RA Magazine's pick of this week’s art events (6–12 July)

Posted: 05 July 2012 by Sam Phillips

The Gallery of Lost Art
www.galleryoflostart.com
You don't have to leave your computer to visit the most unusual exhibition that opened this week. The Gallery of Lost Art is Tate’s imaginative online examination of major works of art that can be no longer seen because they have been destroyed, stolen or otherwise lost.

Michael Landy, 'Break Down', 2001. Photo: Hugh Glendinning. © Michael Landy. Courtesy of Artangel, London and Thomas Dane Gallery, London.

One can speculate on how differently the 21 included artists might be seen had these particular works not – intentionally or accidentally – gone astray. Picasso rather than his collaborator Braque is known as the chief innovator of cubist sculpture, but had the latter’s paper constructions survived the textbooks might well read differently.

Sculpture at the Chelsea Physic Garden
10 July – 31 October 2012‏
Chelsea Physic Garden is London’s oldest botanic garden. This hidden horticultural gem, open from April to October each year, stages an exhibition from this Tuesday in which contemporary sculptors respond to its bucolic environment.

Peter Randall-Page, 'Parting Company II', 1996. Golden limestone. Installation view of the work at a previous exhibition.

Over 20 artists participate, including Peter Randall-Page – whose monumental abstract forms are covered in geometric patterns – and Tania Kovats, known for projects that sensitively explore the symbolic and cultural value of natural landscapes.

The Bruce Lacey Experience
7 July – 16 September 2012
From this Friday Camden Arts Centre celebrates the career of Bruce Lacey, a widely admired, wildly eccentric figure who came to prominence in Britain’s 1960s counter-cultural art scene.

Bruce Lacey, 'A Silly Bugger Artist’s Life at the Tax Payer’s Expense', 2011. Norwich Arts Centre. Photo: Anne-Marie Watson.

Lacey’s performances, films and installations – characterised by comedic, kinetic robots that he formed from salvaged objects – have roots in the decade’s multidisciplinary art events, or ‘Happenings’. The Camden exhibition is co-curated by artist Jeremy Deller, who we interviewed this week. Lacey’s life is a perfect subject for Deller, whose own works have often examined artistic individuals and social groups under-represented in mainstream culture.

Frank Bowling RA, 'Yo Eyton, from Frank A to Frank B', 2012. 27.5 x 22in. Frank Bowling RA
6 July – 31 August 2012
To coincide with the year-long display at Tate Britain of Frank Bowling’s poured paintings from the 1970s, the Guyana-born Academician has been the subject of several commercial gallery shows, including an exhibition of recent canvases at Shoreditch’s Hales Gallery that closes its doors at the end of Saturday.

The baton is passed to gallery Eleven Spitalfields, which presents from Friday new small pieces that emit the same expressive energy, in the same kaleidoscopic palette, as the larger-scale abstractions for which the British artist is famed.

Francesca Lowe
10 July – 11 August 2012
Former RA Schools student Francesca Lowe (class of 2004) gained acclaim during and after her time at the Academy with paintings that layered fantastical figurative elements in a highly graphic style. From Monday Soho’s Riflemaker gallery presents a new development in Lowe’s practice that she terms ‘book cuts’.

Francesca Lowe, 'Corona', 2012. Book cut from Christie's New York Post War, Nov 2011.

The London-born artist uses a knife to intricately incise the pages of a chosen book or magazine, producing a new, elaborate sculptural form as a result. A repeated motif is a tree: in Corona and Deliverance (both 2012), the pages of two Christie’s catalogues are transformed into a colourful arboretum.

Romuald Hazoumè
28 June – 11 August 2012
The best-known work in Britain of Benin-born artist Romuald Hazoumè is La Bouche du Roi (1997–2005), an audio-sculptural installation that features over 300 masks made out of plastic petrol cans, which was acquired by the British Museum in 2007 before touring the country over the following two years.

Hazoumè now shows more recent works at London’s October Gallery, including mask pieces, photographs and two large-scale assemblages. Water Cargo (2012) is comprised of a scooter of the type used for shuttling goods around the Benin capital Porto-Novo; it has been transformed into a bird by wings made out of rubber water-carrying vessels.

Installation view of 'Then and Now' at The Piper Gallery. Edward Allington and Vaughan Grylls
29 June – 11 August 2012
The Piper Gallery aims to showcase artists whose careers are long established, but who aren't necessarily household names. They begin with a joint exhibition of British artists Edward Allington and Vaughan Grylls entitled ‘Then and Now’, contrasting their early pieces from the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s with very recent works.

Grylls is known for his photocollage works: A Fresh Window (2012) plays on the form of a stained-glass rose window, with a circumference of medieval sculptural heads surrounding unposed photographs of contemporary people.

Allington’s 1980s sculptures saw him bracketed with New British Sculptors like Tony Cragg RA and Richard Deacon RA. Unsupported Support (1987) – a stone Corinthian capital stuck on a wall without a column underneath and with nothing to support – exemplifies his playfulness with existing objects.

PLUS - Last chance: Wide Open School at Hayward Gallery, SE1 closes 11 July. Here Michael Landy RA discusses his involvement in the show in RA Magazine, Summer 2012