The Shock of the Now - Issue #173
Afternoon All - Welcome to Issue 173 of The Shock of the Now! I hope you’re having an enjoyable week.
This week, the full issue includes fifteen Recommended Exhibitions, as well as information about programming across Photo London 2025, Peckham 24 and Offprint London 2025, all taking place this coming weekend. Alongside, there are ten fresh Artist Opportunities.
Additionally, tomorrow I’ll be publishing The Shock of the Now’s Guide to Degree Shows 2025 for paid subscribers. That in-depth issue will provide comprehensive coverage of this year’s art school degree presentations across foundation, graduate and postgraduate courses. In London, this includes degree shows at Camberwell, CSM, Chelsea, City & Guilds, Goldsmiths, Kingston, RA Schools, RCA, Slade and Wimbledon, as well as alternative education programmes Turps & MASS. Alongside, for the first time I’ll be covering out-of-London art schools, with listings for Brighton, Edinburgh, Falmouth, Farnham, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham and the Ruskin School of Art. I’ll be breaking down which courses are showing where and when, providing addresses, preview dates/times and full opening hours where possible. If you’re planning on doing the degree show rounds over the next few months, you won’t want to miss it!
I hope you enjoy Issue 173, and if so do forward it along! As always, questions and comments are welcome, so feel free to get in touch, H x
Recommended Exhibitions Opening This Week :
Amanda Moström - ‘Douglas’ Solo Exhibition - Rose Easton, Bethnal Green (15th May - 28th June, opening Wednesday 14th May, 6-8pm)
Rose Easton presents Amanda Moström’s solo exhibition ‘Douglas’, accompanied by a text from Samra Mayanja.
“The Swedish artist Amanda Moström deals primarily with the erotic, albeit in an unconventional sense. Subtly humorous and rich in psychosexual undertones, her photographic work frequently appropriates familiar imagery and transforms it into something more provocative and intimate, complicating it with restaging or re-contextualisation. Her interest in expansive forms of sensuality extends to her bronzes, which upend the medium’s associations with solemnity and multiplicity by existing as one-off pieces that are deliberately imperfect, showing signs of human touch.” - Rose Easton
Holly Stevenson - ‘Tracing the Irretraceable’ Solo Exhibition - Freud Museum, Belsize Park (14th May - 29th June)
Freud Museum presents Holly Stevenson’s solo exhibition ‘Tracing the Irretraceable’.
“Tracing the Irretraceable is an intimate exhibition exploring the importance of Freudian psychoanalysis to Holly Stevenson, in dialogue with both the Freud Museum collection and the collection of the late Jane McAdam Freud (1958–2022). The exhibition presents Stevenson’s ceramic sculptures, which engage with Freud’s personal collection of objects, and reflect on McAdam Freud’s familial approach to the museum.” - Freud Museum
Anna Paterson, Alicia Reyes McNamara, Amba Sayal-Bennett - ‘Drawing Room Invites…’ Solo Presentations - Drawing Room, Bermondsey (15th May - 27th June, opening Wednesday 14th May, 6-8pm)
Drawing Room presents ‘Drawing Room Invites…’, solo presentations from Anna Paterson, Alicia Reyes McNamara and Amba Sayal-Bennett, three artists who contributed to Drawing Biennial 2024.
“Anna Paterson explores experimental processes of image-making on paper, incorporating techniques associated with printmaking, domestic cleaning and painting. Alicia Reyes McNamara’s mutating and shapeshifting beings in fantastical landscapes are part of a queering of religious rituals and indigenous folklore, informed by her Mexican and Irish ancestry. Amba Sayal-Bennett traces forms, bodies and knowledge across different sites following a migratory logic. Informed by architecture and medicine, she works with computer-aided design software to create digital drawings of decontextualised body parts, which are transformed into smoothly intricate three-dimensional objects in cool, neutral tones.” - Drawing Room
Alexandra Metcalf - ‘Gaaaaaaasp’ Solo Exhibition - The Perimeter, Clerkenwell (16th May - 25th July, opening Thursday 15th May, 6-8pm)
The Perimeter presents Alexandra Metcalf’s debut institutional solo exhibition ‘Gaaaaaaasp’.
“Born in London in 1992 and based in Berlin, the British-American artist explores notions of gender and interiority through scenes of psychological turmoil. The exhibition comprises a series of spatial installations and new paintings. The Perimeter has been transformed across a multitude of time periods, each room unfolding as fragments of a cyclical narrative. Situated during the collapse of Victorian domesticity, these sites intersect with mid-20th century countercultural movements and contemporary visual signifiers.” - The Perimeter
Maite de Orbe - ‘a moment opposite to blindness’ Solo Exhibition - miłość, Dalston (16th May - 21st June, opening Thursday 15th May, 6-9pm)
miłość presents Maite de Orbe’s debut London solo exhibition ‘a moment opposite to blindness’, exhibition is accompanied by Clara Dublanc’s ‘Notes on Entropy and Surrender’.
“A moment opposite to blindness showcases a body of work from 2022-2025 spanning material shot between the Dominican Republic, Chile, UK, Spain, Mexico and The Gambia. Across these locations, Maite chases suspended emotions in landscapes, portraits and details. The series is a gesture of surrender to the grief of the world we live in, while investigating recurring topics of obsession – performers, desolate deserts, religious iconography, sex work, car crashes, ballroom, and lovers and friends.” - miłość