The Shock of the Now - Issue #94
Discover more from The Shock of the Now
The Shock of the Now - Issue #94
Afternoon All,
I hope you’re all well and welcome to Issue 94 of The Shock of the Now.
This week there are nine weekly Recommended Exhibitions, as well as six fresh Artist Opportunities.
I hope you enjoy Issue 94, 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:
Turps Studio Programme Leavers Show 2023 - Turps Gallery & Studio 13, Elephant & Castle (13th - 23rd July, opening Wednesday 12th July, 6-9pm).
Turps presents their annual Turps Studio Programme Leavers Show, featuring the work of first and second-year painters who are about to finish the alternative education programme. Including Alexander Gilmour, Alice McCabe, Alix Philippe, Angela Prudom, Catherine Long, Charlotte Worthington, Dave Nelson, Diane Rogan, Dido Hallett, Emily Sparkes, Emma Franks, Jesus Crespo, Judith Gao, Marco Arias, Mary Macken Allen, Ryan Kish & Veronica Peat.
Sam King - ‘Seeing is Believing’ Solo Exhibition - Eve Leibe, St George’s Fields (12th July - 4th August, opening Wednesday 12th July, 6-9pm).
Eve Leibe presents Sam King’s solo exhibition ‘Seeing is Believing’.
“In his latest series of paintings, King explores our discomfort with the architecture of the body in the technological age. Confronted with the dissonance between a vulnerable human body and a digitised, flawless version of ourselves, fostered by the Internet and social media, our sense of embodiment feels increasingly at odds.” - Maria Dolfini
‘Nay, her foot speaks’ Group Exhibition - Cooke Latham, Battersea (12th July - 15th September, opening Wednesday 12th July, 5-9pm).
Cooke Latham presents ‘Nay, her foot speaks’, a group exhibition featuring Alicja Biala, Valerie Asiimwe Amani, Charlie Billingham, Francisco Rodriguez, Laila Tara H, Sophie Thun & Carmen Winant.
“Using the Shakespearian quote from Trolius and Cressida as a point of departure the exhibition investigates how gestures have historically been used artistically (in the quoted instance to pigeonhole a woman as ‘wanton’) to analyse and ‘read’ those around us. As with spoken language, gestures evolve and mutate over time and their subtle politics, without a dictionary counterpart, come to reflect the societal norms and geographic concerns of those that make/ 'read' them. The artists included in the exhibition all use gesture as a conceptual tool, either to parody or cast reflection upon the historical lexicon of gesture within their own culture or to create a new, hypothetical, gestural alphabet of their own.” - Cooke Latham
‘Allow Cookies’ Group Exhibition - Kupfer, Shoreditch (14th - 29th July, opening Thursday 13th July, 6-9pm)
Kupfer inaugurate their new Shoreditch gallery space with the group exhibition ‘Allow Cookies’, curated by Laurie Barron, Isabel Davies & Isabel Walter featuring Woodsy Bransfield, Ana Viktoria Dzinic, Anya Gorkova, Sofia Hallström, Waj Hussain, firpal, Hongxi Li, Dani Marcel, Geo Stuart, Louis Blue Newby & Laila Majid.
“Allow Cookies explores the tension between desire and manipulation. The exhibition will present new and recent work by eleven UK-based artists who draw variously from pop culture, advertising, pornography, cartoons, luxury goods and fashion. Featuring painting, photography, and sculpture, each of the works toys with the (sometimes guilty, sometimes gleeful) sense of complicity in the magnetic pull of consumerism that defines contemporary life.” - Kupfer
‘Contingency, Part 1’ Group Exhibition - Des Bains, Fitzrovia (14th July - 26th August, opening Thursday 13th July, 5-8pm)
Des Bains inaugurate their new Fitzrovia gallery space with the group exhibition ‘Contingency, Part 1’, featuring Choon Mi Kim, Haroun Hayward, Kentaro Okumura, Ricardo Passaporte & Sara Knowland.
“DES BAINS is pleased to present CONTINGENCY, Part I. A group exhibition around the role of painting within the contemporary art discourse, its complexities and relevance today. The title of this exhibition speaks to both the idea of contingency in painting, exhibition making and institutional critique.” - Des Bains
‘The Belly and the Guts’ Group Exhibition - Alice Amati, Fitzrovia (14th July - 25th August, opening Thursday 13th July, 6-8pm)
Alice Amati presents the group exhibition ‘The Belly and the Guts’, curated in collaboration with Dr Ian Hartshorne featuring Louise Giovanelli, Tommy Harrison, Robin Megannity, Fischer Mustin and Rafal Topolewski.
“Painting Matters. The painters in this show all graduated from Manchester School of Art, I have had the wonderful privilege to teach all of them. That they are all exhibiting together represents the first time a contemporary gallery has had the radical foresight to present a group of artists from the same institution - all of whom foreground matters arising from within painting itself. The artists in this show reposition painting as primarily a material and physical act, human, real, sensorial and seductive. Thereby promoting a return towards certainty, a certainty that will finally re-establish the importance of making and looking. They all deal with matters of painting because painting matters.” - Dr Ian Hartshorne
Aurel Schmidt - ‘Trash Dolls’ Solo Exhibition - Gathering’s Glasshouse Projects, Soho (14th - 29th July, opening Friday 14th July, 7-9pm)
Gathering’s Glasshouse Projects presents Aurel Schmidt’s solo exhibition ‘Trash Dolls’. The opening will be followed by a summer celebration to mark the end of Gathering’s first year of programming.
“Since 2019, in the ongoing series Trash Dolls, Aurel Schmidt has been transforming the detritus of her environment into characters that embody the psychosomatic effects of a fast-paced life in the big city. Using exquisite draughtsmanship Aurel’s Trash Dolls catalogue and reconstitute the sediment of downtown parties and alleyway trash heaps, at once satirising and playfully celebrating hedonistic city living.” - Glasshouse Projects
‘New Ancients’ Group Exhibition - Guts Gallery, Hackney & ‘KIN’ Group Exhibition - Baesianz x Guts Projects (14th July - 4th August, opening Friday 14th July, 6-9pm)
Guts Gallery presents ‘New Ancients’, a group exhibition co-curated by Ellie Pennick & Sayori Radda featuring Marina Abramović, Jade Blackstock, Maggie Dunlap, Frederik Exner, Tomas Harker, Laila Tara H, Sara Knowland, Shailee Mehta, Pia Ortuño, Anousha Payne, Tai Shani & Rosie Grace Ward.
Alongside, Baesianz presents ‘KIN’ at Guts Projects, a group exhibition featuring Mohamad Abdouni, Hidhir Badaruddin, Kin Coedel, Hassan Kurbanbaev, Sami Kimberley, qíqí lù, Raajadharshini, Kamila Rustambekova & Kianuë Tran Kiêu.
“New Ancients is a group exhibition of artists whose work explores how myths contribute to our understanding of the world we live in and how we interact with others. These artists recognise that in a globalised world that increasingly relies on a voracious fast-paced techno-capitalist system and in a time where global warming, ecological disaster and dividing right-wing politics increasingly take the lead, the intimate art of telling stories through mythologies is more vital than ever.” - Guts Gallery
“We’re super excited to present KIN, a group exhibition of nine photographers whose work explores kinship through a radical lens, highlighting queerness, femininity and the familial. Shot across various locations around the world, this selection of works captures the multiplicities of kinship through the outlook of Asian heritage photographers of varying genders, identities, and lived experiences.” - Baesianz
Judith Dean - ‘New Builds / Bilds (The Image in Perspective)’ Solo Exhibition - South Parade, Deptford (14th July - 19th August, opening Friday 14th July, 6-8pm)
South Parade presents Judith Dean’s solo exhibition ‘New Builds / Bilds (The Image in Perspective)’.
“Dean's paintings question the way in which we look at images in art. Using her non-writing hand to overcome the control exerted by the conscious mind, Dean makes paintings that explore perspective and the singularity of the mind's eye in framing and authorship. Using the contingency of found pictures on the internet, the compositions are framed as receding stages or galleries. We see walls, floors, ceilings and separated rooms emerge from blind alleys, dead ends and shifting horizons. The digital world is a multiverse of images in which our attention is manipulated to focus on what is narrow and commercially and politically expedient. By painting numerous images within one painting, Dean distracts or prevents us from focussing on one subject - making us aware of both the mind's natural control and society's. The original images come from a variety of cultural, geographical and historical sources and te painting process assembles these disparate images into a world of staged inevitability.” - South Parade
Artist Opportunities:
As part of an artist-led research programme, Cultural Reforesting, The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames are looking for an artist or artist collective to explore the theme of darkness in urban spaces. Open to artists or artist collectives from any discipline, who will explore this theme and work with local communities to understand darkness in urban environments. Artist/s should have socially engaged participatory practices at the core of their work. The London Borough of Richmond upon Thames will provide the selected artist or artist collective with a budget of £12,000 which is inclusive of all artist fees, production support, materials and expenses for the delivery of the project. Three artists will be selected to further discuss their project ideas. There will be a fee of £250 per artist or artist collective/group invited to interview to share their ideas.
Open Call, South London Gallery Postgraduate Residency 2023/24. Deadline - Monday 17th July.
The Postgraduate Residency is an open submission six-month residency at South London Gallery (SLG) and touring exhibition between SLG and Bonington Gallery at Nottingham Trent University. The residency enables the production of a new body of work and a rare opportunity for an early-career artist to exhibit their work at the South London Gallery and Bonington Gallery. The residency is open to artists who have completed a period of self-directed, peer-led or postgraduate study between October 2022 and September 2023. This can include alternative, peer organised and non-accredited programmes from an institution, collective or art school in the UK, as well as an MA, MFA, PGDip, MRes. Between October 2023 – March 2024, the recipient will receive the following: studio space in the SLG Fire Station; a £4,500 housing bursary to cover accommodation in London; a £5,000 artists fee and a £4,000 production budget to produce new work; mentoring sessions and studio visits from SLG staff, including the Director, Bonington Gallery staff, and other arts professionals; the opportunity to present a public event at SLG in response to their practice; a solo exhibition opening March 2024 in one of the SLG Fire Station galleries (the exhibition will tour to Bonington Gallery in January 2025, with potential for associated event(s) and partnerships with university researchers & staff.).
Art for Change Prize, M&C Saatchi Group & Saatchi Gallery. Deadline - Monday 17th July.
Applications are now open for the free-to-enter Art for Change Prize, an international art initiative from M&C Saatchi Group and Saatchi Gallery, open to artists working in the first five years of their career. This year’s prize asks artists to creatively respond to the theme Regeneration. 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 also have the unique opportunity to exhibit their work at Saatchi Gallery in London.
Open Call, Circa Prize 2023. Deadline - Thursday 20th July.
This year, CIRCA has eyes for one thing above all else: hope. Now is a time for hope. As the CIRCA 20:23 Manifesto made clear, hope is not an empty affirmation or a luxury for the privileged but the animating force of today’s struggles for a better world. For the III edition of the CIRCA PRIZE, CIRCA are searching the Earth for works of hope. In an open call for emerging and mid-career artists of all ages, we are inviting a global community of artists, performers, poets, activists, architects, gamers and filmmakers to respond to the CIRCA 20:23 manifesto, ‘Hope: The Art of Reading What Is Not Yet Written’. Throughout September, 30 international artists will see their work appear at 20:23 local time on the iconic Piccadilly Lights and across the CIRCA global platform of digital screens. The winning artist will receive £30,000 to support their future practice alongside a new trophy designed by Ai Weiwei, who first launched the CIRCA free public art programme in October 2020.
Open Call, Dreamtime Fellowship 2023-24, Spike Island. Deadline - Sunday 23rd July.
Spike Island is pleased to announce the fourth edition of the Dreamtime Fellowship, a programme initiated and fully funded by Bristol-based artist Luke Jerram. The Dreamtime Fellowship 2023-24, is now open to applications from Bristol-based artists who have graduated from a BA or MA Fine Art course from any institution within the last five years. The successful applicant will be granted: 24-hour access to a shared studio space at Spike Island for a year (from October 2023 to September 2024); 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; and Three one-to-one mentoring sessions with Luke Jerram throughout the year.
Open Call, 11:11 Online Residency. Deadline - Monday 24th July.
Open Call for 11:11 Online Residency delivered virtually for one-month in October 2023. 11:11 Online is a 4-week artist development residency delivered virtually to anywhere in the world. 11:11 offer a £250 fee, mentorship, curatorial support and project development. You are not expected to produce any finished work. 11:11 are looking for proposals that test ideas, build and reflect on research and are open to working through ideas conversationally. With the virtual nature of the residency, 11:11 are interested in proposals that have relevance to, and raise questions around, the intersection of art, technology and access.
Residency open call for artists based in the Philippines, Gasworks. Deadline - Monday 24th July.
This opportunity is for an artist in the early stages of their career based in the Philippines and offers a fully funded 11-week residency at Gasworks in London from 8 January – 25 March 2024. Gasworks’ residencies are opportunities for self-led professional development, artistic exchange, and experimentation. Gasworks programmes up to sixteen residencies each year, inviting emerging and early-career international artists to work alongside a community of nine London-based peers for three months. The residencies are non-prescriptive and process-based and focus on enabling artists to research and develop new work. They are made public through open studios and events, these opportunities encourage interaction, dialogue, and professional networking. Gasworks provides significant pastoral and curatorial support throughout the residency, however artists are also expected to be proactive and self-motivated and lead the research and production of their work while in London.
Open Call, Deptford X Festival Fringe. Deadline - Wednesday 26th July.
The Fringe is the core of the Deptford X Festival and an annual celebration of the area’s art scene. Over the course of the festival, the Fringe will take over Deptford, placing art in unexpected locations, rooted into the fabric of everyday lives. This year, to mark 25 years of Deptford X they are particularly keen to include projects that reference or recreate artworks from previous festival years. If you took part in the past and fancy dusting off an old intervention for a new outing in this year’s Fringe, they would love to hear from you. Equally, they can make elements of our archive available to artists who are interested in making new works or projects in response to the history of the festival. A limited number of bursaries will be available for artists who would benefit from financial support to enable them to participate in Deptford X Festival 2023.
The Adobe Creative Residency programme is a new, approach to bring making into the museum. It gives artists, designers, performers and creators unprecedented access to world-class arts resources and mentorship, studio space, creative programming, and a display to showcase. A cohort of three residents across different practices are selected annually to work full-time for 12 months, each working with a designated audience (schools, families, and young people) to expand access to creativity, design and making. Embedded within the Learning Team at the V&A, residents will commit half their time to developing engaging learning programming around their craft. This could include working directly with audiences, acting as a creative advisor to wider museum learning programming, and collaborating across the museum to bring contemporary practice into galleries. The residency programme culminates in a 6-month display of their work at the V&A South Kensington. There are three open calls available for the Adobe Creative Residency Programme, illustration, Global ceramics and Costume design. Each residency offers a Fixed Term Contract (FTC) salary of £42,000.
Rolling Residency, The Bomb Factory Art Foundation Holborn. Deadline - Sunday 30th July.
The Bomb Factory Art Foundation are offering a rolling residency in their new Holborn location starting from 28th August to support dedicated artists who cannot afford studios, as well as a one week end-of-residency exhibition. First studio residency will run 28th August - 25th September, w. exhibition from 25th September - 1st October. To apply, please add 'HOLBORN RESIDENCY 2023' to the subject of an email to: studio@bombfactory.org.uk. Please state: Name, Contact Number & Email; Dates of interest; Website or Social Media of work + One-page application letter outlining your practice and why you are eligible for this opportunity. (Applicants must be able to prove that no other studio space can be afforded. Due to the nature of this free residency programme, we may require further interviews about how applicants meet the criteria for support.)
The Dover Prize is an award open to any UK-based artist. It supports excellence and experimentation in the arts and creative industries. Applications are welcome from artists and creative practitioners working in the visual arts e.g. painting, sculpture, ceramics, print-making, photography, digital art, filmmaking, performance and installations. The Dover Prize is a bursary of £10,000 paid across two years, to an individual or collective to provide time to think, research, reflect and/or experiment with new ideas. The aim of the Dover Prize is to raise within Darlington the profile of contemporary arts, and to make a positive impact on the town. As such, the Dover Award biennial winner must agree to a final show that will premiere in Darlington on completion of their 2-year bursary.
OPEN CELLS Artist Residency Programme, The Koppel Project Station. Deadline - Monday 31st July.
The Koppel Project are excited to announce the opening of applications for the OPEN CELLS Artist Residency Programme. OPEN CELLS is an emerging or mid-career artist residency programme at The Koppel Project Station with a focus on community involvement and engagement. Koppel Project’s goal is to provide artists with a dynamic, inclusive, and interactive experience that helps them develop their practice while contributing to the local community.
The residency lasts for two months – Beginning of September until end of October (2 residency slots – each with 3-4 weeks working in the space, ending in a final exhibition). Studio Space in multiple holding cells and Communal working areas: 5 Artists will be provided with a free studio space to work in for the duration of each residency slot. The space is located at TKP Station in (Hampstead) Camden, London.
Open Call, Manos Creando, AMPLA x Gasworks. Deadline - Monday 31st July.
AMPLA, in partnership with Gasworks, is seeking to appoint six Latin American Spanish-speaking artists (each to run one workshop), whose practice is concerned with identity, visibility and wellbeing. Manos Creando, is a new programme working directly with AMPLA (Association of Latin American Parents), to run workshops for women and mothers to explore identity, contribute to wellbeing, and amplify the voices of the Latin American community, supported by Project Smith through the Lambeth Wellbeing Fund. Workshop dates: Workshops to take place once per month in the 2023/2024 period, during September, October, November 2023, January, February, and March 2024. Final dates to be discussed with each artist. Artist fee: £200 per 2 hours workshop. Programme budget: £100 (includes materials for each workshop).
Residency open call for artists based in Central America, Gasworks. Deadline - Monday 7th August.
This opportunity is for an artist in the early stages of their career based in Central America (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama) and offers a fully funded 11-week residency at Gasworks in London from 8 January – 25 March 2024. Shelagh Wakely (1932 – 2011), was a British artist whose experimental practice combined visual art, sculpture, and design with architecture. Wakely travelled widely in South-America, with special interest in Brazil, and her residence in London became a meeting point for Brazilian and Latin American artists. The Elephant Trust administers the Shelagh Wakely Bequest, and the Shelagh Wakely Residency was created in partnership with Gasworks to provide an emerging artist from Latin-America with a three-month residency opportunity in London. Gasworks’ residencies are opportunities for self-led professional development, artistic exchange, and experimentation. Gasworks programmes up to sixteen residencies each year, inviting emerging and early-career international artists to work alongside a community of nine London-based peers for three months. The residencies are non-prescriptive and process-based and focus on enabling artists to research and develop new work. They are made public through open studios and events, these opportunities encourage interaction, dialogue and professional networking. Gasworks provides significant pastoral and curatorial support throughout the residency, however artists are also expected to be proactive and self-motivated and lead the research and production of their work while in London.