SHOWNews: Your Weekly Arts Bulletin

by Christina Donoghue on 8 January 2025

Your New Year's guide to the exhibitions and events to have on your radar this week.

Your New Year's guide to the exhibitions and events to have on your radar this week.

Sonia Boyce, Exquisite Tension, 2006, Single-channel HD colour video with sound and archive colour photographic print. Video duration: 4 minutes © Sonia Boyce.All Rights Reserved, DACS/Artimage 2024Courtesy of the artist, APALAZZO GALLERY and Hauser & Wirth Gallery

EXHIBITION

Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation at Whitechapel Gallery

Sometimes, the only true way to tell if an artwork has made an impact on us is to work out if it's made us feel something. What that something is I'm not quite sure, but really, it could be anything... as long as it's something. By these measures, Sonia Boyce's Whitechapel Gallery exhibition An Awkward Relation comes out on top thanks to Boyce choosing to follow in the footsteps of fellow Whitechapel Gallery exhibitor Lygia Clarke (as detailed in our festive SHOWNews) by creating work that 'explores the feelings of both involvement and uneasiness intrinsic to an approach that invites visitors to engage, touch and experience artworks and their surroundings in new and unscripted ways' - a process intentionally similar to Clarke's but equally, remarkably different. Despite Boyce's name most likely resonating with more people than Clarke's, both artists' careers are marked by asking questions; an act that speaks volumes in times of such political turmoil. The key takeaway? Questions are good. The awkwardness that can arise as a result? Even better. Like Clarke's, Boyce's An Awkward Relation ends next week on 12 January but if you're looking for an excuse to attend before the gallery's lights officially darken, the show will be opening late until 21:00 GMT this Thursday 9 January. See you there.

Sonia Boyce: An Awkward Relation at Whitechapel Gallery is open to the public until 12 January.

David Bowie by Nick Knight

EVENT

A Night Celebrating: David Bowie's Birthday at The Blues Kitchen Camden

This week is a rather special one for Bowie fans here, there and everywhere; not least because it's the singer's birthday (yes, that's today), but also because it marks the anniversary of Bowie's death. Whether you're a diehard fan or just like to bop along to a few of the classics, both events being so close together provide the perfect reason to celebrate Bowie's legacy - with Blues Kitchen Camden giving you the perfect opportunity to do exactly that. Head down to Camden on Friday 10 January to witness the venue's live band perform what they've described as 'the very best Bowie anthems'. Of course, as all Bowie heads know, this is a strongly contentious subject, debated by fans daily, if not hourly. That said, what better way to celebrate his legacy than listening to renditions of classics like 'Heroes', 'Starman', 'Under Pressure' and 'Changes'. I suppose there's only one thing left to do... let's dance?

This event is scheduled for Friday 10 January only. DJs and Live Music start at 21:00 GMT. Last entry 1:00 GMT. Open until 3 GMT. Grab your tickets at the link here.

'The Body Speaks' at Guts Gallery

EXHIBITION

The Body Speaks at Guts Gallery

Last month, Elsa Rouy (the little sister of Hauser & Wirth artist and SHOWstudio contributor George Rouy) took over the Guts Gallery's space with her exhibition A Screaming Object. Described by SHOWstudio as 'beautifully brutal', the show fruitfully marked Rouy's own pursuit of utilising paint 'to capture the volatile and unstable nature of the human body'; a sentiment the gallery have tightly held onto for 2025 as proven by their latest group show opening this week The Body Speaks, where, surprise, surprise, the human figure takes centre stage. Not only is the theme similar but so is the line-up which includes none other than young Rouy herself alongside fellow artists Yi Liu, Vanessa Liem, Georgia Semple and Shadi Al-Atallah. We could think of no better way to kick off 2025 than exploring the body through art.

The Body Speaks at Guts Gallery is open to the public from 10 January until 4 February.

Adam Farah, STROLLCAST with Abbas Zahedi for B-Sides [MOMENTATIONS MIX], 2020. Still from HD video with sound. 01h 02’ 51’’. © Adam Farah

FILM SCREENING

Harlesden High Street Screens Presents STROLLCAST

As part of Harlesden High Street Gallery's wider mission to put community at the centre, their latest initiative - Harlesden Video Club ’24 - sees the space reconverted into the ultimate hangout spot coveted with an array of DIY movie posters and homemade t-shirts, both of which will accompany any film lover who finds themselves immersed in the newly designed space to watch one of the short films featured on the gallery's latest roster of screenings. Next up is artist and Frieze London 2023 Prize Winner Adam Farrah's STROLLCAST and instead of revealing the plot, we'll let you find out for yourself and attend the gallery's screening of the film this Saturday 11 January.

STROLLCAST by Adam Farrah will be screened as part of the Harlesden High Street Video Club '24 on Saturday 11 January, 2025. For more information on exhibition artists and screening dates, click here.

Cover of Raymond Antrobus's 'Signs, Music' book, published by Picador Poetry

POETRY

TS Eliot Prize Shortlist Readings, Southbank Centre

Want to know the poets making waves in 2025? Get yourself down to Southbank Centre on 12 January to hear the best new poetry coming out of the UK and Ireland in an event hosted by poet Ian McMillan that features readings by the ten shortlisted poets for this year’s prize TS Eliot Prize: the world’s most prestigious prize for poetry. Writers shortlisted for this year's prize include: Raymond Antrobus, Gboyega Odubanjo, Karen McCarthy Woolf among others.

Presented in collaboration with the TS Eliot Foundation, this event will take place at the Royal Festival Hall on Sunday 12 January. Grab your tickets here.

Max Ernst, « L'ange du foyer (Le triomphe du surréalisme) », 1937 © Adagp, Paris. Vincent Everarts Photographie

EXHIBITION

Surrèalisme at Centre Pompidou, Paris

2024 marked a moment in art for many reasons. The one that flew high above them all, you ask? Well, when an industry collectively (and globally) kneels in tribute to the OG Surrealists - signifying an act of respect while also celebrating the movement's official centenary - you know there's something serious (and surreal) simmering. As galleries worldwide scrambled to the surrealist stage to unveil (and revel) in the absurd, angelic and the divine - or at the very least, the downright weird - audiences flocked in their thousands to worship the names in art routinely ricocheting from gallery to museum and back again. Trumping all the cards and efforts combined was the Centre Pompidou's Surrèalisme, which wowed Paris audiences as well as gallery-goers worldwide thanks to their comprehensive showcase revealing art by all the greats from Max Ernst and René Magritte to Salvador Dalí and Joan Miró. Alas, unlike André Breton's big bad boy's club of 1924, Centre Pompidou's take on the movement was thankfully updated to fit more inclusive times as proven by their featuring of female greats extending to the likes of Leonora Carrington, Ithell Colquhoun and Dora Maar. 2024 may be well and truly behind us but if you're a Paris-based art lover (or intrigued by the current Eurostar sale that's got everyone talking), we suggest popping your head in before the Surreal celebrations are no more - quick, there are only five days left!

Surrèalisme at Centre Pompidou in Paris is open to the public until 13 January.

Explore

News

Why Elsa Rouy’s New Exhibition ‘A Screaming Object’ Is Beautifully Brutal

04 December 2024
In her new exhibition at GUTS gallery, artist Elsa Rouy explores the contradictory nature between beauty and brutality.
News

Fashion Illustrator Antonio Lopez’s Fashion Snapshots

12 December 2024
Saint Laurent is putting the spotlight on artist Antonio Lopez’s photography in an exhibition at Babylone Paris.
News

My McQueen, My Melancholic

03 January 2025
Byronesque and Fecal Matter in conversation about their secret tribute to Lee Alexander McQueen, brought to life in a Paris cave this past March.
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