Bombay Sapphire gin and Sydney artist Sam Whiteside (director of Soft Centre), will for five weeks, take over The Clock Hotel on Crown Street, Sydney. Why? Because with Covid on the decline there, they can, but also, they wanted to put on a never-before-seen audio-visual art installation, to be paired with cocktail masterclasses and cinematic, live sound performances across multiple nights. From 15 October, the countdown’s on! See the flyer below.
If you’ve been down – and who hasn’t – then, prepared to be brought well-and-truly all the way back up, thanks to a new initiative in London. The Philharmonia Orchestra from London’s Southbank Centre is, this season, bringing out programme for October and November 2020: six online performances in two strands, encompassing live-streamed concerts, pre-recorded performances and radio broadcasts, as the Orchestra continues to build out its new digital performance schedule. Called Philharmonia Sessions, they’re putting on a series of critically acclaimed free, pre-recorded digital performances, conceived and created especially for an online audience! It’ll continue with two new releases, following three films this summer that have reached six-figure audiences in the UK and around the world, and drawn critical acclaim. The next Philharmonia Sessions feature Principal Conductor & Artistic Advisor Esa-Pekka Salonen conducting Beethoven’s ballet score, The Creatures of Prometheus (24 November), in a dramatic format filmed at Battersea Arts Centre with Stephen Fry narrating a new script by Gerard McBurney. The project is adapted from the programme that Salonen would have opened with for the Philharmonia’s 2020/21 London Season. Jakub Hr?ša and cellist Alisa Weilerstein follow on 5 November, in an all-Dvo?ák programme featuring his Rondo and Silent Woods for cello and orchestra. Both Philharmonia Sessions will be premiered, free-to-view, on the Philharmonia’s YouTube channel. There’s more, too. Scroll on for the full listing or find more at the Philharmonia Orchestra website. LIVE STREAM: SANTTU-MATIAS ROUVALI – AMERICAN DREAMSMonday 26 October 2020, 7.30pm Santtu-Matias Rouvali – conductor COPLAND Appalachian SpringSTEVE REICH Music for Pieces of WoodPRICE Dances in the CanebrakesSTRAVINSKY Dumbarton Oaks Live streamed from Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall, and then available on-demand. Streamed… Read More
The National Gallery London first announced the display of some work by the famed Italian female artist, Artemisia back in 2019 and now, she’s back again. At a time when female artists were not easily accepted, Artemisia Gentileschi was exceptional. Her career spanned more than 40 years and she gained fame and admiration across Europe, counting leading rulers among her patrons. She was the first woman to gain membership to the artists’ academy in Florence. Although Artemisia was greatly admired during her lifetime, she was essentially rediscovered in the 20th century. Certain elements of her biography – particularly her rape as a young woman and the torture she endured during the trial that followed – have sometimes overshadowed discussions about her artistic achievements, but today she is recognised as one of the most gifted painters of the Italian Baroque period. Her art and life continue to inspire novels, films, documentaries, musical and theatrical productions. The earliest work in the exhibition will be her first signed and dated work, Susannah and the Elders (1610, Kunstsammlungen Graf von Schönborn, Pommersfelden) painted when she was just 17. Artemisia returned to this subject throughout her career, approaching its story afresh with each retelling, and her last-known painting, of the same subject, dating from 42 years later, will also be included in the exhibition (Susannah and the Elders, 1652, Polo Museale dell’Emilia Romagna, Collezioni della Pinacoteca Nazionale, Bologna). Arranged chronologically and complete with supporting texts, documents and other gathered works, the exhibition is not one to miss. Book in advance at the… Read More
If Monarchy is your thing and taking a peek behind the walls of how they live is on your list of UK ‘must dos’, then get excited, because the Royal Collection Trust has some good news. The official residences of Her Majesty The Queen will reopen to the public from Thursday 23 July! After the good news about the UKs reversing of lockdown was released, the RCT has been ready to go with throwing open the doors to some prized locations, like: Windsor Castle the Palace of Holyroodhouse the Royal Mews at Buckingham Palace, and The Queen’s Galleries in London and Edinburgh You’ll need to wear masks and adhere to the Covid-19 rules as you peruse collections, peek behind doors and enjoy exhibitions, like: George IV: Art & Spectacle, which explores the life and collecting of arguably the most magnificent, and certainly the most flamboyant of British monarchs. Masterpieces from Buckingham Palace, 11 December 2020 – February 2022, which brings together some of the most important paintings in the Royal Collection from the Picture Gallery at Buckingham Palace. As well as Japan: Courts and Culture, originally due to open in June 2020, is now expected to open in Spring 2022 For more of what’s on and to buy tickets to the spaces, visit the RCT website here from 8 July.
From 13 July, you’ll be able to return to London’s most central arts and entertainment precinct, the Barbican! From then, its Art Gallery and Conservatory will be open, followed by The Curve on Tuesday 11 August 2020. In line with government guidelines, new safety measures will be in place including operating at reduced capacity, timed entry slots to ensure a safe flow of visitors through the space, and tickets needing to be booked online at barbican.org.uk in advance of a visit. The reopening programme includes critically acclaimed exhibition Masculinities: Liberation through Photography; epic new installation A Countervailing Theory by artist Toyin Ojih Odutola; and the chance to explore the Barbican Conservatory. See more at the Barbican website and plan your visit! Usual safety measures are in place when the Barbican reopens will include social distancing, limited visitor capacity, one-way routes through the building, sanitisation points and regular cleaning.
Taking a curated look at the collection of one of the world’s greatest galleries is now free and easier than ever – because, you can do it from your living room. In a major new digital program, the Gallery is publishing videos here whereby art curators, professionals and experts take fans and would-be visitors through some of the world’s most beloved works. Now, you can join Dr. Francesca Whitlum-Cooper, the Gallery’s Associate Curator of Paintings 1600-1800, who talks about paintings from the Gallery’s collection that celebrate domestic activities such as playing music and card games. Among the works Dr Whitlum-Cooper discusses are Chardin’s The House of Cards, Manet’s Eva Gonzalès, Degas’s Combing the Hair (‘La Coiffure’) and Vermeer’s Young Woman Standing at a Virginal. But that’s not where it ends. As many people under lockdown are finding comfort in nature around their homes and in their gardens, another upcoming episode in the series looks at three expansive rural landscapes in the collection that take us from morning to night. As well as Rubens’s A View of Het Steen in the Early Morning and Corot’s The Four Times of Day; Night this talk includes that most treasured evocation of the British countryside, Constable’s The Hay Wain. A series of online tutorials on ‘slow looking’ develops the Gallery’s mindfulness programme by showing online visitors how to look at pictures in depth and explore hidden details. The first of these asks us to take a closer, slower look at Turner’s Rain Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway. It’s a great new digital age that means our favourite… Read More
With lockdown in full force in most countries, getting your artistic rocks off is pretty limited to Netflix documentaries, doodling in your sketchbook or perusing the finest world’s collections from your living room. Thankfully, most of the world’s museums and galleries have taken to the lockdown with flair, digitising their collections for your own enjoyment in your undies. Le musée du Louvre, Paris We begin our online travels in the City of Light! Even if Paris has lost its status as the most visited city in the world in recent years, its museums remain immensely popular. The Louvre Museum is the world’s largest art and antiques museum, holding world famous pieces such as the Mona Lisa or the Victory of Samothrace, and is actually the most popular museum in Europe on Instagram, exceeding 4 million posts! louvre.fr State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg Next up, we fly east over Europe and land in St. Petersburg, the imperial capital of Russia for nearly two centuries, which is also home to the largest museum in the world in terms of exhibits. The State Hermitage collection comprises more than three million works of art and artefacts of world culture, all of which can be viewed virtually on their extensive online platform. hermitagemuseum.org British Museum, London London is a cultural hub just waiting to be explored, and what better way to dive into history than by using the resources on offer at the British Museum. Older than the United States itself, this museum contains one of the most important collections… Read More
With the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic taking over the world, we’re in this for the long haul. So, why not learn to draw? Chances are you haven’t since high school, so, with plenty of time ahead of you and nothing but still life objects to focus on right in front of you, join some leading Australian artists in relearning how, all in collaboration with Melbourne’s greatest gallery, the NGV. They’re launching a new four-part virtual series for the Drop-by Drawing program, putting pencils back into the hands of many. At a safe distance. This virtual iteration of the program invites audiences to watch a video tutorial of a Drop-by Drawing class, which features tips and tricks on how to draw from some of Victoria’s most engaging contemporary artists. It features Victorian artists Minna Gilligan, Lily Mae Martin and Kenny Pittock giving a step-by-step guide on how to draw, whilst taking inspiration from some of their favourite artworks in the NGV Collection. It all comes in three parts, the first of which starts this weekend! Here’s a run-down… PART ONE: PRESENTED BY LILY MAE MARTIN ON NGV CHANNEL SUNDAY 5 APRIL The first virtual drawing class hosted by Lily Mae Martin, takes viewers into the NGV’s 19th Century European Paintings Gallerywhere she takes inspiration from the life-size marble sculpture Musidora, 1878 by Marshall Wood. Musidora was a mythological ancient Greek goddess, who inspired all forms of literature and the arts and is the striking centrepiece of the gallery. Martin encourages at-home participants to focus on simple drawing exercises, including observational drawing and mark making,… Read More
It was 2018 that saw the release of Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie of band Queen and its larger-than-life lead man, Freddie Mercury. And now in 2020, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is bringing him back again by putting his famed kimono on display as part of a larger exhibition. The major fashion exhibition, Kimono: Kyoto to Catwalk will open this month on 29 February and bring to the public an array of kimonos, the ultimate symbol of Japan. Why Freddie’s, though? In the mid-1970s he sometimes wore boldly patterned kimono onstage, challenging the norms of gender and sexuality. This personal kimono however is more delicate in its design and overtly feminine, revealing that gender fluidity extended to his private life. For more about the exhibition and to score your tickets, head to the V&A website.
Lumas Australia have stepped it up a bit, putting on new additions by established and emerging new artists, amongst them Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, whose works are being exhibited at the National Gallery Victoria later this year. Why? Well, their decision’s inspired by responses to the urban street culture of the 1980s, Haring and Basquiat are celebrated for the social commentary their artworks provided for their time. And now, LUMAS galleries are known for their edition pieces by Pop Art icons including Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Andy Warhol, alongside some of the 20th century’s most classic artworks at a fraction of the cost. Think colour, compositions of movement, energy, excitement and street culture, all combined into the canvases that live on the gallery walls. Oh, not to mention Damien Hirst being added to their portfolio. In his medical and pharmaceutical inspired series “The Cure”, the soft pastel colours and uniform patterns of coloured pills are contrasted against the subject of individual control. Hirsts’ intriguing and colourful art is ambivalent, revolving around a central focal point in his thinking: managing to give death a smile by celebrating life through his art. It’s all worth a look. Head to Lumas in Australia or their website.
