GIULIO PAOLINI – TO BE OR NOT TO BE

Italian artist Giulio Paolini immerses us in elegant installations of canvases, windows, fragments of statuary and checkerboards – sometimes presented by 18th century footmen. Believing that every work of art embodies earlier traditions, Paolini pays tribute to artists such as Chardin, Lotto and Velazquez. His own face, hands and eyes reappear throughout the show, as he asks Hamlet’s question of the artist.
From To Be or Not to Be (1994–95) where canvases radiate across the floor into infinity to the existential drama of The Author Who Thought He Existed… (2013), Paolini takes us on an exhilarating journey through five decades of work exploring perception and creativity.

Exhibition runs through to September 14th, 2014

Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High St
London
E1 7QX

www.whitechapelgallery.org

PETER LIVERSIDGE – C-O-N-T-I-N-U-A-T-I-O-N

For the past 16 years, Liversidge’s work has begun with single or grouped typewritten proposals; the proposed works taking form across a seemingly limitless variety of media including performance, installation, sculpture, painting, photography, and actions. Typed on an old manual typewriter and complete with typographical errors, the proposals describe ideas from the practical to the purely hypothetical. Liversidge creates the proposals within a self-imposed timeline related to a forthcoming exhibition or project, actively engaging with the particular space, location, and community. Each exhibition then includes the manifestation of some of the ideas proposed as well as the framed original proposals. The first object produced in any series is a book collating the entire set of proposals.

For his exhibition at i8, Liversidge has written 24 proposals for works and performative actions. They are all published in the book, Proposals for Reykjavík. Some of the proposed works realised in the exhibition are: an outdoor bulb sign above the gallery entrance reading: BEFORE/AFTER; boats made from flotsam and jetsam found on local beaches; and a small effigy, cast, in marble dust and jesmonite, from assembled chalk pieces gathered from the White Cliffs of Dover. Liversidge has also proposed and created a postal piece consisting of a group of wooden objects (handles, brushes, tools etc.) sent via Royal mail from London, with no packaging and stamps fixed directly on each object. The more hypothetical of the proposals include the artist-curated Reykjavik music festival complete with a three-day program, and one proposal stating, “I propose to apply for every job advertised in Reykjavik in June, July, and August 2014.”

Exhibition runs through to August 2nd, 2014

i8 Gallery
Tryggvagata 16
Reykjavik
Iceland

i8.is

SEAN SCULLY – KIND OF RED

Since the 1970s, Sean Scully has gained international prominence as one of the most admired and significant contemporary abstract painters working today. Monumental in scale, the works featured in this exhibition demonstrate a mature confidence and unwavering drive for experimentation. Indeed the focal point of the show, Kind of Red, 2013, a powerful five-panel installation on aluminium, is unlike any work previously made by the artist.

Music, particularly jazz, has always played an inspirational part in Scully’s practice and Kind of Red references the seminal 1959 Miles Davis album Kind of Blue, which Scully absorbed while making these paintings in his German studio. Davis’ album was pioneering for its exploration of the possibilities of modal jazz, using musical modes while keeping chordal movement to the minimum and allowing the music to billow and stretch more freely, promoting a feeling of space and calm. Similarly, by repeating the motif of twinned blocks of reds, greys and blacks in differing orientations across five separate panels, Scully establishes an expansive, pulsating rhythm. As Richard Williams observes, “…just as Davis worked on the modes that were to replace conventional harmonic structures throughout most of Kind of Blue, so Scully devised the format and the ground…on which the Kind of Red paintings were to be made. The bare metal of the working surface remains exposed beyond the edges of the painted area; in two of the pieces, drips run down towards the bottom edge”.

Opposite – Kind of Red, 2013

Exhibition runs through to July 26th, 2014

Timothy Taylor Gallery
15 Carlos Place
London
W1K 2EX

timothytaylorgallery.com