Galleries - May 2012

shops and restaurants in Gabriel’s Wharf. The three galleries to catch here are Bicha, Southbank Printmakers and Skylark Gall- eries ; the Bicha, run by Portu- guese-born Antonio Capelao and Englishman John Bryson, oper- ates a nicely idiosyncratic prog- ramme ofthoughtful and pro- vocative contemporary-minded shows – that being given to Colin McCallum (from 25 May), an abstract painter who takes as his subject matter “the subliminal and visual overload ofour consumer society,” being a particularly good example – eye-opening and beau- tiful at the same time. Close by, meanwhile, South- bank Printmakers, a co-operative of37 outstanding contemporary British printmakers, puts on a completely new re-hang ofthe group’s work every nine weeks – every print medium you can think ofhere. Skylark, too, is an artist- run venture (they have a second space in the nearby Oxo Tower gallery complex), but with acti- vities spread across everything from painting and sculpture to photography and ceramics. They also offer a regularly changing programme that usually features a different member’s work among the collective whole – a very professional set up. Heading further downstream again, and almost next door to Tate Modern – though they were there first – we come to one of my favourite spaces along the river, the Bankside Gallery. The ‘home’ venue ofthe Royal Watercolour Society and the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers (RE), it also runs a constantly changing pro- gramme ofloan and other ex- hibitions. This May though it is the latter group, the RE’s, annual show, and a sparky event it is these days, from a society that has really reinvented itselfover the last two decades. At this point though we have to make something ofa major leap, geographically, right down Jam- aica Road (by bus?) to the unlikely setting ofSouthwark Park where the CGP London runs two spaces – one, the Café Gallery, is right in the middle ofthe park, the other, Dilston Grove, down in its south- western corner. The first gallery is host to the stunning paintings of storms at sea by St Ives’ artist Sax Impey that we reviewed on these pages last September; the second, befitting its designated role as a “raw space for site specific, installation and experi- mental art” presents a real coup, showing yBA Matt Collishaw’s monumental manipulated video reinterpretation ofFrancis Bacon’s ‘Pope Innocent X’ in the caver- nous concrete spaces ofthis former mission church. Now, working our way back through ‘inland’ Bermondsey so to speak, don’t miss the theatre and excitement ofobserving glass-works actually being blown as Peter Layton and his team make their stylish pieces at the London Glassblowing Work- shop (plus an excellent display of continued on page 63 BANKSIDE 50. GALLERIES MAY 12 The East End may have attracted all the media’s attention for the new and vibrantly youthful gallery scene that has gravitated there over the last decade or so, but things south of the river have not been exactly stagnating recently with Tate Modern joining a re- vitalized Hayward Gallery in pro- viding crucial focuses for a now burgeoning art scene that stret- ches east all the way from Water- loo to the very far reaches of Bermondsey. And arguably with a much wider ranging offering of artistic choices too – everything from super-contemporary to mod- estly traditional and superbly craft- ed can be found here if you know where to look. Tate Modern has Damien Hirst currently wowing the blockbuster (and dead-meat) lovers of course though the Boetti and Kusama shows there are where perhaps a younger, and cooler (?) crowd are now heading. Or maybe to the clever double-bill of ironic joke- meister David Shrigley and thoughtfully questioning Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller at the Hayward – long-ish queues every time I’ve been past recently! Working the area in a more methodical, geographical way though, take in the excellent, artist-led Animal Art Fair , holding its first event in its new home in the Festival Hall as well as running a small sculpture park outside on the Riverside Embankment (17-20 May), before making the very short walk downstream from here to that lively enclave of galleries, C lyde Hopkins ‘After Gubbio’ at Advanced Graphics Anita Klein ‘The Secret’ at Fine Art Partnership