Museum follow Rhodes’s development from her pop-art roots to the world of celebrities (she has designed for both Princess Diana and Freddie Mercury). This exhibit provides a rare and exciting chance to see legendary British design up close.
Cost: £7 for Students OR £4.95 with an Art Pass
Run Time: 27th September - 26th January 2020
Location: 83 Bermondsey Street, London, SE1 3XF
Opening Times: Tuesday - Saturday 11AM - 6pm / Thursday 11AM - 8pm / Sunday 11AM - 5pm
An Enquiring Mind: Manolo Blahnik at the Wallace Collection
An Enquiring Mind - Manolo Blahnik at the Wallace Collection. Image © The Wallace Collection.
Co-curated by the king of shoemaking himself, Manolo Blahnik, ‘An Enquiring Mind’ allows an intimate exploration of his inspirations and creative processes. Set within the Wallace’s stunning collection of 18th century paintings, this exhibit gives an interesting comment on artistic inspiration. Blahnik talks frequently about the inspiration he takes from the Wallace Collection and so, for the first time, you can see both the inspiration and the product in the same space. Whether it be the shoes designed for Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette placed next to Fragonard’s The Swing or Bahnik’s exploration of Englishness set behind the portraits of Reynolds and Gainsborough, this exhibition establishes a unique dialogue, as surmised by the co-curator Dr Xavier Bray, “between the old and the new, the art and the craft, the real and the fantasy”.
Cost: Free Entry
Run Time: 10th June - 27th October 2019
Location: Hertford House, Manchester Square, London, W1U 3BN
Opening Times: Monday - Sunday 10AM - 5pm
ILLUSTRATION EXHIBITIONS
Annos Journey: The World of Anno Mitsumasa at Japan House
Courtesy of Anno Art Museum. Credit: Anno Mitsumasa.
In the UK’s first dedicated exhibition to the adored Japanese artist Anno Mitsumasa, you too will fall for his charming, warm and humorous illustrations. Much like his famed journey books, this exhibition leads us through the landscape and culture of Mitsumasa’s life. Exhibiting both his picture books and Kirigami papercuts, we understand why his work has been central to Japanese generations since the 1960s. His rural upbringing, conscription into the Japanese army and explorations with the West have all informed and shaped Mitsumasa’s work – and so in this exhibition, we follow not only the journey of the artist but also the journey of Japan.
Cost: Free Entry
Run Time: 22nd August - 27th October 2019
Location: 101-111 Kensington High Street, London, W8 5SA
Opening Hours: Monday - Saturday 10AM - 8pm / Sunday 12 - 6pm
Designed in Cube: Cold War Graphics at the House of Illustration
Day of the Heroic Guerilla, 1968 © Helena Serrano, OSPAAAL, The Mike Stanfield Collection.
The revolution has come to Kings Cross. Until next year, the House of Illustration is exhibiting over 100 posters and 70 magazines produced between 1965-1992 in the first major exhibit of graphic design from the Cuban Golden Age. Delving deep into the relationship between revolution and illustration, many of the posters come from OSPAAAL (Castro’s Organisation of Solidarity of the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America) as well as editorial design from the Tricontinental magazine. This is a wonderful look at history through the lens of design and will be sure to make you feel the revolutionary zeal.