Galleries - December 2011

falls, pulsating under the stars with gentle rhythms of light. Munro is now also doing a one-day in- stallation event, on 21st Decem- ber, ‘Star Turn’. In aid of the Help for Heroes rehabilitation centres for wounded soldiers, a team of riders, using pedal power, will make a Dawn to Dusk ride power- ing an extraordinary contraption that will spin hundreds of twinkl- ing tea-lights through the air. It will work, we are assured, the tea- lights being encased in boro- silicate sleeves while the pedallers themselves will be housed in a geodesic dome. Lights worth going a long way to see – which makes a change. All Things Polish I can’t say I have ever come across anything quite like the show currently at the Unit 24 Gallery, where 6 young Polish painters, operating under the name ‘Format VI Collective’ are producing a single, huge canvas some 24 metres square. Pre- viously shown at the Posk Gall- ery, Hammersmith in October, the piece is particularly remarkable in that each artist practises in a very different style, their substantial canvases – some 2m x 2m square – painted without knowledge of what the others had produced. The result is a real success, the divergent abstract and figurative styles coming together with un- expected power and grace. While on the subject of things Polish, I must point you in the direction of two other galleries, Studio Sienko in Southwark and TZB Southbourne Gallery in Bournemouth . Olga Sienko runs a lively and very full gallery progra- mme, her main December shows including one curated by Olga Demidenko of Danusha Fine Arts featuring three related Ukrainian painters working on ballet themes. This is followed (from 15th) by ‘Animé’, an exhibition of work by Olga Sienko and artist friends, with World Music from Abraham Akhi and Sufi poetry to enrich the mix still further. Theresa Zwol- inska-Brzeski at TZB, also an architect and artist, meanwhile shows a wide cross-section of British artists and photographers as well as her own work. Private Delights For every gallery open on a con- tinuous basis, there are perhaps as many private dealers, either working from home or an office and usually only reachable by appointment. As a dealer this has its obvious advantages, the only downside maybe the question of reaching new audiences. In Lon- don this is overcome these days by collective events like the ‘Masterpiece’ events for drawing and painting, but in smaller centres such as Edinburgh or Glasgow this isn’t feasible and, like Graham Harris of the ANTENNAE 8. GALLERIES DECEMBER 11 Going Boldly . . . Here’s an interesting thing, a gall- ery moving out of the West End into the City! Well-established in that little hub around Marylebone High Street, the Enid Lawson Gallery has decided to move to the Fleet Street area, a part of London much better known for its legal and financial businesses than for its art. Indeed I am not aware of there ever having been a serious art gallery like hers in the district before, so it represents a really bold move. Let’s hope the lawyers and money-men have the wit to respond – it could well be the start of an interesting trend . . . Christmas Lights For anyone jaded by the pre- dictable, commercialised banality of most urban Christmas Lights displays, take a trip to Bath this month where lighting artist Bruce Munro has just opened a stun- ning new installation on the front and back lawns of the Holburne Museum. Entitled ‘Field of Light’, it consists of 2,500 acrylic stems topped by frosted spheres, thr- eaded with fibre optic cable. Inspired originally by his student travels in the Australian Red Desert, with its strangely artificial roadside campsites and also by the way the desert bursts into bloom after rain, this alien constr- uction in the midst of Nature also mimics the same process, flow- ering into life only as darkness alien construction in the midst of Nature