UK exhibitions: January 2015

Ruth Ewan takes us back to the fields at CAC...
Ruth Ewan takes us back to the fields at CAC…

Happy New Year to readers everywhere. Here’s the first of a monthly round up of shows in (usually) public sector spaces around the UK. So, if you’re in Britain in January 2015, you won’t want to miss…

Grace Schwindt: Only a Free Individual Can Create a Free Society, Site Gallery, Sheffield, 10 Jan – 28 Feb. If your experience of taxi drivers is all Magic FM and reactionary politics, you’ll be pleasantly surprised here. Schwindt interviews a German taxi driver, and former 60s/70s radical, for a filmic 90 minute trip.

Rights of Nature: Art and Ecology in the Americas, Nottingham Contemporary, 24 Jan to 15 Mar. Twenty pan-American artists bear witness to an environmental crisis with displays themed around the Amazon, the Andes, the Arctic and the Gulf of Mexico. If Bolivia and Ecuador can give legal rights to Mother Nature, can we hope a wave of the future is building across the Atlantic?

Isabelle Cornaro: Paysage Avec Poussin/Témoins Oculaires, South London Gallery and Spike Island, Bristol, 24 Jan – 05 Apr/29 Mar. With training in the academic study of mannerism, Cornaro promises to demonstrate the way that art affects our perception. Resonant objects abound in a major installation at SLG and new works in the West Country. It’s a double header.

Self: Image and Identity, Turner Contemporary, Margate, 24 Jan – 10 May. As the gallery is already hinting, this exhibition could put the selfie phenomena in art historical perspective. Visitors can expect over 100 self-centred works, many from the National Portrait Gallery, from Sir Anthony van Dyck to Louise Bourgeois.

Ruth Ewan: Back to the Fields, Camden Arts Centre, London, 30 Jan – 29 Mar. In post-revolutionary France they enjoyed post-revolutionary time. London-based artist Ewan returns to her interest in the decimal clock and calendar with a major installation which brings together 365 seasonal objects with republican leanings.

Agree? Disagree? Seen something which criticismism has missed. Please feel free, as ever, to leave a comment.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *