December diary: where to go and what to see before Christmas!

Well would you believe it, it’s the 1st of December. And as is tradition here at It’s Nice That at the beginning of each month, we’ve pulled together our team’s top picks of exhibitions and events to check out throughout the coming weeks.

As always, the line up spans the globe from Berlin to London to Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Tokyo and Athens so no matter where you are in the world, hopefully, you’ll find something to keep you busy until you can officially turn your OOO on, head home and stuff your face with cheese boards and Lindt chocolates.

Evoking Reality: Constituting actuality in photography and video art
25 Nov 2018 – 5 May 2019
Daimler Contemporary, Berlin

The exhibition Evoking Reality is devoted to contemporary strategies that distance themselves from established principles of representation and popular narratives of photojournalism. These strategies create an open image of reality that aims for a critical sensitisation in the observer. A critical consciousness is appealed to with regards to media’s methods of mediation and representation, which have shaped the modern eye with recurring images of suffering and scenes of violence for decades. Based on a re-reading of Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) by Susan Sontag, Evoking Reality deals with current media and conceptual approaches to political, public and resulting private conflict situations. The exhibition presents 16 artists from 10 different nations including Mustafah Abdulaziz from the USA, Jane Alexander from South Africa, Tacita Dean from the UK, Richard Mosse from Ireland and Viviane Sassen from the Netherlands.

Norman Ackroyd: The Furthest Lands
17 Nov 2018 – 24 Feb 2019
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield

Yorkshire Sculpture Park presents an exhibition of work by Norman Ackroyd CBE, RA, one of Britain’s foremost landscape artists and contemporary printmakers working today. The Furthest Lands showcases a vast range of work that explores the western edges of the British Isles. Starting in the extreme north of the Shetland Islands, The Furthest Lands journeys south over 950 miles to the far south-west point of Ireland, through a display of the artist’s intricate aquatint etchings and a small collection of watercolours.

Robert Rauschenberg: Spreads 1975-83
29 November 2018 – 26 January 2019
Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, London

Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac London, together with the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, presents the first UK exhibition dedicated to the American artist’s remarkable Spreads, a series that occupies an important position in his oeuvre. The large-scale Spreads (1975–83) encapsulate many of Robert Rauschenberg’s best-known motifs and materials. In these spreads, “classic Rauschenberg” motifs from his object-laden Combines resurfaced, including tyres, doors, bedding, ironing boards, mirrors, electric lights, ventilators, metal traps, images of exotic animals, bird wings, umbrellas and parachutes.

Feast for the Eyes: the Story of Food in Photography
21 December 2018 – 3 March 2019
Foam, Amsterdam

Feast for the Eyes shows the rich history of food photography – not only in the visual arts but also in commercial and scientific photography and photojournalism. From the banality of the diner-breakfast special of Stephen Shore to the allegorical still life of Laura Letinsky, from Roger Fenton’s extensive 19th Century displays of food to the cookbooks of the 60s. Expect to see tasty work by the likes of Ed Ruscha, Cindy Sherman, and Andy Warhol.

Museum of Bad Art Exhibtion
22 November 2018 – 14 January 2019
Gallery AaMO, Tokyo

The Museum Of Bad Art (MOBA) – the Boston-based gallery obsessed with all things ugly – is making its way to Japan. With a mission to bring the worst of art to the widest of audiences to be enjoyed and praised, MOBA is a gallery, unlike many others. With a vast collection of over 600 pieces, the gallery will be bringing 100 of its most popular artworks to Japan for the first time – hopefully including this “Mana Lisa”.

Andy Warhol and Eduardo Paolozzi: I want to be a machine
17 November 2018 – 2 June 2019
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh

I Want to be a Machine takes its name from a much-quoted declaration by Andy Warhol, which the artist made in an interview in 1963. Behind the characteristically off-hand quip was Warhol’s genuine desire to create art that reflected and celebrated our increasingly mechanized, industrial society. At the same time, Eduardo Paolozzi was responding directly to the beauty he found in machine forms, fascinated by the interface between man and machine – in robots, computers and electronic storage of the world’s knowledge. Tracing the parallel development in the two artists’ work, the exhibition includes rarely seen Warhol drawings from the 1950s, his famous multi-coloured prints of Marilyn Monroe (on loan from Tate) and a group of recently acquired ‘stitched’ photographs. The Paolozzi works include early collages made in the 1950s, kaleidoscopically coloured prints of the 1960s and 1970s, and a group of sculptures which demonstrates how the artist’s approach to printmaking was mirrored by his works in three dimensions.

Martin Creed: Toast
30 November 2018 – 9 February 2019
Hauser & Wirth, London

Hauser & Wirth London’s new exhibition from Martin Creed entitled Toast includes new sculpture, painting, drawing, tapestry, video, live action and music from the esteemed artist. Creed has become known for hugely varied work which is uncompromising, entertaining, shocking and beautiful.

Michael Wolf: Life in Cities
17 November 2018 – 3 March 2019
Deichtor Hallen, Hamburg

The exhibition Michael Wolf: Life in Cities, which features 12 series of photographs and an enormous wall installation, shows works ranging from Wolf’s early days as a documentary photographer to his most recent creations. Wolf’s works reflect living conditions in major cities such as Hong Kong, Tokyo, Chicago, and Paris and address issues such as population concentration, mass consumption, privacy, and voyeurism.

The Ballad of Forgotten Places
4 December 2018 – 20 January 2019
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens

Italian artists Botto and Bruno are exhibiting their latest show The Ballad of Forgotten Places at Athens’ National Museum of Contemporary Art. The project stems from Augè’s words, “our time does not produce ruins because it does not have time to do so”. The artist duo has consequently built a structure around themes of protection and care for certain remote areas. The 360-degree suburban landscapes cover the whole gallery in a vision to remind visitors of our precious

Diary of an Introvert
6 — 16 December
Delphian Gallery

Australian artist Jordy Kerwick is to have his first solo show in the UK this month, bringing the paintings that have garnered him a dedicated following around the world to the Delphian Gallery, London.

In the show titled Diary of an Introvert the exhibition will feature Jordy’s signature style of “organic forms in domestic settings” in his pink, brown and golden yellow colour palette.

Head to the gallery to see Jordy’s paintings which “go beyond simply beautiful subject matter to reveal deeply personal stories like an inside joke.”