Show reviews

Safe as Milk Arusha Gallery, 19th - 21st July 2021

After a successful Edinburgh edition, Arusha Gallery presents Safe as Milk London, an in person show of work by artists commenting on the habitual relationship with hyper capitalism and food culture. The exhibition does well to open a conversation about and highlight the carnivalesque and momentous nature of food today, which has become a complex daily challenge.

Food consumption, already conditioned in us by upbringing, schooling, inherited and experienced traumas, religious rites and moral inclinations, is increasingly present in the visual realm via Instagram and other social media platforms. Visual recipes and photographs of food from film, literature, advertising, gourmet magazines, news reports and public health literature seen often through the glossy lights of our screens become pseudo-pornographic thirst traps for our senses which we further intellectualise to set rules of conduct for our psyche and body.

Tensions occur within our relationship with food, as we negotiate the messages around food perpetuated in our current age. Restrictive eating exists in a direct clash with living in a late capitalistic, hyper-consumerist society, constantly being encouraged to over-indulge, over-buy and gorge. A duality is born, creating unparalleled difficulties surrounding food and health. This dichotomy is creating a completely unmanageable attitude towards food and mindful consumption, which is infinitely interesting to dissect within art as Food reveals itself as a taboo, being both pleasurable and shameful at once.

@badartpresents @arushagallery

Georgia Stephenson Patio Project (June — September 2020) Screening Sculptures (June — September 2021)

Sculpture, best suited to the privilege of physical proximity, has suffered tremendously at the hands of our now year-long shift to digital spectatorship. Lockdown saw the audience for three-dimensional practices dangerously dwindle, as viewing art became tied to the screen and Instagram gave rise to the ultimate 2D echo-chamber.

Independent curator Georgia Stephenson recognized early in the pandemic the need to represent and support three-dimensional practices, particularly those of emerging artists. She launched the Patio Project in June 2020 to give a much needed lifeline to sculpture proposals jettisoned by degree show closures. In the back garden of her South East London flat, Georgia created a modest but innovative sanctuary for new sculpture, offering a stage for three-dimensional works to quietly shine on a bespoke “patio plinth.” The project was supported by the Freelands Foundation Emergency Fund and eight selected artists from a UK-wide open call were given a small grant and technical help to realize their proposal. Each piece was installed for a week at the curator’s home, open to bookable appointments. In the end, the project showcased some exceptional and diverse work from across the country, with highlights including a decorative exploration of Chinoiserie furniture by Hannah Lim (Edinburgh College of Art), a mystical faux wishing-well by Eleanor Mclean (UCA Farnham) and a frustrated gothic steel flower vase by Jordi Clotet (Chelsea College of Art).

This June Georgia returned to present Screening Sculptures, a similarly poised project, this time teaming up with Ladies Drawing Club — a small independent project based in St-Petersburg, Russia. An open call for female-identifying artists across the UK brought together a fantastic mix of emerging artists each finding new ways to translate their sculpture practices to the digital realm. The landscape-driven motifs of Fanny Gicquel and Emily Stapleton Jefferies particularly stand out, both sublimating a yearning for the outside into a palpable sense of unknown exteriority. The project is now live on the Ladies Drawing Club website.

www.ladiesdrawingclub.com www.stephensongeorgia.com @thebyregallery

Don’t be funny by Nettle Grellier By and bye by Nettle Grellier

Fanny Gicquel — The immensity with you (2020) for Screening Sculptures, online; curated by Georgia Stephenson with Ladies Drawing Club

Allan Gardner Future Of Nothing

Genuine arts criticism is seldom found cheek by jowl with glossy adverts for Issey Miyake and Yves Saint Lauren (writes Charlie Mills). As more and more art magazines are bought up and turned into counter top PR machines for over-priced global brands, one’s safest bet to find true criticism is in hunting out the lo-fi inkjet prints of DIY publishing houses and artist fanzines.

With this in mind, Allan Gardner’s Future of Nothing series is the perfect case in point. Gardner began the project with the intent to produce a monthly piece of original arts criticism in zine form for all of 2021. Kicking off in January with “Sex and Guilt and John Duncan,” Gardner meticulously unpacks Duncan’s mid-70s LA performances. Brutally existential and confrontational, they ranged from firing blank-loaded pistols at unwitting participants to sexually stimulating unsuspecting passengers on a city bus with a liquid poured into the ventilation system (aiming to mimic the smell of vaginal secretions during orgasm). Gardner’s short essay and interview with Duncan are telling of his consistent writing style: always inquisitive, accessible and compelling.

Gardner takes no shortcuts through established rhetorics and never relies on the humdrum platitudes of generic arts criticism. He has since covered subjects including the body-horror classic, VIDEODROME (1983); the semiotics of authenticity in the late rapper Lil Peep; Gregg Araki's 1995 film, The Doom Generation; and a critical analysis of Mark Fisher’s now-infamous term, “The Slow Cancellation of the Future”. Each of these editions come fitted with a high-res centrefold print for the minimal fee of £6.66, available only online through his Big Cartel, FUTURE OF NOTHING. Be quick though, Gardner’s project is already in high demand and the small-run prints sell out fast. Sign up and set your notifications to loud… www.allangardner.co.uk @allangardnerr

Salvador Dali 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship

50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship may be the most in-depth, dogmatic, generous and amusing treatise to have been written on painting (writes Emma Rose Kennedy). The gorgeous volume is riddled with exquisite Dalí drawings, handwritten notes, charts and lists meant to guide the aspiring painter towards the riches of beauty and success.

Dali begins by walking us through the history of painting and his resolute opinions on the Old Masters and Modern Art. He then ventures to numerically rank himself and his contemporaries against DaVinci, Velasquez and Vermeer in terms of color, craftsmanship, originality and genius in painting.

The rest of the book is dedicated to unraveling each of his 50 secrets, ranging from bizarre and specific, such as “The secret of the periods of carnal abstinence and indulgence to be observed by the painter” and “The Secret of the form of an olive by virtue of which the painter may be guided in choosing the woman he must marry,” to actually quite useful, including “The secret of transferring the most immaculate tracings by means of oil paint” and “The secret of the Mars colors.”

While some of his advice can be chalked up to the sheer showmanship of Dalí, much of it shares with us the fruits of a life spent obsessed with craftsmanship and dedicated to learning the forgotten secrets of the Old Masters. Painters will be delighted with his informative lists of colors and brushes, explaining their properties and best uses, as well as his recipes for homemade inventions to help with blending, measuring, and composing, while the layman may be intrigued to find out “the secret of the reason why a great draughtsman should draw while completely naked.” 50 Secrets of Magic Craftsmanship is not to be missed, offering us the perfect blend of beautiful Dalinian ridiculousness and priceless pearls of practical painting wisdom.

Allan Gardner — Power and Morality and Videodrome (2021)