“The Impossibility Of Its Own Authenticity”: Fiona Banner at the Whitechapel Gallery
While the work of Fiona Banner, an English artist renowned for her conceptual sculptures and her text-centric, monumental ‘wordscapes’, is often exhibited in museums and featured in contemporary art galleries across the globe, she has opted to take a different approach for a new exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery: Fiona Banner selects from the V-A-C collection: Stamp Out Photographie.
In an effort to expose important artworks in rarely seen or overlooked collections around the world, the Whitechapel Gallery has introduced several programmes presenting various works from the V-A-C Collection, an accumulation of art owned by the V-A-C Foundation, a non-profit institution. This series of shows is comprised of four displays, and began earlier this year.
For this exciting edition, Fiona has chosen several, seldom-displayed works from Moscow’s Collection, spanning prominent artists such as Claude Monet, Andy Warhol, and Gerhard Richter. While the pieces seem to comprise a highly eclectic selection, Banner has included them for very distinctive reasons:
“The works that I was drawn to are self reflective, they challenge their own medium: paintings that discuss themselves as reproduction; photographs that deny the image or perform some kind of act of self portraiture; sculpture that declares the impossibility of its own authenticity - each work slumped in the psychiatrist’s chair, holding a mirror up to itself”.
With this cognitive focus and introspective approach, it becomes clear that Stamp Out Photographie presents a unique, conceptually cohesive, and much-deserved look at a rarely seen collection.
Don’t miss Fiona Banner selects from the V-A-C collection: Stamp Out Photographie at London’s Whitechapel Galleryfrom 9 December 2014 – 8 March 2015!
Untitled Event
70s/80s band Wire have curated a new and exciting multi-venue festival, this year hosted in Brighton.
Kris Knight Hits Miami Beach with Pop-up Solo Exhibition
While the art world is currently entranced with the hype and excitement surrounding the stunning art and prominent galleries comprising Art Basel’s annual Miami Beach event, the fair itself is just one of the beach’s many art-centric sites to check out this December. In addition to outdoor installations and satellite fairs, myriad pop-up exhibitions are materializing across Miami Beach, helping to kick off Miami Art Week and heightening the city’s current cultural buzz. One of these pop-up exhibitions, Smell the Magic (presented by Spinello Projects) has emerged in the heart of Miami and features the captivating paintings of contemporary artist Kris Knight.
Based in Toronto, Knight paints enchanting portraits of disenchanted figures. Exploring provocative themes that span sexuality, juvenescence, and issues of identity, the artist constantly addresses the inherent dialogue between imaginative fantasy and real-life existence. This innate interest in contradiction is present throughout much of the work presented in Smell the Magic, as his paintings “tiptoe between the dichotomies of pretty and menace, hunter and hunted, innocence and the erotic.”
While aesthetically modern, embedded within Knight’s paintings are “historical notions of regality, mysticism, romanticism and symbolism.” Though his subjects are classically posed and realistically rendered, their ghostly complexions and ambiguous personas reflect the artist’s tendency toward a more experimental and offbeat approach.
Rooted in juxtaposition and undeniably evocative of the past, Knight’s surreal, pastel paintings offer a beautifully modern twist on traditional portraiture.
See the eccentric paintings for yourself! Smell the Magic is on view now through December 15 at Spinello Projects Pop-Up (95 NE 40th Street) in the Miami Design District!