If HELL turns out to be anything like artist Pablo Bronstein’s vision it might be rather a fun place to hang out. Bronstein has produced a series of large watercolour paintings – Hell in its Heyday – now on show at Sir John Soane’s Museum. The show is filled with visions of a cityscape mingling contemporary technology and invention with the design aesthetics of the Baroque and decorative past. The results are beguiling and fun.
Theaster Gates: A Clay Sermon at the Whitechapel Gallery is a fascinating and thought-provoking exhibition which investigates clay in all its forms. Gates, from Chicago, has collected clay and ceramic objects of all ages, cultures and styles. The pieces on show are challenging, beautiful, uncomfortable and beguiling but always interesting.
Where’d ya get that hat! At The Unboxing Show by Peter Marigold at Kiosk N1C Coal Drops Yard, Kings Cross. One of the London Design Festival commissions which demonstrates how cardboard can be recycled and turned into new objects. The hat design is by Sebastian Bergne. Brilliant!
The Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy in London – what a great show, full of colour, cleverness and wit. A creative tonic for our time.
What can designers achieve with wood…? We find out at fascinating exhibition at the Design Museum in London where the experience of isolation during the pandemic has found form, entirely in wood. Wallpaper* and the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC)invited 20 of the world’s emerging design talents to come up with ideas and now you can see the results.
London Mithraeum Bloomberg SPACE is currently hosting an interpretation of an ancient Korean Temple situated above the Roman ruins of one of London’s most mysterious survivors from its ancient past. Artist Do Ho Suh brings his impression of a beguiling space in South Korea to London in a very abstract ‘compare and contrast’ of disparate histories.
Paula Rego can feel confident that she is ‘amongst the grown ups’ (something she always craved) with a spectacular retrospective at Tate Britain. Concerned that, as woman, her art won’t be taken as seriously as male artists, this show is a huge moment of recognition for one of the world’s leading contemporary artists and provides a fascinating perspective on her upbringing, the political state she escaped in her native Portugal and her dark, narrative-driven work which illuminates injustice towards women.
Epic Iran: an astounding exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum charts 5,000 years of Iranian art, design and culture. From objects created over 1000 years BC to examples of contemporary art, this is a visual and sensory feast which brings the evolution of Persia and Modern Iran into sharp focus.
Paper Places 