The Shock of the Now - Issue #177
Afternoon All - Welcome to Issue 177 of The Shock of the Now! I hope you’re having an enjoyable week.
This week, the full issue includes ten Recommended Exhibitions, as well as fourteen fresh Artist Opportunities.
Additionally, with Chelsea BA, Camberwell BA, Slade MA and the RA Schools Degree Shows opening over the coming week, you can still access The Shock of the Now's Guide to Degree Shows 2025, an in-depth issue available to paid subscribers providing comprehensive coverage of this year’s art school degree presentations across foundation, graduate and postgraduate courses. The guide breaks down which courses are showing where and when, providing addresses, preview dates/times and full opening hours where possible.
I hope you enjoy Issue 177, 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 :
Loveday Pride - ‘Lawless Romantic Underworld’ Solo Exhibition - Pusher, Holborn (11th June - 5th July, opening Wednesday 11th June, 6-9pm)
Pusher presents Loveday Pride’s solo exhibition ‘Lawless Romantic Underworld’.
“Loveday Pride's upcoming solo show will incorporate multiple strands of her work brought about in response to her designing and building a float for Pewsey Carnival 2024 and the ensuing material experimentation and subject matter collaging of her first year at the Slade MFA course. Loveday borrows an attitude from this experience, realising and amplifying the specificities of a way of making which is somewhat stapled together, jigsaw cut and openly rough edged. Rather than relaying a singular account or describing an event, the work aims to reflect on a tradition of painting and sculpture which is experimental, self-aware and precarious.” - Pusher
Kasia Wozniak - ‘Stillpoint’ Solo Exhibition - Incubator, Marylebone (12th - 29th June, opening Wednesday 11th June, 5:30-7:30pm)
Incubator presents Kasia Wozniak’s solo exhibition ‘Stillpoint’.
“Kasia Wozniak is a Polish photographer and visual artist based in London. Her practice is rooted in an exploration of memory, time, and the materiality of the photographic image, with a particular focus on historical processes such as wet plate collodion. Through this analog approach, she challenges conventional notions of photographic truth and investigates the tactile, temporal qualities of the medium.” - Incubator
UK AIDS Memorial Quilt - Tate Modern, Bankside (12th-16th June)
Tate Modern presents all 42 quilts and 23 individual panels of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt (c.1989-ongoing), displayed in the Turbine Hall to echo the original outdoor displays used as a form of protest to raise awareness for the ongoing AIDS pandemic. This display is presented by Tate in partnership with UK AIDS Memorial Quilt and initiated by Charlie Porter. Curated by Elliot Gibbons, Collaborative Doctoral Researcher.
Additionally, between 12th-15th June, ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ (1995), a previously unseen documentary about the largest display of the UK AIDS Memorial Quilt, will be screened in the Starr Cinema.
Finally, on Saturday 14 June there will be a live reading of the names at 11.00 and 14.00. Bakita Kasadha will open each reading with a poem. This will be followed by a special choral piece by the London Gay Men’s Chorus at 12.45 and 16.00.
“The UK AIDS Memorial Quilt is one chapter of the largest community art project in the world. In response to the AIDS pandemic, American activist Cleve Jones formed The NAMES Project in 1985. The project invited people to create textile panels to commemorate friends, family and loved ones lost during the pandemic. The individual panels are sewn together to create larger quilts. These larger quilts were often shown outdoors as a form of protest to raise awareness about HIV and AIDS. The displays often included a reading of all the names upon the panels. Activist groups across the globe organised their own local quilts.” - Tate
Megan Rooney - ‘Yellow Yellow Blue’ Solo Exhibition - Thaddaeus Ropac, Mayfair (12th June - 2nd August, opening Thursday 12th June, 6-8pm)
Thaddaeus Ropac presents Megan Rooney’s solo exhibition ‘Yellow Yellow Blue’. Additionally, ‘Spin Down Sky II’, a new performance piece directed by Rooney and made in close collaboration with Temitope Ajose, Leah Marojević and the musician tyroneisaacstuart, will be staged during the exhibition’s opening event (7:15pm).
“Spanning the gallery’s two floors at Thaddaeus Ropac London, Yellow Yellow Blue presents a group of new works on canvas in Rooney’s signature ‘wingspan’ format, equivalent to the full reach of the artist’s outstretched arms, alongside a number of large-scale canvases which invoke the encompassing presence of her murals, and a selection of works on paper. The body has a sustained presence in Rooney’s work, as both the subjective starting point and final site for the sedimentation of experiences explored through her interdisciplinary practice.” - Thaddaeus Ropac
Cary Kwok - ‘Is This Love?’ Solo Exhibition - Herald St, Bethnal Green (13th June - 18th July, opening Thursday 12th June, 6-8pm)
Herald St presents Cary Kwok’s solo exhibition ‘Is This Love?’.
“Originally from Hong Kong, Kwok moved to London in 1995 to study fashion at Central Saint Martins and has lived here ever since. A meticulous draftsman, his detailed acrylic and ink paintings on thick slices of cardboard are intimate windows into fantasy worlds, often candy-toned and cinematic and, until recently, largely explicit in their eroticism. He references contemporary popular culture as well as period art, design, music, and film, carefully researching each object and item of clothing that makes its way into his vignettes. Underlying each scene is a narrative – one that he invents in his head but seldom tells, offering the beholder the chance to construct his or her own story.” - Herald St