Our pick of this week’s art events: 29 October – 5 November

RA Recommends

Published 30 October 2015

From the alluring sculptures of Cristina Iglesias to Bristol & Bath’s Art Weekender, we highlight our recommendations of art to see this week.

  • Cristina Iglesias: Phreatic Zones

    Marian Goodman Gallery, London, 30 October – 19 December
    Now open at Marian Goodman Gallery is the first solo exhibition of Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias in London for 12 years. Throughout her career Iglesias has developed a very unusual and adventurous sculptural language, working to blend architectural and natural forms. For this installation of works, Iglesias has transformed the gallery into a beautifully alluring space. Recesses set into a raised gallery floor reveal sculptural topographies of aluminium, with water ebbing and flowing through them.

  • Cristina Iglesias, Phreatic Zones (Installation view)

    Cristina Iglesias, Phreatic Zones (Installation view), 2015.

    Aluminium and water. © Cristina Iglesias. Courtesy the Artist and Marian Goodman Gallery. Image credit: Stephen White.

  • Egpyt: Faith after the Pharaohs

    British Museum, London, 29 October – 7 February 2016
    This major exhibition covers 1200 years of Egyptian history, tracing the religious, cultural and social shifts following the death of Cleopatra and Mark Antony in 30 BC, and the legacy of ancient Egypt. Drawing on exceptionally rich archaeological resources, the show brings together 200 objects, ranging from the world’s oldest surviving Bible to Roman bronze sculptures, interwoven with often over-looked historical context. Underlying the exhibition is a reflection upon the transition from a society that worshipped many Gods to a society devoted to one God.

  • Chantal Akerman: NOW

    Ambika P3 gallery, London, 30 October – 6 December
    This is the first large-scale exhibition of the late Chantal Akerman’s work in the UK and presents seven of her works installed in this extraordinary 14,000 sq ft concrete space. Akerman is a key figure in feminist film-making and avant-garde cinema, and the exhibition is testament to the remarkable depth and diversity of her oeuvre.

    The centrepiece of the exhibition is NOW (2015) – a powerful eight-channel video installation of footage taken from desert regions of areas of conflict in the Middle East. Other highlights include D’Est: au bord de la ficition (1995) set across 25 adjacent monitors, and Maniac Shadows (2013) set across 2 adjoining spaces. The exhibition is all the more poignant given Akerman’s tragically unexpected death earlier this month. It serves as a tribute to her life of compelling and poetic image-making.

  • Chantal Akerman, D’est, au bord de la fiction (From the East: bordering on fiction)

    Chantal Akerman, D’est, au bord de la fiction (From the East: bordering on fiction), 1995.

    Direction: Chantal Akerman, editing: Claire Atherton.

    Installation in 2 rooms with 24 + 1 monitors. Courtesy the artist and Marian Goodman Gallery.

  • Rachael Champion | Agnes Denes | Rachel Pimm

    Hales Gallery, London, 29 October – 18 December
    This exhibition at Hales Gallery brings together three artists who explore the relationship between humanity and nature. Their distinctive practices are united by their refusal to uphold the traditional distinctions between humanity and nature. As a result, their works reassess materials and their place in their surrounding environments: from Denes establishing an iconic wheat field in New York City (Wheatfield, 1982); Pimm investigating the production of rubber, in its journey from finite natural resource to commercial product (India Rubber, 2015); all centred around Raze Bloom (2015) Champion’s sculptural installation of a small ecosystem within the gallery. The artists offer different perspectives on how nature has been abstracted and exploited by human kind.

  • Agnes Denes, View with New York Financial Center. Wheatfield – A Confration: Battery Park Landfill, Downtain Manhattan

    Agnes Denes, View with New York Financial Center. Wheatfield – A Confration: Battery Park Landfill, Downtain Manhattan, 1982.

    © Agnes Denes.

  • Art Weekender, across Bristol & Bath.

    Various locations across Bristol & Bath, Friday 30 October – Sunday 1 November
    If you’re at a loss at what to do this weekend make your way to the West Country. This weekend Bristol and Bath will be full to the brim with cultural activity, with their Art Weekender – three days celebrating art across the two cities, produced by Situations, the Bristol-based public-art organisation.

    There are a host of public events including Walk & Talks, family workshops and film screenings. Not to mention you can also get behind the scenes at the Fashion Museum, catch Richard Long RA’s retrospective at Arnolfini, and see the Royal West of England Academy’s 163rd Annual Open Exhibition. Other highlights include American artist Theaster Gates transformation of the remains of Bristol’s Temple Church into Sanctum (a performance space with a continuous programme 24 hours a day for 24 nights until 21 November) and exhibition tours at Spike Island, Bristol’s contemporary art community. There is a brilliant series of suggested itineraries to help you get the most out of the weekend.

  • Installation shot, Theaster Gate's Sanctum, Bristol

    Installation shot, Theaster Gate's Sanctum, Bristol

    Photo by Max McClure