What's On: London

Date
20 October 2011

You forgot your coat today which is excusable – it’s so sunny! and you were wearing shorts pretty much yesterday – but now you are cold and you feel silly in your grey merino sweater. So go find a gallery – free heat, plus AMAZING art. We recommend George Condo at the Hayward Gallery if you’re near Waterloo, or if you’re near South Kensington perhaps the V&A who have many, many sardonic-iconic Private Eye covers? You’re east? Great – Beach London open their Lubok Books exhibition tonight!

George Condo: Mental States Hayward Gallery

As surreal as this exhibition is (very), George Condo is similar to a number of other artists whose technical brilliance is such that they find reality lacking – so they’d rather paint crazy things instead. So bizarre physiognomy, some reworking of the basic principles behind portraiture, a thing called “abstract-figuration” (huge paintings composed by a multitude of “all-over” images) and some pondering over the nature of mania. Highly charged and hugely enjoyable, these works perform an incredible feat of looking how you’d expect to feel if you were being driven mad (hence the name of the exhibition). Showing until January 8.
www.itsnicethat.com/whats-on/george-condo

Private Eye: The First 50 Years V&A

Private Eyeis the: "lampooner of public figures and entities that it deemed guilty of any of the sins of incompetence, inefficiency, corruption, pomposity or self-importance and it has become a self-styled “thorn in the side” of the British establishment." Thanks Wikipedia, that’s marvellous. I’m not going to pretend I can pick up on every single in-joke those wry lot at Private Eye have established in layer upon cynically-brilliant layer, but what I do know is that the graphic satire of their covers are unique, the cartoonists they’ve employed are brilliant and their articles are damningly good. A display of the designs will be on show until January 8.
www.itsnicethat.com/whats-on/private-eye

Lubok Books Beach London

Since 2007, Christoph Ruckhäberle has been publishing Lubok Verlag. Lubok produce small runs in respect to the reproductive possibilities of artist books these days, yet they maintain a traditionally Russian mentality of fastidiously printed books that are inexpensive. Especially when you consider that they look, smell and feel like the real deal (they are) and each volume is a commission of contemporary artists to “realise their artistic signature in linocuts” – they are also originals. These graphic works and books, which embrace the medium’s vernacular and print in bold, pulpy colours are a real treat. Showing until October 30.
www.itsnicethat.com/whats-on/lubok-books

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Bryony Quinn

Bryony was It’s Nice That’s first ever intern and worked her way up to assistant online editor before moving on to pursue other interests in the summer of 2012.

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