RA Magazine's pick of this week’s art events (6 - 13 Dec)

Posted: 06 December 2012 by Sam Phillips

Hong Kong Eye
Saatchi Gallery, until 12 January 2013
Hong Kong is fast becoming an important hub of the international contemporary art market. Art Basel, for instance, is starting a sister fair in the city in 2013 (Art Basel’s sister fair in Miami is staged this week, as discussed in my blog), and influential dealers such as Gagosian and White Cube have set up gallery spaces.

_{12 artists arrive in London for the Launch of Hong Kong Eye, the first major international showcase of Hong Kong art. L-R Ladder: Amy Cheung, Au Hoi Lam 2nd Row: Ho Sin Tung, Annie Wan, Fiona Wong, Adrian Wong, Lui Chun Kwong, Justin Wong, Joao Vasco Paiva, Kong Chung Hei Front seat: Leung Kui Ting, Morgan Wong Photo credit: David Parry.}

But Hong Kong-based artists have yet to be exposed in such measure to audiences in other countries. A show called ‘Hong Kong Eye’, which opened at the Saatchi Gallery on Wednesday, seeks to change that by presenting 18 emerging artists from the city, including Silas Fong, whose video installations often focus on overlooked moments in its urban life.

_{Cupid’s Laboratory by Goldsmithing, Silversmithing, Metalwork & Jewellery student, Noémie Doge, are sterling silver brooches that are handmade in Switzerland and packaged in glass test tubes at £60 each.} Christmas craft shopping
RCA, 6 – 9 December; The New Craftsman, 3 - 15 December
I’m looking forward to doing some Christmas and Channukah shopping this weekend at the Royal College of Art Christmas Fête, where students and graduates are selling plenty of gift items that will put a smile on relatives’ faces. Click here for some of the items: I think my dad might like one of Jack Smith’s birdhouses, so leave one for me. Another option is The New Craftsmen pop-up shop in Mayfair, open until 15 December, where makers from across the UK will be selling beautiful examples of craftsmanship, including furniture, textiles, ceramics and jewellery. There are also demonstrations of different crafts every day – see their website for more details.

_{The New Craftsman’s pop up shop in Mayfair.}

_{Patrick Hughes, 'Bedside Reading', 2012. Oil on board construction, 18 x 19 x 6.5 cm. ©Patrick Hughes} Focus on Flowers
Flowers, Cork St, 7 Dec – 5 January 2013
Give yourself a memorable Christmas present at the annual end-of-year show at Flowers Gallery on Cork Street, ‘Small is Beautiful’, which opens this Friday. There is one rule, as the title suggests: all artists submit works no bigger than 9 by 7 inches in size. It will be interesting to see what Patrick Hughes presents, known as he is for large-scale trompe l'oeil painted reliefs. Academicians participating include painters Tom Phillips and Albert Irvin, and sculptor Bryan Kneale. Across town, the Kingsland Road branch of Flowers has just opened a show celebrating its founder Angela Flowers’ 80th birthday, featuring works by artists with whom she has worked with for more than 40 years, from Pop artist Richard Smith to photographer Edward Burtynsky.

_{Alfred Munnings, 'The Start', c. 1950. Oil on board: 16 x 20 in / 40.6 x 50.8 cm. Exhibited, Royal Academy, Diploma Gallery, Exhibition of Works by Sir Alfred J Munnings, KCVO,PPRA, 1956, no. 250. Copyright: Richard Green Gallery, London.} LAST CHANCE: Alfred Munnings
Richard Green, until 14 December 2012
Painter Sir Alfred Munnings PPRA is remembered in many quarters more for his attacks on modernist art than his own work; in 1949 he used a speech as president to denigrate Picasso and, broadcast on the radio, it caused some controversy, seeming to represent the British art establishment’s ingrained antipathy towards artistic experimentation. Richard Green on New Bond Street gives an opportunity to judge Munnings as an important artist in his own right – he was a master of equestrian painting, able to capture the energy of a horse’s movement in a race or, in the still poses of equestrian portraits, the vitality of its flesh.

_{Hammer Prints Ltd (Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi), 'Portobello', c.1955. Wallpaper. Photo: Douglas Atfield. © The estate of Eduardo Paolozzi. All rights reserved, the estate of Nigel Henderson.} Nigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi
firstsite, 8 Dec – 27 February 2013
Colchester’s firstsite gallery stages a very interesting looking show from Sunday about the print design collaboration between Eduardo Paolozzi RA and Nigel Henderson, Hammer Prints Ltd. The two artists were firm friends before they came together as part of the famous Independent Group in 1952; they met at the Slade and Henderson visited Paolozzi regularly when the latter lived in Paris in the late 1940s. Hammer Prints was established in 1954 and produced nine patterns that went into production, manufactured as wallpaper and textiles. The exhibition traces the development of their designs and the history of their applied art experiments in the context of their other output.