When this heatwave eventually subsides, it will be almost time for the new autumn/winter season of art exhibitions to start unfolding across these parched Isles. Without further a do, here are our Top 10 recommendations for artists we think you should check-out. We are delighted to be the distributor of the official catalogues for most of these shows. So, here they are listed geographically, from the South to the North…
Katie Paterson and J.M.W. Turner (Turner Contemporary, Margate, 26 January – 6 May 2019). With the arrival of the New Year, we are invited along to join a fantastic journey into the sublime. As well as this being Paterson’s first major survey show in the UK, her work is also presented ‘in dialogue’ with the esteemed company of iconic, British romantic landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner. What a treat! Katie Paterson’s major monograph was one of our 2017 highlights and her forthcoming, Book of Ideas promises to be a beautiful, poetic companion to this.
Francis Upritchard: Wetwang Slack (Barbican Centre, London, 27 September 2018 – 6 January 2019). After representing New Zealand at Venice Biennale in 2009, Upritchard has continued to tickle our curiosity with her brightly coloured and decorative sculptural figures. Her new Curve gallery commission at the Barbican will take her vision to the next level as she transforms the cavernous space with installational vigour. The exhibition will be accompanied by this book published in the Curve commissions series.
Atelier E.B: Passer-by (Serpentine Sackler Gallery, London, October 2018 – January 2019). Scottish duo, artist Lucy McKenzie and designer Beca Lipscombe (also known as Atelier E.B.) bring their fabulous hybrid of art, fashion and social history to the esteemed Serpentine Gallery in London’s Kensington Gardens. Their lovely book, The Inventors of Tradition II is the perfect introduction to their collaborative work.
Anni Albers (TATE Modern, London, 11 October 2018 – 27 January 2019). A long awaited exhibition and the first large show of her work in the UK comes to TATE Modern this October. Featuring more than 350 objects, from small scale weavings to large wall hangings, prints and drawings, they have it all. We have this superb Albers DVD, published by our friends Walther Koening — Josef & Anni Albers Art is Everywhere DVD: A Film by Sedat Pakay.
Yinka Shonibare MBE curates, Criminal Ornamentation (Attenborough Arts, Leicester, 21 September – 16 December 2018). Sir David Attenborough officially opened the new £1.5 million gallery extension at the University of Leicester in January 2016. Since then it has attracted significant national attention. With his signature use of West African textile traditions, British-Nigerian artist Yinka Shonibare MBE continues to play with concepts of cultural appropriation and post-colonial art histories. Criminal Ornamentation is the artist’s special curation of artworks from the Arts Council Collection. Featuring his own work alongside those by Susan Derges, Alexander McQueen, Bridget Riley, and Bedwyr Williams among others, this show will bring even more dazzle to Leicester’s already vibrant multi-cultural landscape.
Silver and Glass: Cornelia Parker and Photography (East Gallery, Norwich, 10 September – 13 October 2018). The medium of photography plays a crucial role in the work of celebrated Turner Prize-nominated conceptual artist, Cornelia Parker. Silver and Glass is an Arts Council UK touring exhibition which explores Parker’s relationship with photography through over 50 artworks from across her career. One of our favourite books in recent years is her much anticipated monograph published by the splendid Whitworth Art Gallery in our home city of Manchester. It remains, arguably, the most comprehensive survey of Parker’s artwork.
John Walter: CAPSID (HOME, Manchester, 10 November 2018 – 6 January 2019). Who knew that viruses could be so much fun?! Well, have no doubt that Dr. John Walter needs to do little to convince us of this with his vibrant, multi-coloured, Costumes and Cytoplasm Paintings (among other artworks). From performance to painting, and from printmaking to sculpture, Walter’s work unites art with scientific research to deftly addresses a crisis of representation surrounding viruses such as HIV. CAPSID is the big autumn show here at HOME where we live. Come over and check it out, and don’t forget to buy the gorgeous book too!
Martin Parr: Return to Manchester (Manchester Art Gallery, 16 November 2018 – 22 April 2019). Despite it not be long since he opened his own new gallery/foundation ‘down South’ in Bristol, it seems that Parr is still drawn to the spirit of Northern England, and especially to that of the city of Manchester: “I remember so well arriving into Manchester in 1970, having travelled from the safety of suburban Surrey. It was exciting and felt very real”. One of the most influential social documentary photographers of his generation, Martin Parr studied photography at Manchester Polytechnic from 1970 to 1972. Well, he’s back again this year with a rather special visual celebration of the great city. Parr always makes nice books and so we’re particularly looking forward to this one for his show.
Sean Scully: Inside Out (Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, 29 September 2018 – 6 January 2019). Major art museums around the world collect the work of this Dublin-born master of abstraction. Renowned for his large-scale ‘horizon’ format paintings, he’s perhaps less well-known for his sculpture. However it is actually his sculptural works that are celebrated in this huge display at YSP – the biggest presentation of his work in this medium to-date. The catalogue for his recent exhibition, Standing on the Edge of the World at Hong Kong Arts Centre comes highly recommended as a good introduction to the Irishman’s art.
Rasheed Araeen (BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead, 19 October 2018 – 27 January 2019). A pioneer of minimalism in Britain (during the 1960s), this important Pakistan-born artist is also the Founder and Editor of renowned academic global art journal, Third Text. His grand retrospective exhibition at BALTIC contains over 500 artworks from 1953 to 2017. The catalogue itself is quite simply fabulous and certainly does justice to Araeen’s career spanning an extraordinary seven decades.
Image caption: detail of, Allostery Screenprint (2017) by John Walter (from the book, CAPSID).