The Shock of the Now - Issue #135
Afternoon All,
I hope you’re all well, and welcome to Issue 135 of The Shock of the Now.
This week there are nine weekly Recommended Exhibitions, as well as two fresh Artist Opportunities.
I hope you enjoy Issue 135, and if so do forward it along! As always any questions, comments or feedback are welcome, so feel free to get in touch.
All the best, and speak soon, H x
Recommended Exhibitions Opening This Week:
Laila Tara H - ‘2002’ Solo Exhibition - Cooke Latham, Battersea (20th June - 19th July, opening Wednesday 19th June, 6:30-8:30pm)
Cooke Latham presents Laila Tara H’s solo exhibition ‘2002’.
“For her solo exhibition at Cooke Latham, Laila Tara H has created a haunting installation in which the viewer is invited to move through a ‘day’ as they navigate the walls of the gallery. Although never clearly delineated, domestic and public space is alluded to throughout the installation, while the works themselves occupy the ‘liminal space of that doorframe’ between the two.” - Cooke Latham
Nokukhanya Langa & Bruce Nauman - ‘Noku/Nauman’ Two-Person Exhibition - Saatchi Yates, St. James's (19th June - 16th August, opening Wednesday 19th June, 6-8pm)
Saatchi Yates presents ‘Noku/Nauman’, a two-person exhibition of work by Nokukhanya Langa and Bruce Nauman.
“The show draws on the connection between both Nokukhanya Langa and Bruce Nauman’s use of alternative methodologies creating a common language that uses absurdist text, puns, finding meaning in the banal. The exhibition will showcase a new body of work by Langa centred around her 'Black Paintings. These will be presented alongside a survey of Nauman's groundbreaking black and white films.” - Saatchi Yates
Josh Raz - ‘Mistaken Shores’ Solo Exhibition - Ronchini, Mayfair (20th June - 3rd September, opening Wednesday 19th June, 6-8pm)
Ronchini presents Josh Raz’s solo exhibition ‘Mistaken Shores’.
“Mistaken Shores features remarkable new paintings by the artist, with a continued, yet cultivated focus on the way landscapes can be defined, reinterpreted, and formed through human perception and translation.” - Ronchini
Teal Griffin & Charlie Harrison - ‘Oracle’ Two-Person Exhibition - Chemist Gallery, Deptford (21st June - 28th July, opening Thursday 20th June, 6pm)
Chemist Gallery presents ‘Oracle’, a new installation and the third chapter in an on-going collaborative series between artists Teal Griffin and Charlie Harrison.
“It follows in the steps of the perceptual dreamscape of Sandman Mattresses at Jupiter Woods in 2021, and the watery, social sensorium of Neptune’s Launderette at Art Lacuna in 2023. These shows playfully unpick the conventions of the art exhibition and film set, engaging viewers in the illusion of something familiar yet strange, unsettling and absurd. Griffin and Harrison’s immersive installations transform the everyday into myth, blurring the real and the constructed. Given closer inspection, the legitimacy of the features and objects in the space start to give way, leaving the visitor questioning their own perception.” - Chemist
Maren Karlson - ‘Staub (Störung)’ Solo Exhibition - Soft Opening, Bethnal Green (21st June - 3rd August, opening Thursday 20th June, 6-8pm)
Soft Opening presents Maren Karlson’s solo exhibition ‘Staub (Störung)’.
“In Staub (Störung), Karlson scrutinises what it would take to alienate an image from itself and extends this thought to understand whether we ourselves can similarly be alienated from ourselves and how this method could subvert systems of control. If the present signifies the real while the past signifies the unreal; then these works allow an observation of the real from the perspective of the unreal—or the present from the perspective of the past. By examining the detritus of the past in this way, Karlson searches for that which is repressed in the present and seeks to locate how to let this estrangement from reality to become a disordering force that could affect a structural logic from within.” - Soft Opening
Lisa Liljeström - ‘It was the touch, that’s all it was’ Solo Exhibition - Sarah Kravitz, Soho (22nd June - 6th July, opening Friday 21st June, 6-8pm)
Sarah Kravitz presents ‘It was the touch, that’s all it was’, the debut UK solo exhibition of Swedish painter Lisa Liljeström, curated by Elaine ML Tam.
“Invoking touch as a sensuous metaphor for immediacy, imprint and impression, the exhibition considers Liljeström’s use of airbrush techniques and absent touch in the context of collective memory. Selected and then rendered from the artist’s digital archive of source material – as varied as cropped movie stills and screengrabs of scarcely watched YouTube clips – the evanescent, monochromatic paintings behave as manifest phantasm. Each a figment of narrative, each a partial held in suspense, painting here becomes a re-mediated event that speaks of the image’s ambivalent role in anamnesis.” - Sarah Kravitz
Rita Silva & Lucía del Valle Ramírez - ‘Recipe for a pocket’ Two-Person Exhibition - Calcio, South Bermondsey (21st June - 21st July, opening Friday 21st June, 6-10pm)
Calcio presents Rita Silva & Lucía del Valle Ramírez’s two-person exhibition ‘Recipe for a pocket’, curated by Anna Ill.
“Using the drive as an incubator, mirroring a studio, Lucía del Valle Ramírez and Rita Silva have been developing new work over a period of 6 months, without the previous perception of each other’s identity and practice. This anonymity allowed them to generate new ways of communication based on language and image, enabling them to focus on process and on generating a common space. The correspondences have enlightened shared themes on each other’s practice: repetition, the daily landscape and auto-fiction, which were slowly uncovered through time. Their dynamic of answer to answer permitted them to direct each other, to guide and be guided.” - Calcio
Noorain Inam - ‘Go back to sleep, it's just the wind’ Solo Exhibition - Indigo+Madder, Bloomsbury (22nd June - 21st July, opening Saturday 22nd June, 5-8pm)
Indigo+Madder inaugurated their new Bloomsbury location with Noorain Inam’s solo exhibition ‘Go back to sleep, it's just the wind’. The exhibition will be accompanied by a conversation between Noorain and Belgium-based artist Bendt Eyckermans.
Nicholas Campbell - ‘Paintings for London’ Solo Exhibition - Final Hot Desert, Holloway (22nd June - 20th July, opening Saturday 22nd June, 6-8pm)
Final Hot Desert presents Nicholas Campbell’s debut London solo exhibition ‘Paintings for London’.
Artist Opportunities:
Open Call, Ethereality, Photobook Cafe. Deadline - Thursday 20th June.
A photographic one evening group exhibition and print/publication sales event curated by Alice Campos. In response to Lyle Rexer’s Antiquarian Avant Garde, Ethereality brings together artists using photographic forms of image making to transform the physical world, and the acquisition of power-the power to separate out spirits of metals.
Open Call, Shoes Shoes Shoes, outhouse Gallery. Deadline - Friday 21st June.
outhouse Gallery are collecting shoes! Do you have any shoes/ shoe look alikes/ shoes with stories/ shoe paraphernalia/ shoe artworks, props, costumes? Chosen artefacts/artworks will be exhibited at outhouse Gallery in Camberwell and you will need to drop any work off in person by 1st July. You do not need to think of yourself as an artist - all are welcome. Please email outhouse your submission with a photo and description. Open to interpretation. Curated by Stella Pearce and Robin Pickering. wewantshoesplease@gmail.com
International Curators Forum (ICF) is accepting applications for an emerging or early career UK-based Black or Brown researcher/curator with an interest in working on an exciting, new project addressing the legacy and contemporary relevance of Ten.8 Magazine. Their research into the Ten.8 archives will inform their development of a public event which they will curate and produce with the ICF programmes team, at The Photographers’ Gallery in London to correspond with an archival exhibition on the legacy of Ten.8 in January 2025; a major exhibition at The New Art Gallery Walsall activating the Ten.8 archive and bringing it into dialogue with artworks and other materials set to take place between April and September 2026; digital programming or outputs activating the Ten.8 archive; a contribution to a new publication on the legacy of Ten.8, bringing together key existing texts and new commissions.
The Hari Art Prize 2024. Deadline - Sunday 23rd June.
A Space For Art is delighted to announce the Third edition of The Hari Art Prize, celebrating the global roster of artistic talents attracted to London. A Space for Art is pleased to collaborate again with award-winning luxury hotel The Hari in Belgravia for the return of The Hari Art Prize for 2024, with a cash prize of £10,000 awarded to the finalist. The two runners-up will receive £3000 in second place, and £1000 in third place. The prize is open to applicants who have graduated within the last five years (2019-2024) from UK art colleges or Art Students who are currently studying at a UK Art College. All shortlisted artists will be invited to exhibit a work in The Hari Art Prize Shortlist exhibition which will be on view at The Hari Hotel in September.
Open Call, Participation Residency, Gasworks. Deadline - Monday 24th June.
This residency open call is for artists of all disciplines, based in London, who have experience of working on participatory projects. Over eight months (2 September 2024 to 31 May 2025, with a one month break from mid-December to mid-January), the selected artist will work directly with migrant communities in Lambeth and Southwark. The aim of the residency is to widen access to contemporary art through collaborative projects co-developed with these communities, such as workshops and events. The artist will receive administrative, pastoral, and curatorial support from Gasworks’ Participation Coordinator, Curator and from the Participation Advisory Board.
Open Call, Antigone Revisted, Marcelle Joseph x Hypha Studios. Deadline - Wednesday 26th June.
Hypha Studios are excited to be partnering with Marcelle Joseph on a special Frieze London opportunity. Marcelle is curating “Antigone Revisted” in Hypha HQ and this is your chance to be part of it. To apply to be part of the exhibition, submit up to 5 works that are engaged with the theme, and Marcelle will judge the applicants to select successful work to be in the exhibition.
The theme: Antigone Revisited. The tragedy of Antigone written by Sophocles in 441 BC has attracted writers and dramatists throughout the ages from Jean Cocteau in 1922 to this excerpt from Anne Carson’s 2000 anthology of essays and poetry. Just as Cocteau turned to the drama of ancient Greece for inspiration after the upheaval of World War I, this exhibition turns to the contemporary poet Anne Carson and her interpretation of the Greek heroine of Antigone for guidance in our present era of societal crisis.
The Muse Residency Competition 2024, The Muse Gallery. Deadline - Wednesday 26th June.
Since 2004 The Muse / Gallery & Studio has supported a residency program, offering recent graduates subsidised studio space, a gallery to show and the means to cultivate both client and industry connections. Each year they host a group competition show, awarding the residency positions to a few successful artists; they appeal to all disciplines, with a BA minimum qualification from the previous two years. Artwork is then reviewed by their panel of esteemed industry professionals, curators and collectors, with an emphasis on professionalism from the onset. Their curators will award three or four artists with a residency from 13th January to the 30th June 2025. The residency will begin with a group show in January 2025 and conclude with a second group show in June 2025. Further to the residency program, a chosen artist will be awarded a three-week solo show during their 2025 calendar year.
The Zsuzsi Roboz Scholarship, Morley College London. Deadline - Saturday 29th June.
This Scholarship is offered in memory of the celebrated painter, Zsuzsi Roboz. Funds have been made available to support contemporary figurative artists of promise working primarily in painting and drawing to study for one year at Morley College London, thanks to the generosity of the ‘Alfred Teddy Smith and Zsuzsi Roboz Art Trust’. In this context Figurative primarily refers to drawing and painting or sculpture related to human form and other forms of figuration that depicts people and considers the politics of representation. The Scholarship offers the recipient one year’s part-time programme of free classes at Morley College, personal tutoring and mentoring from a professional artist and teacher, and an opportunity to exhibit work in their Gallery at the end of the year.
Turps Correspondence Course, Turps Art School 2024/25. Deadline - Sunday 30th June.
Turps Correspondence Course is an innovative programme of online mentoring facilitated through critical, supportive written reviews delivered by a dedicated mentor. The course is aimed at painters who want to develop or reinvigorate their work, whether recently graduated from art school, mid-career or those without any formal arts education. The course is designed and structured to be delivered entirely online so that painters, based anywhere in the world and at any stage in their career, can participate and receive informed, critical feedback from a mentor who is practising painter selected by Turps. There are 5 review points throughout the year when you will be required to upload images of your work and a short statement or ‘letter’ to your mentor. Your mentor will then review what has been uploaded and write their response. It is a very different type of feedback from more conventional face-to-face tutorials but Turps believe this is what makes the correspondence course such an appealing and sought-after professional development course.
MASS Correspondence Course, MASS Art School 2024/25. Deadline - Sunday 30th June.
Mass Correspondence Course is an innovative distance-learning programme of online mentoring facilitated through critical, supportive written reviews by a dedicated mentor. The course is aimed at sculptors based anywhere in the world and at any stage in their career who want to develop or reinvigorate their work, whether recently graduated from art school or those without any formal arts education.
Artists’ Collecting Society Studio Prize 2024. Deadline - Sunday 30th June.
The Artists' Collecting Society (ACS) is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that administers intellectual property rights on behalf of visual artists. ACS is offering a recent graduate the chance to win £6,000 to contribute to the cost of an artist’s studio in a UK city of their choice. ACS has once again partnered with Gurr Johns International, a global independent art advisory and appraisal group, to offer this year’s five finalists the opportunity to take part in a group exhibition at Gurr Johns. The exhibition will take place in their St James’s first-floor gallery in autumn 2024. If you are a UK or EEA national and are an undergraduate or postgraduate university student on an accredited art course who is about to graduate, or if you have graduated from a university accredited art course within the last four years, and you work in pictures, collage, painting, sculpture, tapestry, ceramics, glassware or photography, then you are eligible to apply for the prize.
The Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University is seeking to appoint two contemporary practitioners to the Stanley Picker Fellowships in Design & Fine Art 2024. Each Fellowship provides up to £16,000 and valuable access to the extensive material workshops, technical resources and expertise within Kingston School of Art and the wider University departments, to support a practice-based, innovative research project that will result in an exhibition of international standing at the Stanley Picker Gallery.
Open Call, Residency 11:11 x Iniva. Deadline - Monday 1st July.
11:11’s London residency is a one-month residency set in Residency 11:11 founders Alex Bell and Giulia Shah’s home in London. For a duration of one month, the residency aims to connect its guests to the city’s artistic landscape, encouraging practitioners to explore local discourses and collaborations. 11:11 do not offer studio space, but time to reflect and research. For their November residency 11:11 are partnering with Iniva’s archive and Stuart Hall Library, offering a research residency to a practitioner with a strong interest in special collections, artists archives and archival practices. With Stuart Hall Library being a specialist library that centres art and theory publications from the Global Majority, African, Asian, Caribbean, Polynesian, Latinx, and Diaspora perspectives, 11:11 are seeking proposals that centre diasporic perspectives and identity.
DoBeDo Book Award, DoBeDo Projects. Deadline - Monday 8th July.
The DoBeDo Projects Book Award will be accepting submissions for the publication of a photo book by photographers at any stage of their career with an unpublished photographic project (that is complete, or close to completion). This award offers start-to-finish production of a photobook for those selected by the jury; edited, designed, printed and published by DoBeDo Projects, which also includes distribution, press and promotion of the publication. Different publication formats and budgets will be awarded on a project-by-project basis up to £50,000. Winners will be selected by a jury of established industry professionals.
Open Call, Circa Prize 2024. Deadline - Monday 15th July.
Marina Abramović and Ai Weiwei announce the return of the CIRCA PRIZE 2024, with an open call for artists to win £40,000. Now in its fourth consecutive year, the prize aims to discover, platform and champion the future visionaries who are shaping our world for the better. The CIRCA PRIZE is searching for emerging and mid-career artists aged over 18, of all nationalities and from every location across the planet. To enter, artists must submit a 2.5 minute video work in response to the CIRCA 20:24 manifesto ‘<<Break Free>> Time’s Arrow Flies Forever Forward’. Throughout September, 30 international artists will see their work appear at 20:24 local time on the iconic Piccadilly Lights and across the CIRCA global platform of digital screens in Milan and Berlin, chosen by a jury made up of CIRCA artists and collaborators.
The Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize 2024. Deadline - Monday 15th July.
The Burlington Contemporary Art Writing Prize seeks to discover talented writers on contemporary art. The winner of the Prize receives £1,000, their review is published on Burlington Contemporary and they have the opportunity to publish a review of a future contemporary art exhibition in The Burlington Magazine. This year’s judges are the scholar and author Julia Bryan-Wilson and the artist Trevor Paglen. Entrants must have published no more than six pieces of writing in print or online, in any language or country, prior to their submission. This does not include personal blogs and websites. Before entering, applicants are encouraged to read reviews recently published on Burlington Contemporary.
Open Call, Art for Change Prize 2024. Deadline - Wednesday 17th July.
Open to emerging artists around the world in the first five years of active practice. This year’s prize asks artists to creatively respond to the theme 'Tomorrow'ing: Visions of a better future'. A total prize fund of £20,000 will be split between six winners, five to receive £2,000 and one overall winner to receive £10,000. Winning artists will exhibit their work at Saatchi Gallery in London. As part of a shared mission in making art, culture, and creativity accessible to everyone, this prize is a celebration of emerging artistic talent. It will highlight and stimulate dialogue around visual arts as a medium for positive global and social change and give exposure to emerging artists worldwide.
Inclusive Practices Fund, Freelands Foundation. Deadline - Friday 19th July.
The Inclusive Practices Fund will support organisations to reimagine engagement and education; aiming to foster belonging and connection between young people in primary and secondary school, their teachers and visual arts spaces. Freelands Foundation are looking for bold and diverse approaches to art education initiatives which meet the needs of all young people, with specific attention to representation of work by minority ethnic* artists and the norms of engagement which may impact young people’s experience and comfort.
Open Call, Dreamtime Fellowship 2024–25. Deadline - Sunday 29th July.
Spike Island is pleased to announce the fifth edition of the Dreamtime Fellowship, a programme initiated and fully funded by Bristol-based artist Luke Jerram. The Dreamtime Fellowship 2024-25, is now open to applications from artists currently living in Bristol, working across any media. The successful applicant will be granted: 24-hour access to a shared studio space at Spike Island for a year (from October 2024 to September 2025); Annual membership to the Spike Island Associates network, which offers free access to regular talks, studio visits from artists, critics and curators, and peer-to-peer learning and support; A £5,000 bursary; Three one-to-one mentoring sessions with Luke Jerram throughout the year.