Abstract Expressionism
Royal Academy of Arts
24 September 2016 — 2 January 2017
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/exhibition/abstract-expressionism
I was so excited to see Pollock and Rothko's real works in Royal Academy of Arts.
Having already seen a film of Jackson Pollock, I a little bit understood how he works and what those works look like, but I was still shocked when I was standing and meeting with those paintings. First of all, those paintings are really thick in layers and layers of oil pigment, which make the pictures more complicated. Of course, the strokes and the lines express the freedom like the bird flying in the sky. Besides, the works are really large.
As for Mark Rothko, I never saw his real painting before, just on the internet. Actually, his large works touched me more and at that moment I understood the comment,"no book or poster can re-create the astounding depth and delicacy one of Rothko's painting has". The scales of those works are so large, and blocks of colour are so elegant and beautiful. I could feel the sense of balance and juxtaposition through those colours. One more thing need to mention is that the technique he used to blend the edges between those large blocks.
In sum, I learned the way how Pollock created overlap layers, as well as how Rothko used the colours in magic.
Solo Exhibition of Lygia Pape
Hauser & Wirth London
23 Sep – 19 Nov 2016
http://www.hauserwirth.com/exhibitions/2901/lygia-pape/view/
It was out of my expectation while I saw Lygia Pape's Silver thread, which is made of lights, nails and wood. I have never thought of the magic of lines before I met it. Something silver gleamed in the darkness. But when you go closer, you find they are nothing, but tiny lines, --a large amount of lines compose long rectangular blocks. Some blocks even cross each other. Although it seems brilliant, those soft thin lines also create the feeling of empty, because the big objects they compose of are entirely unreal.
It is amazing to know that lines could be a sculpture!
In this exhibition, I learned more about lines.
Later I found another artist, Fred Sandback whose art works are about lines of thought.
Furthermore, I will try some kind of sculpture in Unite2. It might be a sculpture made by strings on a piece of wood board.
Solo Exhibition of Anselm Kiefer
Walhalla
White Cute Bermondsey
23 Nov. 2016 – 12 Feb. 2017
In his new paintings, Anselm Kiefer employs a range of media-oil, acrylic, emulsion, shellac and clay-to emphasise the space of painting as a threshold into a mythic, imaginative realm. Here, a series of high towers are set amid desolate landscapes, their stacked forms exploding and dissolving into clouds of deep black or caustic blue smoke.
I like the details and layers he created. He used his painting to collage his painting, which I will try in the future.
Group Exhibition
Matteo Massagrande
Pontone Gallery
18 – 22 Jan. 2017
Matteo Massagrande's paintings evoke light, place and time. Most show architectural interiors with vistas through to exterior spaces, some focus on cryptically symbolic trees.The aged walls and windows attract me.
Group Exhibition
Painters' Painters
Saatchi Gallery
30 Nov 2016 - 28 Feb 2017
Richard Aldrich
David Brian Smith
Dexter Dalwood (I prefer)
Raffi Kalenderian (I prefer)
Ansel Krut (I prefer)
Martin Maloney (I prefer)
Bjarne Melgaard (I prefer)
Ryan Mosley
David Salle
Zaha Hadid: Early Paintings and Drawings
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
8 Dec 2016 - 12 Feb 2017
This winter, the Serpentine presents an exhibition of paintings and the rarely seen drawings of the pioneering and visionary architect Zaha Hadid. The exhibition takes place in the Serpentine Sackler Gallery, an extension completed in 2013 and one of Zaha Hadid Architects’ first permanent buildings in central London.
Mark Fairnington: The Worm In The Bud
Handel Street Projects
11 Feb 2017 - 1 Apr 2017
The shadow, the contrast between the objects in the front and in the back, and the texture on the petals and leaves, all are very sensitive and accurate.
Josiah McElheny: The Crystal Land
White Cube, Bermondsey London
1 Mar 2017 - 13 Apr 2017
White Cube is pleased to present ‘The Crystal Land’, an exhibition by Josiah McElheny, which narrates a decade of the artist’s efforts to visualise alternative histories of Modernism. Presenting works made between 2008 and 2017 in various media, including sculpture, painting, film, installation, photograms and posters, the exhibition asserts McElheny’s view that ‘reconstructing history’ can be a creative process itself and that aesthetics are always political.
The installations made of crystal are really amazing.
Victoria Miro Gallery in London
1 Feb - 18 Mar 2017
Do Ho Suh: Passage/s
“I see life as a passageway, with no fixed beginning or destination. We tend to focus on the destination all the time and forget about the in-between spaces.” – Do Ho Suh
Alex Hartley: After You Left
The work plays on Romantic ideas of the ruin and the picturesque, as well as the nature and meaning of the folly in the constructed landscape.
Confronting Renaissance Art in Italy
1 Apr. - 15 Apr. 2017
Uffizi Gallery, Borghese Gallery,Sistine Chapel, Vatican Museums, Museo di San Marco
I was absorbed in the art of Renaissance during this wonderful trip. Having watched those amazing master pieces, -not only by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Caravaggio, but also by a number of great painters, I understood the origination and development of perspective.
After I returned to London, I start to read the book The psychology of perspective and Renaissance art and The Psychology of Art and the Evolution of the Conscious Brain, as the references of the Italy trip.
Besides those Renaissance figures, I was so lucky to see some nowadays artists' work, like Bill Viola, Francesco Clemente, Markku Piri and Charlotte Salomon.
Bill Viola. Electronic Renaissance
10 Mar. - 23 Jul. 2017
Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi
From 10 March to 23 July 2017 the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi will be introducing the Florentine public to Bill Viola. Electronic Renaissance, a significant exhibition celebrating this unchallenged master of video art.
I was really lucky to watch those videos by him in Florence which inspire me to make some video works.
Newport Street Gallery
Jun. 2017
Ashley Bickerton: Ornamental Hysteria
Unknown Gallery
2017
I collected lots of pictures of artworks. Unfortunately, I can not recognize their source, but they really touched me.
Serpentine Gallery
8 Jun 2017 to 10 Sep 2017
GRAYSON PERRY: THE MOST POPULAR ART EXHIBITION EVER!
Collyer Bristow Gallery
22 Jun 2017 to 4 Oct 2017
Strangelands
Tate Britain
12 Sep 2017 to 21 Jan 2018
RACHEL WHITEREAD
Beijing
20 Oct 2017
CAFA Art Museum
798 Art District
“德国8”展览系列
Contemporary Art From Germany
Franz Ackermann
Horst Antes
Stephan Balkenhol
Abraham David Christian
Hanne Darboven
Thomas Demand
Katharina Fritsch
Isa Genzken
Jörg Immendorf
Hubert Kiecol
Martin Kippenberger
Imi Knoebel
Uwe Kowski
Albert Oehlen
Daniel Richter
Andreas Slominski
Rosemarie Trockel
Georg Baselitz
Joseph Beuys
Günther Förg
Anselm Kiefer
Markus Lüpertz
A.R. Penck
Sigmar Polke
Neo Rauch
Gerhard Richter
Günther Uecker
Beijing
Oct 2017
中国美术馆NAMOC
798 Art District
刘巨德Liu Jude
金田Jin Tian
王道珍Wang Daozhen
Beijing
Nov 2017
中国美术馆NAMOC
刘海粟Liu Haisu
Beijing
Nov 2017
北京民生现代美术馆
Beijing Minsheng Art Museum
管勇Guan Yong
My List of the Gallery in London
Frankly, I did not use of the exhibitions in London very well. However I make a plan in this term. The feeling of a real art work is so intense, which is like a big conservation between the artist and the viewer. So I will go very often in spring 2017 to those galleries in London:
https://www.royalacademy.org.uk
https://wellcomecollection.org
https://newportstreetgallery.com
http://www.serpentinegalleries.org
http://www.simonleegallery.com
http://www.michaelgoedhuis.com
http://www.workplacegallery.co.uk
http://www.whitechapelgallery.org
https://www.camdenartscentre.org