Galleries - February 2013

(1-3 March) in Olympia’s Grand Hall. From the same team that organise the important ArtHK, the 120 participating galleries represent an impressive 30 count- ries from Brazil to China, Seoul to Johannesburg. Lent to Whitsun With a few notable exceptions – John Piper, Graham Sutherland, Coventry, Chichester and West- minster Cathedrals above all –the overall quality of much 20th C. religious art in this country has not always been of the highest. That’s also certainly what Dr John Morel Gibbs, a Methodist layman thou- ght when, 50 years ago, he launched the Methodist Church Collection of Modern Christian Art. Enlisting the help of the Rev Doug- las Wollen as Curator, regular exhibitions by important contem- porary artists were organised and a collection steadily formed –an early touring show from 1963-65 was seen by over 100,000 people. It is still very much an ongoing enterprise with some 50 works now in a collection containing some significant pieces by major names: William Roberts, Elisabeth Frink, F.N. Souza and David Jones among them. In a nicely timed whole raison d’etre of the show. Talk about feed-back loops . . . All Moving . . . If there are any obvious signs you may be suffering from Fairs- fatigue (a craving for bare rooms, etc) the Kinetica Art Fair 2013 (28 February to 1 March) might be just the one you need! Founded in 2009 and housed in the curiously named Ambika P3 space, the vast and extraordinary Brutalist base- ment hall that once formed the University of Westminster’s Sch- ool of Engineering close to Baker Street Station, this is a fair quite unlike any other I can think of. Full- size galloping horses formed out of light, kinetic jewellery install- ations, interractive wearables, programmable architecture, giant wave sculptures, you name it, it’s all here –as long as it moves – and from all over the world. 400 works from 45 or more artists plus a special show of 8 pioneering international artists and a new feature of 10 younger members exhibiting here for the first time, are promised by the organisers. Having been to the fair in previous years, this is probably something of an understatement. It’s a good chance also to get in on collecting an art form that is now beginning to attract some serious collectors –Damien Hirst among them. Meanwhile yet another remin- der of London’s increasingly central position in the global art market with the launch of Art13 ANTENNAE 8. GALLERIES FEBRUARY 13 Remembering Landscape Launched nine months or so ago, the Mall Galleries’ exhibition gall- ery, the Threadneedle Space, is beginning to prove a versatile new addition to the Central London art scene, the latest show there, ‘Memory & Imagination: Dutch Italianate & Contemporary Land- scapes’, representing a number of intriguing firsts. Among which is the fact that it represents the in- stitution’s first collaboration with a major London public collection, Dulwich Picture Gallery , who are lending what is generally agreed to be the finest group of such work in the UK. There’s also, perhaps most interesting of all, the real- ization that they have never before been shown alongside works from the contemporary English land- scape tradition that, unquestion- ably, through Turner and Constable above all, they have helped to shape so significantly. For it is the inclusion of 5 practis- ing younger artists, working in oil, video and photography and for whom the landscape is a central element of their work, that gives this show its dynamic edge and poetic resonance. Thus one of the major masterpieces, Cuyp’s A Road near a River, for example, with its enveloping and elegiac evening glow is, to my mind, now lent a whole layer of further feeling by its juxtaposition with a work like Martin Greenland’s sombre and mysterious sunset landscape Even Over Eden. It’s a juxta- position that, alone, justifies the From left: K urt Schwitters ‘Untitled’ at Bernard Jacobson Aelbert Cuyp ‘A Road Near a River’ 1660 and Martin Greenland ‘Even Over Eden’ 2004-11 both at Mall Galleries Qassim Alsaedy ‘Crucifixion with Nails’ at Monnow Valley A adlab ‘Fallen Star’ 2012 at Kinetica Art Fair