Anthony d’Offay, 9, 21, 23 and 24 Dering Street, London, W1R 9AA (Tel: 0171-499-4100)
“Andy Warhol: Vanitas: skulls and self-portraits 1976-1986” (until 27 January 1996)
This exhibition explores the theme of death which reappeared in Warhol’s art in 1976 when he created a series of small and brightly coloured canvases decorated with the image of a skull. Death had, of course, been a major subject in the Disaster series and the Electric Chairs of the earlier years of his career. They will be shown with the last series of self-portraits, now known as the Fright Wig pictures, which Warhol created for Anthony d’Offay in 1986 and which seem, in retrospect, to anticipate the artist’s own death.
RAAB Boukamel, 9 Cork Street, London, W1X 1PD (Tel:0171-734-6444)
“Luciano Castelli: Ceramic Work” (to 22 December)
Long under consideration by the artist, this exhibition concentrates exclusively upon the ceramic works created by Luciano Castelli and a team of craftsmen at his Tuscan studio in May of this year. It features eighteen plates, some as wide as one metre, which have been painted by hand, twice fired and glazed. The decorations form a survey in miniature of Castelli’s themes of the last fifteen years: shadow figures, nudes, portraits and Pigalle images. A survey of his photographic work will be taking place at the Maison Europeen de la Photographie in Paris in June-September 1996.
Jason & Rhodes, 4 New Burlington Place, London, W1X 1SB (Tel: 0171-434-1768)
“Images of War: Michael Sandle and David Bomberg” (until 13 January 1996)
Commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Second World War, Benjamin Rhodes and Gillian Jason are bracketing two artists whose careers have included themes of modern warfare. Bomberg will be represented by eleven paintings and drawings on the subject of the underground bomb store near Burton-on-Trent where he worked in 1942 in the employment of the War Artists’ Advisory Committee. Judith Bumpus will be speaking at the gallery on this subject on 5 December. Sandle will be showing working drawings and a scale model in painted wood for a current project on the theme of “Suicide”, as well as six large acrylic and charcoal drawings for “The Queen of the Night”.
Stephen Friedman, 25-28 Old Burlington Street, London, W1X 1LB (Tel: 0171-494-1434)
“Stephan Balkenhol” until 13 January 1996)
Known to a British audience from his involvement in the Hayward Gallery’s “Doubletake” (1992) when he floated a figure on a raft in the river Thames and attached a second sculpture to Blackfriars Bridge, German artist Stephan Balkenhol has carved and pigmented one large male head, a mermaid and several smaller works for his first gallery exhibition in London. Balkenhol is the subject of a current survey at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington (until 15 January 1996), which will be shown at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (15 February-26 May 1996).
White Cube, 44 Duke Street, London, SW1Y 6DD (Tel: 0171-930-5373)
“Sam Taylor-Wood” (until 20 January 1996)
Currently featured in “Brilliant” at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and in Richard Cork’s “British Art Show 4” in Manchester, Sam Taylor-Wood has made a new video installation for her first London gallery exhibition since she was seen at The Showroom in 1994. Its subject is a domestic argument in a kitchen and the two protagonists will be projected onto perpendicular walls with an empty corner space dividing them.
Frith Street Gallery, 59-60 Frith Street, London, W1V 5TA (Tel: 0171-494-1550)
“Dorothy Cross, Ceal Floyer, Cornelia Parker, Helen Robertson and Bridget Smith” (until 13 January 1996)
An intriguing mixture of five women artists promises an exciting exhibition which continues Jane Hamlyn’s policy of steering her gallery away from its traditional business of showing works on paper. Cornelia Parker, who collaborated with Tilda Swinton for “The Maybe” at the Serpentine Gallery in September, will be making “One Day this Glass Will Break”, a document of a candle, lipstick and a pearl necklace fired through a revolver; Dorothy Cross will be showing “Wedding Rings”, a series of gold bands cast in cuttlefish bones; Ceal Floyer is creating a sound installation “Working Title (Digging)”; and there are colour photographs by Helen Robertson and Bridget Smith.
London Projects, 47 Frith Street, London, W1V 5TE (Tel: 0171-734-1723)
“Weegee” (until 22 December)
Marc Jancou launches his new programme for London Projects with an exhibition of one hundred photographs of urban subjects taken by Weegee in the forties, one half of which are loaned by a private collection. In keeping with his plan to find appropriate spaces for each of his ventures, the exhibition will be taking place in two empty shops in 3-4 Ellis Street, near Sloane Square, rather than in his new Soho headquarters above Ronnie Scott’s jazz club.
Interim Art, 21 Beck Road, London, E8 4RE (Tel: 0171-254-9607)
“Paul Winstanley” (17 December-3 February 1996)
With recent exhibitions with CRG in New York and Natalie Obadia in Paris, Paul Winstanley has been building a useful international reputation. His forthcoming exhibition with Maureen Paley features seven new paintings, one of which is a large architectural study of Cambridge colleges. The remaining canvases form a new series of urban underpasses in which figures make a first appearance in his work. Winstanley will be exhibiting with Peter Kilchmann in Zurich in 1996.
The following current exhibitions were recommended in last month’s column:
Howard Hodgkin’s four hand-coloured prints of Venetian Views at Alan Cristea (until 22 December); Nicola Tyson’s works on paper, the inaugural exhibition of Entwhistle’s new gallery in Cork Street (until 6 January 1996); the sculpture and works on paper of Elisabeth Frink at Beaux-Arts (until 9 December); the sculpture and gouaches of Henri Gaudier-Brzeska at Mercury (until 23 December); the sixtieth birthday retrospective of Ivor Abrahams at Bernard Jacobson (until 15 December); Katsura Funakoshi’s new carved figure sculptures at Annely Juda Fine Art (until16 December); and Anish Kapoor’s sculpture at Lisson (until 6 January 1996).
Originally appeared in The Art Newspaper as 'Warhol’s brush with death'