advent calendar 2016 - part 2 (7 - 12 December)

Continuing our part 2 of the advent calendar series featured on our instagram in the run-up to Christmas:

Day 7: Gazelli Art House @gazelliarthouse recommends Philip Colbert's neon artwork. Pop!  a toast for a happy holiday & wonderful 2017! 

Day 8: Calvert 22 @calvert22foundation recommends Associated Nostalgia by Bulgarian-born photographer Eugenia Maximova @emax, one of the artists exhibiting at 2016 New East Photo Prize Exhibition. The series presents colourful trinkets that belonged t Eugenia Maximova o the artist's relatives & friends who displayed them in their homes during Bulgaria's otherwise bleak communist period. These objects are of little monetary value but now represent the priceless memories & family histories which the photos celebrate. 

Day 9: Leyden Gallery @leyden_gallery recommends South African born Vivienne Koorland. Her solo exhibition Soft Heart has at its own nodal core, the intersection of the Artist’s Body and a Body of Art travelling. Koorland is also currently showing together with William Kentridge at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh. Her​ painting 'Soft Heart' appears​over Christmas & the New Year​ in the Winter Salon at Leyden Gallery from 15.12.2016 to 14.01.2017

Day 10: Maria-Lena Hedberg's work is featured in the group show 'Shifting States' at Espacio Gallery @espaciogallery. The exhibition presents works in various media / formats. The creative processes of the participating artists involve entering a state of flux in which the destination is initially unknown. The overt subject might be a time, a place or a psychological state – or all of the above.

Day 11: Candice Lin's System for a Stain installed in Gasworks gallery @gasworkslondon explores how histories of slavery & colonialism have been shaped by human attraction to particular colours, tastes, textures & drugs. It combines organic processes with DIY mechanics to create a metabolic machine that echoes the unrelenting flow of bodies & matter in colonial trade. Incorporating various handmade trinkets and curios, such as glazed cochineal vases and a tea strainer based on the upturned bust of Scottish botanist Robert Fortune, the installation transforms prized, historically loaded goods into a blood-like stain.

Day 12: Here is Big Bifur by Jean-Luc Moulène currently on display in the group show Thinking Tantra at Drawing Room @drawingroom_ldn . A trans-historical exhibition that begins with anonymous Tantric drawings, the collection dates from the second half of the 19th century, continues with work made in the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s by Indian artists & includes work by 10 international contemporary artists. Tantra is a body of beliefs & practices that enables individuals to conjoin with something much larger than themselves - 'nothing short of cosmic forces'.

See the previous entries at part 1 here.