Our pick of this week’s art events: 28 September - 2 October

RA Recommends

Published 26 September 2014

From C.R.W. Nevinson’s images of the First World War at Osborne Samuel London, to a new body of work from Kai Althoff at Michael Werner.

  • C.R.W. Nevinson: A Printmaker in War & Peace

    Osborne Samuel, London, until 18 October 2014
    Any enthusiast for graphic art should head down to Mayfair’s Osborne Samuel this month to see a comprehensive exhibition of the superlative prints of C.R.W. Nevinson. The British artist most memorably made Futurist images of the First World War, although the looser, picturesque, post-war landscapes demonstrate how broad his skills were.

  • C.R.W. Nevinson, Returning to the Trenches

    C.R.W. Nevinson, Returning to the Trenches, 1916.

    Drypoint. 15.2 x 20.4 cm. Copy : Osborne Samuel Gallery, London.

  • A Game in Hell: The Great War in Russia

    GRAD, London, until 27 November 2014
    The centenary of the First World War is an opportunity to understand the conflict from other countries point of view as well as that of Britain. The capital’s GRAD gallery enlightens us on the Russian experience of the Great War, through both archive material and artworks, including woodcuts by the modernist Natalia Goncharova, which make a fascinating contrast with the work of Nevinson.

  • Minister of War Aleksandr Kerensky addressing the troops, 1917

    Minister of War Aleksandr Kerensky addressing the troops, 1917

    Courtesy Anthony d'Offay and GRAD

  • Roadtrips by Routemaster

    Across London, until 11 October 2014
    It was, of course, émigrés escaping successive conflicts in Europe who, when they came to Britain, helped transform the country’s art and architecture. The National Trust is organising a new programme of its cultural Routemaster tours of London this autumn, including a tour that takes in the exceptional work of Ernö Goldfinger, whose pioneering modernist buildings – such as Poplar’s Balfron Tower – set a template for the capital’s twentieth century built environment. For two weeks from 1 October, the National Trust is opening to the public the flat (No 130) in which Goldfinger himself lived in the Balfron Tower.

  • National Trust London Routemaster Bus Tours

    National Trust London Routemaster Bus Tours

    Courtesy Sophia Schorr-Kon

  • Mario Merz

    Pace London, until 8 November 2014
    The subject of a new show at Pace London, Arte Povera associate Mario Merz is famous for his use of one particular form: the igloo. The Italian artist-intellectual has build half-hemispheres out of unlikely materials since the late 1960s, and included in Pace London’s exhibition are two examples, one rudimentarily wrought in sheet glass, the other in sheets of stone. Together they comprise one work whose title – Movements of the Earth and the Moon on the Axis (2003) – asserts celestial associations on these primitive habitations.

  • Mario Merz, Movements of the Earth and Moon on an Axis

    Mario Merz, Movements of the Earth and Moon on an Axis, 2003.

    Triple igloo, metal tubes, glass stone, neon, clamps, clay. 596.9 x 497.8 x 294.6 cm. © Mario Merz by SIAE, Courtesy Fondazione Merz.

  • Lawrence Weiner

    South London Gallery, until 23 November 2014
    In 1968, Lawrence Weiner produced a book Statements in which epigrammatic pieces of text described actions or objects. In the American artist’s conceptual framework there was no need to actually perform or produce the projects, as the texts – and the ideas they communicated – were sufficient. Since the 1970s he has continued along the same lines, inscribing enigmatic texts in non-descript fonts along gallery walls, through the process exploring what words can convey.

  • Installation view of All In Due Course, Lawrence Weiner, 2014

    Installation view of All In Due Course, Lawrence Weiner, 2014

    Photograph by Andy Keate

  • Kai Althoff

    Michael Werner, London, until 15 November 2014
    And, last but not least, I’m looking forward seeing Kai Althoff’s work ‘in the flesh’ for the first time, as his solo show opens at Michael Werner’s smart London space. German Expressionism appears alive and well in the Cologne-born, New York-based artist’s paintings and drawings.

  • Kai Althoff, Untitled

    Kai Althoff, Untitled, 2014.

    Oil and varnish on fabric. 112 x 105 x 3 cm. © The Artist. Courtesy Michael Werner Gallery, New York and London.