The Shock of the Now - Issue #174
Afternoon All - Welcome to Issue 174 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 eleven fresh Artist Opportunities.
Additionally, thanks once again to all those who have signed-up for a paid subscription recently! Last week I released The Shock of the Now's Guide to Degree Shows 2025, an in-depth issue providing 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 covered out-of-London art schools, with listings for Brighton, Edinburgh, Falmouth, Farnham, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, Nottingham and the Ruskin School of Art. The guide breaks down which courses are showing where and when, providing addresses, preview dates/times and full opening hours where possible. For those who missed out or wish to catch up, it can be accessed with a paid subscription Here.
I hope you enjoy Issue 174, 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 :
Kofi Perry - ‘circa, X’ Solo Exhibition - Cooke Latham, Battersea (22nd May - 27th June, opening Wednesday 21st May, 6:30-8:30pm)
Cooke Latham presents Kofi Perry’s solo exhibition ‘circa, X’, with an accompanying text by Nikita Sena.
“Kofi Perry (b.1998, Sidon) is an American-Iranian contemporary artist whose work reimagines ancient history and contemporary Black American culture. His large-scale narrative paintings, made with peinture à l'essence on canvas, overlay architectural landscapes with symbolic objects and the human figure. His figuration offers a personal take on classicism, drawn from the shared aesthetics of ancient civilisations: anatomical idealisation, round and simple forms and frieze compositions. In addition to Perry's large paintings, his intimate portraits, museal still life paintings, ceramics, and sound works all build on a continuous lore.” - Cooke Latham
Nicole Wermers - ‘Tails and Fainters’ Solo Exhibition - Herald St, Museum St, Bloomsbury (22nd May - 28th June, opening Wednesday 21st May, 6-8pm)
Herald St presents Nicole Wermers’ solo exhibition ‘Tails and Fainters’.
“Responding to the particular architecture and interior of Herald St’s Bloomsbury location, a former antiquities shop on Museum Street close to the British Museum, Wermers will show two new bodies of typically evocative and slyly humorous new sculpture that reflect on the social, economic and psychologic hierarchies of different spaces – from the past to present.” - Herald St
William Mackrell - ‘Exposed Tender’ Solo Exhibition - Lungley, Fitzrovia (22nd May - 28th June, opening Wednesday 21st May, 6-8pm)
Lungley presents William Mackrell’s ‘Exposed Tender’, with an accompanying text by Maria Hohmann.
“This deeply personal body of work offers an intimate portrait of the artist’s psyche, created in the wake of familial loss and during a period of mourning and recovery. Throughout the exhibition, the colour red acts as a connective thread—linking the works visually and thematically as a symbol of intimacy, emotion, memory, and corporeality. The works span performance-based painting, print, and installation, reflecting Mackrell’s ongoing exploration of the space between speech and silence, body and trace.” - Lungley
Marlene Almeida - ‘Acute Earth’ Solo Exhibition + Michael Bühler-Rose - ‘True Love Today | Today True Love’ Solo Exhibition - Carlos/Ishikawa, Whitechapel (22nd May - 19th July, opening Wednesday 21st May, 6-8pm)
Carlos/Ishikawa presents Marlene Almeida’s solo exhibition ‘Acute Earth’. Alongside, Carlos/Ishikawa hosts Kendall Koppe to present Michael Bühler-Rose’s solo exhibition ‘True Love Today | Today True Love’, continuing their series of exchange, collaboration and expanded dialogues between galleries, colleagues and artists.
“Marlene Almeida (b.1942, Brazil) is a pioneering Brazilian artist whose work unfolds at the confluence of art, ecology, and ancestral memory. For over five decades, her practice has been deeply rooted in the materiality of the earth—literally and symbolically. Since the 1970s, she has explored the expressive potential of natural pigments, particularly mineral earths and plant-based binders, collecting and processing clays from across Brazil’s diverse geological landscapes. These pigments are not merely tools, but central to her aesthetic, conceptual, and philosophical approach.” - Carlos/Ishikawa
“True Love Today | Today True Love continues Bühler-Rose's exploration of versos of significant works throughout art history, and the broad, layered context that ownership, provenance, value and memory points to. Originally trained in photography, Bühler-Rose initiates these meticulous compositions via carefully researched photographs. The work is then constructed in wood intarsia, or inlaid wood mosaic, a method likely derived from South Asian ivory and wood inlay traditions, using only the natural colours of wood, with no added dyes or paints. In Europe, this process found its richest expression during the Italian Renaissance.” - Kendall Koppe
Ugo Rondinone - ‘the rainbow body’ Solo Exhibition - Sadie Coles HQ, Soho (22nd May - 2nd August, opening Thursday 22nd May, 6-8pm)
Sadie Coles HQ presents Ugo Rondinone’s solo exhibition ‘the rainbow body’.
“Ugo Rondinone’s latest exhibition at Sadie Coles HQ, the rainbow body, features a series of figurative sculptures within a fluorescent environment. The walls, floors and ceiling of the gallery have been finished in rainbow shades that mirror the sculptures’ own colours, engendering a push-pull dynamic between the individual figure and the landscape of the exhibition. The display also includes bronze sculptures of candles that restate the larger theme of suspended time.” - Sadie Coles HQ