Review of the Year: Here's some of our absolute favourite shows of 2013

Date
30 December 2013

Trying to summarise the best of this year’s exhibitions is such a tall order that we’re really only prepared to do it once. We’ve already had a crack in this year’s Annual, so if you’d like to see what we really reckoned then you know where you can get your hands on one. Instead, here’s a bunch of brilliant shows that probably didn’t get the attention they deserved in Time Out and the papers and that. Enjoy them, they’re lovely.

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Graham Nash: Life On The Road

Apart from being the Nash bit in Crosby, Stills and Nash, one of the most important bands in the history of music ever, Graham Nash was also the long-term lover of Joni Mitchell and (most importantly to this particular exhibition) an incredibly prolific photographer. His documentation of life on the road throughout the 1970s and 1980s shows a unique perspective of one of the most defining eras for rock’n’roll, told throughout the eyes of someone who was an intrinsic part of it all.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/graham-nash-proud-camden

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Various: Folklore

Stevie Gee, Nathaniel Russell, Evan Hecox, Ed Templeton and Steven Powers all in one room in New York. Mother may we!
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/stevie-gee-folklore-show

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Eric Yahnker: Ebony & Benghazi

Eric Yahnker is one of our absolute favourite artists. His ability to translate the absurdity of pop culture and the bizarreness inherent in everyday life into captivating imagery is second to none. His latest show Ebony and Benghazi pretty much had it all as far as we’re concerned; Superman with an impressive pair of breasts, Wonder Woman sporting a luxurious chest wig, Moses and Leonardo DiCaprio in a tender embrace and Bill Clinton as a romantic sunset. We genuinely couldn’t love this guy more.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/eric-yahnker-1

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Lisa Pacini and Christine Istad: Sun

This isn’t technically a show in its own right, but the standout piece in an exhibition of numerous parts. Still Lisa Pacini and Christine Istad’s Sun deserves your absolute respect for the scale and ambition of it. The two Norwegian artists constructed a giant circular LED light that they drove across Europe in the depths of winter, taking summery brightness to areas that hardly experience light at all in winter. Not only was it a conceptually poetic piece but a true spectacle to behold in the flesh.
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/art-lisa-pacini-and-christine-istad

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Seth: It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken

Seth is one of the most important names in comics and as such you should definitely know who he is. Earlier this year he did a show at the Adam Baumgold Gallery in New York, one of the world’s most important venues for exhibiting graphic art. That’s more or less all you need to know. It was a treat!
www.itsnicethat.com/articles/seth-1

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About the Author

James Cartwright

James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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