Cultural highlights in January 2021, from architecture exhibitions to art openings
As all physical museum and gallery spaces are now closed and we recommend you check their respective websites for the latest information.
Our January Cultural Diary is filled with first-rate exhibitions and events; from open-call shows up and down the country to a major retrospective of the British artist Francis Bacon, and a lyrical new book that translates his paintings into words on the page. Read on for our recommendations for the New Year.
Edmund de Waal: Some Winter Pots, Gagosian, London
You have until 16 January to visit this exhibition of new works made by Edmund de Waal while he was alone in his studio during lockdown. This is the first time in 16 years that the artist and author has made standalone pieces that aren’t part of a larger installation, and each vessel is designed to be touched and held. ‘When you pick them up you will find the places where I have marked and moved the soft clay,’ says De Waal. ‘Some of these pots are broken and patched on their rims with folded lead and gold; others are mended with gold lacquer. Some hold shards of porcelain.’ He was inspired by a pair of Chinese bowls from the Song dynasty that he keeps in his studio.
Jennifer Packer: The Eye is Not Satisfied, Serpentine Galleries, London
American artist Jennifer Packer’s first exhibition in a European institution swings between intimate portraits of family and friends and moody flower compositions. Working from life, memory and her imagination, she recasts the traditional genres of portraiture and still-life in a contemporary light. The artist’s inclination to paint is political – she wants to capture on canvas the essence of the Black lives she depicts. Her sitters are pensive, sitting and staring with a tranquil gaze, the paint muddled, the palette gently glowing. Her sombre bouquets are often funerary: Say Her Name (2017) is dedicated to civil rights and Black Lives Matter activist Sandra Bland, who was found dead in a prison cell in 2015.
Exercising Freedom: Encounters with Art, Artists and Communities, Whitechapel Gallery, London
This archive exhibition transports visitors back to the Whitechapel Gallery in the late 1970s, a space that one day might have played host to the arts of Bengal, the next the installations of American artist Eva Hesse. It introduces us to the gallery’s pioneering community education programme, directed by Jenni Lomax, and the young artists who shared their practices and perspectives with the inhabitants of the East End. Bringing together posters, photographs, film clips and audio recordings, the show highlights the role that art and artists play within society.
Sculpture in the City, Square Mile, London
The ninth edition of the City of London’s annual public art programme has been extended until the spring, giving you plenty of time to discover the 13 works dotted in and around the architectural landmarks of the Square Mile. Patrick Tuttofuoco’s neon-light installation The Source (2017) hangs in the historic Leadenhall Market, while Nathan Coley’s illuminated text The Same for Everyone (2017) can be found near the Gherkin. And don’t miss the newly launched Sculpture in the City Learning, a digital programme of activities, videos and downloadable packs for families.
BALTIC Open Submission, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead
Opening on 6 January in Gateshead is a major open-call exhibition of work by more than 150 artists and makers in the northeast. The contemporary art institution received some 540 submissions in response to its invitation and those submissions were whittled down by a panel of three local artists plus curator Katie Hickman. The show celebrates the breadth of high-quality art produced in this part of the country and includes everything from paintings and prints to sculptures and ceramics. A chance to see some stellar works by both established artists and those who have never before shown art outside their own home.
Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2020, South London Gallery, London
Back in London, it’s time for another open-submission exhibition – this one the recipient of about 1,500 applications. The annual showcase returns to the South London Gallery for the third year running and offers a preview of 35 of the most exciting new, international artists working in the UK today, as chosen by Alexandre da Cunha, Anthea Hamilton and Linder. Among those included are Rene Matić, who uses dance to explore blackness and power relations in the art world and society in general, and Nicole Coson, whose leafy-green windows and landscapes ponder notions of visibility and disappearance. Plus, this year a specially created digital platform allows visitors to engage with the artists’ practices online.
Crafting A Difference, SoShiro, London
Five galleries have come together to create this exhibition of visual arts and contemporary crafts at SoShiro, a new gallery and shop in London’s Marylebone. Works on paper, textiles, ceramics and more will be displayed across four floors of the Georgian townhouse, with the lower levels set up as gallery space and the top floors resembling a residential interior. The show was imagined by curator Brian Kennedy, who notes that although the craft sector has been hit hard by the pandemic, it’s been a creative time for many artists and gallerists. His intention in bringing together different makers, materials, methods is to show that the act of creation is a unifyingforce.
Chantal Joffe: Story, Victoria Miro, London
Chantal Joffe has made a name for herself painting those moments that define our lives and collective experience: adolescence, motherhood, ageing. In this exhibition of new work, which runs from 27 January to 6 March, she focuses on the complex and changeable relationship between mother and child. Portraits of the artist’s mother, Daryll, will be on display alongside several large-scale pastel self-portraits. In Self-Portrait Naked with My Mother II (2020), the pair sit side by side on a squashy floral sofa, Daryll fully dressed in a pair of black trousers and a scarlet coat, Chantal naked except for the black-and-white slider on her left foot.
Francis Bacon: Man and Beast, Royal Academy of Arts, London
January comes to a close with the opening of this major exhibition at London’s Royal Academy of Arts. The British artist Francis Bacon was a horse breeder’s son and the focus of the show is the blurred line between humans and animals in his work. His mighty paintings are about raw emotion and primal instinct. They’re cluttered and chaotic, fleshy and full of limbs. Visit the exhibition, which spans the artist’s 50-year career and explores his fascination with beasts, then pick up a copy of The Death of Francis Bacon by Max Porter, published by Faber & Faber on 7 January – a literary translation of Bacon’s disturbingly powerful visceral images.
RELATED ON THE MODERN HOUSE
What to see at Open House London 2021
How design duo Isabel + Helen explore movement, materials and mechanisms in art
How Liliane Tomasko and Sean Scully deal with abstraction
How Sophie Taeuber-Arp changed modern art and design
How Rachel Kneebone unravels the human experience in art
How Eduardo Chillida created a sense of time and space
How Charlotte Perriand pushed the boundaries of design
Cultural Diary: make the most of galleries and museums reopening this month
Culture at home in March 2021
The best of what to see, read and do from your sofa in February 2021