The best off the beaten track art shows in London
Harmony Korine: Fazors
Gagosian Davies St
Harmony Korine may be best known for his lurid, colour-drenched films such as Spring Breakers and Gummo, but he’s also an established artist. This exhibition, “Fazor”, refers to “a musical swirl of oscillating sound that summons the hypno-psychedelic effects”. The result is a collection of jarring, hypnotic pieces based around concentric circles that recall sun motifs from the 1960s and 70s.
17-19 Davies St, W1K 3DE
Allen Jones: Maîtresse
Michael Werner Gallery
Allen Jones: maverick or misogynist? His sculptural works depicting women in fetish gear as coffee tables and recliners have polarised opinion. This exhibition of the paintings that form his “Maîtresse cycle” – inspired by the 1976 movie directed by Barbet Schroeder – plows a familiar furrow, with dozens of large-scale, lurid images of women wielding whips and wearing stiletto heels, as well as the odd mannequin-like sculpture.
22 Upper Brook St, W1K 7PZ
Lines
Lisson Gallery
The Lisson Gallery delivers on its simple promise: this is a celebration of the line, and an exploration of its possibilities. Fifteen artists display their interpretation of the line, from images of minimalist, ominous trees painted directly onto walls to a kind of frenzied scribble that bleeds onto the ground and seems to be trying to escape from a nearby window. It’s fun, slick and varied, with a video installation and work in various media.
52 Bell St, NW1 5BU
Gaia Fugazza
Zabludowicz Collection
Italian-born, Chelsea-educated artist Gaia Fugazza explores the tension between the wonder of being alive and the banality of everyday life. Smartphone screens become portals in compositions that use new and ancient techniques to experiment with notions of what makes a life natural or authentic. Fugazza’s figurative images, painted or carved on to a variety of organic materials, depict the intimate yet universal interactions that form the basis of human relationships.
176 Prince of Wales Road, NW3
Tom Wesselmann: Collages
Davis Zwirner
Tom Wesselmann may not have the renown of artists like Andy Warhol, but he was a leading figure in the emergence of pop art, producing large-scale, graphically influenced images depicting consumerism and suburban life. But that's not the focus here: on display at Davis Zwirner are a series of smaller collage pieces, an intimate collection offering an insight into the artist’s creative evolution, containing familiar elements such as interiors and still life pieces.
24 Grafton St, W1S 4EZ
Lari Pittman: Nocturnes
Thomas Dane Gallery
For over 30 years, the works of Lari Pittman have re-invented modern Symbolism, with paintings that are exuberant and hyper-real, yet meticulously layered. Populated by robotic figures and cabalistic signs, his “Nocturne” suites are the Cosmos-according-to-Pittman, which is meant to look and behave like the original, orderly, self-determined system it may have been following the Big Bang. Big ideas turned into a pictorial language, accompanied by a giant hand-painted book.
11 Duke St, SW1Y
Easter Rising 1916
The Photographer’s Gallery
The importance of photographs in the lead up to Irish independence is explored in this new exhibition, focusing on the role these images had in colouring the public mood. Using the 1916 rebellion as a central focal point, around 80 rarely-seen photographs from the collection of Sean Sexton are on display alongside souvenir postcards, albums, press cuttings and military photographs from the 1840s to 1930s that were used both to fight for and against autonomy from Westminster.
14-16 Ramillies Street, W1F
Dropping the Guru
Pippy Houldsworth Gallery
This exhibition explores the interplay between figurative painting and abstraction in three upcoming artists. Stefanie Heinze paints “hallucinatory scenes in which corporeal forms bleed into one another”. In her work recognisable elements such as interlocking fingers emerge from her loose brush-strokes. Similarly David Roeder weaves figurative elements into an abstract whole, while Ana Prata’s work, seems to decode the real into some kind of sensory truth.
6 Heddon St, London W1B 4BT