Art: The Land We Live in; The Land we Left Behind

Marcus Coates, Apple Service

Five years ago, Europe’s most important gallerist Iwan Wirth and his wife Manuela Hauser stunned the art world by opening a new gallery not in Paris, New York or Mayfair but Bruton, a remote Somerset town. It proved a phenomenal success.

In general, the galleries feature works by works by the host of artists Hauser & Wirth represent – Paul McCarthy and Louise Bourgeois among them – but the current exhibition is completely different. It is about rural life; or more exactly our perverse relationships with nature. They say never work with animals, in art this is just as true.
Until May 17th at Hauser & Wirth, Bruton, Somerset, UK.

Provider 2017
Hauserwirthsomerset.com

French Impressionism and the triumph of colour

More than 65 Impressionist masterpieces have made the journey to the southern hemisphere to bring Australians a rare sight of some of the most popular artists who have ever lived. The approach has been to explore the use of colour as the guiding force behind the evolution of the 19th century’s most influential art movement. Today, we see the world newly through eyes long used to the Impressionists. It is hard to credit the extent to which the colours they used reshaped the world of 19th century painting. One example, Claude Monet’s Magpie, painted in the freezing outdoors, shows a scene in a total break with convention and was rejected by official Salon precisely for its novel palette of pale colours.

From March 29th until July 29th 2018 in the Art Gallery of South Australia
Artgallery.sa.gov.au

Keith Haring – The Alphabet

The work of Keith Haring is instantly recognisable. This is in part due to the fact that he wanted his art to be accessible to the masses not just the elite. Oddly the current exhibition at the Albertina, Vienna, marks a birthday that never happened; Haring would have been 60 this year had AIDs not claimed his life in 1988 when he was just 32.

Born into a religious family, Haring’s father was an amateur cartoonist and the style fascinated Haring. Experimenting with drugs, going on road trips and reading William Burroughs all played a part in the formation of his stylistic language, which is explored in the current exhibition.

Until June 24th at the Albertina, Vienna, Austria
Albertina.at

Ocean Liners – Speed and Style

The V&A has been described as a ‘national attic of artefacts from Raphael cartoons to Chinese ice-chests’ which I suppose gives it liberty to flirt with all sorts of shows that are on the fringe of its original purpose. Now with former education minister MP Tristan Hunt (who has no curatorial background) at the helm, the V&A is again sailing into new waters.

An exhibition on ocean liners might appear better suited to the National Maritime Museum but the focus on artefacts from luxurious stateroom carpets to William de Morgan tileworks brings it closer to the V&A’s home ground of arts and crafts. There is a host of decorative objects: Art Deco panels and chairs, posters, dresses, screens and so forth. Relics from both Titanic and Lusitania are on show and a beautiful painting by Stanley Spencer from his series Shipbuilding on the Clyde is one of the highlights in this jumble of artefacts.
Until June 17th at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK

www.vam.ac.uk

Man Ray

While his photography is always the subject of every overview of Dadaism and Surrealism, Man Ray thought of himself primarily as a painter. “I paint what cannot be photographed, that which comes from the imagination or from dreams, or from an unconscious drive. I photograph the things that I do not wish to paint, the things which already have an existence,” he once said.

Ray also drew, designed, made films and objects, wrote and invested his talents enthusiastically in typography, book and magazine design while pursuing a career as experimental fashion photographer for Harper’s Bazaar and Vogue. All this spanning a long life – Ray died aged 86 – provides enviable scope for Kunstforum’s new exhibition devoted to ‘the universal Man Ray’. This show brings together 150 works of all media that present a complete view of an enigmatic and complex artist and personality.
Until June 24th at Bank Austria Kunstforum, Vienna Austria

Kunstforumwien.at 

Charles I King and Collector

It is strange to reflect that King Charles I was executed just 15 minutes’ walk from Burlington House where a monumental show of works collected by the monarch has just opened. Coveted masterpieces from the 15th to the 17th centuries, include works by Van Dyck – who became his court painter – Rubens, Holbein and Titian.

Charles I: King and Collector reunites 140 important works for the first time and gives an insight into the connoisseurship within the King’s circle. Anthony van Dyck’s monumental portraits of the king form the core of the exhibition with three magnificent equestrian portraits, including Le Roi à la Chasse from the Louvre.

Until April 15th at the,
Royal Academy, Piccadilly, London, UK
Royalacademy.org.uk

Air Fairs:

Dates for your diary this spring

The Armory Show 2018
8th – 11th March
12th Avenue at 55th Street, New York, USA

TEFAF
9th – 18th March
Maastricht Exhibition & Congress Centre,
Maastricht, Belgium

Affordable Art Fair
21st – 25th March
125 West 18th Street, New York, USA

Art Dubai
21st – 24th March
Madinat Jumeirah, Al Sufouh Road,
Dubai, UAE

Old Master Drawings
22nd March
Sotheby’s,
Paris, France

 Walid Juffali Collection of Art
26th March
Bonhams at Bishopsgate House Surrey, UK

Art Paris Art Fair
4th – 8th April
Grand Palais,
Paris, France

 Peru Art
Contemporain
18th – 22nd April
Barranco Museo de Arte Contemporaneo
Lima, Peru

Art Cologne
19th – 22nd April
Cologne, Germany

Images Festival
12th – 20th April
Multiple venues Toronto, Canada