Interview with George Wachter

Art Unlimited March/April 2018 Issue 

"I managed to catch George Wachter on one of his usual busy work trips to London. As the Chairman of Sotheby’s North and South America and Co-Chairman of Old Master Paintings Worldwide, he is frequently on the go. George started his career at Sotheby’s over forty years ago, and along the way has influenced and encouraged many who were finding their way in the art world, including myself. I’m curious to find out how his journey began and developed and what valuable lessons and experiences he has to share." Read the rest of the interview here. 

Interview with Candida Gertler, OBE

Art Unlimited November/December 2017 Issue

Co-founder of Outset Contemporary Art Fund, member of Tate International Council, great supporter of arts, living in London, having a family... We spoke to Candida Gertler as the second guest of Extended Talks series where we're hosting international art professionals from different fields. Read the rest of the interview here. 

Interview with Lord Peter Palumbo

Art Unlimited September/October 2017 Issue

"People strive to do this and that but actually what remains after all that is very little," says 82 year old Lord Peter Palumbo, with great humbleness, wisdom from all the life experience. I spoke to Palumbo as the first guest of the Extended Talks series where I will be hosting international art professionals from different fields, a bout a variety of subjects from his collaboration with names like Mies van der Rohe, Henry Moore, and Richard Rogers, to his collection of architectural work, and from his criticism of architecture in England to his admiration of Thatcher. Read the full-interview below.

Tom Lowe: Extra Ordinary

Curated by Burcu Yuksel
November 8 - 24, 2017
Unit 10 Huntingdon Estate, Bethnal Green Road, London, E1 6JU
Open Wednesday - Saturday, 12:00 - 18:00

Ballon Rouge is pleased to present Tom Lowe’s Extra Ordinary , curated by Burcu Yuksel in London, UK from November 8 - 24, 2017, www.ballonrougecollective.com 

This will mark Ballon Rouge’s second exhibition. Ballon Rouge’s inaugural show was in September in Istanbul; after stopping in London, Ballon Rouge will continue showing curated solo exhibitions through to next November 2018 in Los Angeles, New York, Brussels, Sao Paulo and Paris. In each of these cities are trusted collective members, Ballon Rouge’s curators. They will find and exhibit a local artist in a temporary space.

Tom Lowe is an artist who works mostly in paints and pencils, and whose work subverts what it means to see and experience as both artist and human. Lowe is interested in consumerism and commodity culture in the digital age, and analyses how we consume images and how they circulate, creating new forms of curation. In this newest series of paintings, similar to Pop art pioneers Sigmar Polke and Jasper Johns, Lowe studies the everyday; from the moon, to folded jeans, to mountain tops and brick walls, the inclusivity of his subjects and his choice to repeat and recreate his own paintings is a decided move to be matter-of-fact. The goal is to make the least creative paintings possible, a step further from a still-life these paintings are like snapshots of mundanity, each work both unique and multiplied. The result is a take on what it means to be an artist, what representation itself is, what the value of a painting is, and what role the viewer plays in all of the above.

Lowe was born in Newcastle, UK in 1982, and received his Bachelors in drawing from UAL, Camberwell College in 2006. His solo exhibitions include, Making it in America, London (2014), and They Think Its All Over, Horton Gallery, NY (2011). Lowe has exhibited works in Brussels, New York, LA, and London.

All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Burnt...

CURATED BY BURCU YÜKSEL & HUMA KABAKCI 

30TH SEPTEMBER - 13TH OCTOBER 2016, 11AM - 6PM

MANHATTAN LOFT GARDENS GALLERY, 65 HOPTON ST, LONDON, SE1 9JL 

Artkurio and Open Space Contemporary are pleased to announce All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Burnt..., a group exhibition developed to showcase internationally known young, emerging contemporary artists from the UK, Turkey and worldwide. Supported by the Manhattan Loft Corporation in London, the exhibition proposes to discuss concepts of consumption, materiality, and objecthood in light of today’s contemporary environment. 

In the age of Globalisation, once described as the latest name for imperialism by Clifford McLucas, the world has changed dramatically and rapidly, affecting economic, social, political and cultural aspects of life, which have brought not only opportunities but also challenges. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” by Walter Benjamin states that the mass reproduction of art has a consequence on the “aura” of the art itself. In other terms, the existence of an artwork in time and space gradually loses its function as an individual unit by means of reproduction. All Fun And Games Until Someone Gets Burnt... will focus on the reinterpretation of materiality and the context it plays in the 21stcentury, featuring emerging artists that work across disciplines such as installation, painting, sculpture, video, stitching and works on paper.

The use of materiality, value, use of consumption and acquisition of goods play a significant role in the exhibition, which acts as a social commentary on the contemporary art market, mass production and fabrication of artworks, and further explores the materiality used in relation to the value of theobject. In this context, the idea of belonging and ownership also plays an important role when relating to status and self-identity. The artists included in the exhibition centrally explore and critique these concepts with a multifaceted approach, often featuring sites of consumption, acquisition of goods and tracing the histories of objects in their work.

The panel of artists include Patrick Hough, who deals with critical questions around cinema, technology and museology, through an archive of historical film props. Through questioning mankind’s relationship with objects, Hough reflects on the ways in which cinematic images are indelibly embedded in our perception of history.

Ahmet Civelek’s Spoon Paintings highlight his interests in the everyday. In comparison to his previous Puzzle Paintings,these works are an amalgamation between painting and sculpture, addressing manipulation, reconstruction and destruction of the object with a distinctly humorous undertone.

Working and living in Istanbul, Güneş Terkol considers the relationships and social conditions of found materials she has encountered in her immediate environment, in order to re-use these fabrics to construct narratives through sewing, videos, sketches and musical compositions.

Influenced by Minimalism, Abstract Art and Arte Povera Rebecca Ward’s practice surrounds the iconography of feminine gesture. Her paintings and large scale installations,experiment with a wide range of non-traditional materials including: bleach, spray paint, tape and dye.

In her ongoing Destination installation series Meriç Algün Ringborg challenges our understanding of what constitutes a nation. Ringborg concentrates on issues of identity, borders, bureaucracy and language, and assembles the objects and texts that a traveller can take while crossing a country’s border.

For Rafal Zajko, consumption plays a significant role in our lives, which he develops in the context of his sculptures or, in the artist’s words, “physical pieces”. Zajko dissects his pieces to their bare bones to express a diverse language; a language that questions the relationship between abstraction and figuration and performance, referencing materiality, texture and intervention. This is not to mention the technological aspect of Zajko’s work, which is often improvised and has a very DIY aesthetic.