Galleries - March 2011

( Mall Galleries ) is asking phot- ographers to submit work on themes of time, shape/form, mo- tion, environment and expression. Plenty to work withthere one would have thought for the 100 photographers being judged by a high-powered international panel. The money raised from the event (and a celebrity private view/- awards ceremony on 23 March) is for Renaissance’s work in funding the battle against breast cancer. info@renaissancephotography.org MAKING TIME VISIBLE Hastings Arts Forum seems to be making a habit of getting involved in distinctly interesting projects. In January we carried an item about a genuinely imaginative art/re- cycling exhibition there. Now, thro- ugh one of their member’s conn- ections, eleven of them are colla- borating with a major anthro- pological project run by the Lon- don School of Economics that has been investigating issues of global time. In an exhibition to mark the end of the LSE scheme, designed to give a quite other, artist-led view of this increasingly puzzling and profoundly elusive issue, assem- blages, installations, (including one using a real-time computer set-up) and paintings, the forum has come up with a series of acu- tely enquiring responses. Most notable perhaps is the late Harry Beynon’s conceptual piece, in which a text – Nothing is written in stone – painted on coloured stones will be washed from unabashed and unabated is a tribute to this ever-enterprising venue’s committed values. Situated in the Somerset based public school, Millfield (come on the rest of you!), this year’s ex- hibition includes highly innovative work in painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture and film from 15 top art universities from all round the country. It is the kind of investment in ideas, creativity and imagination that our society needs more than ever and one which we all need to be alert to and support. DOUBLE HEADER . . . Gallery 27 in Cork Street offers particularly interesting shows this month, the handsome Peter Joyce show presented by Anthony Hep- worth there (review on p11), pre- ceded, a couple of weeks earlier, by Wolseley Fine Art ’s large and quite unmissable collection of drawings, watercolours, prints and original book illustrations by Edward Ardizzone. Drawn from the estate of his son, the late Dr Nicholas Ardizzone, the quality of what’s going on show (and sale) could probably not be bettered – the wit and quiet human under- standing of Ardizzone’s art looking stronger and stronger over the passing years – a petit maître indeed. And there’s one on our cover . . . RENAISSANCE Now in its fourth year, the 2011 ‘Renaissance Photography Prize’ ANTENNAE 8. GALLERIES MARCH 11 THE INVISIBLE LINE Alert readers of this column will recognise my affection, and ad- miration, for that remarkable sur- vivor among modernist exhibiting societies, the London Group (just wait until 2013 when it celebrates its 100th birthday!) whose diverse and enterprising exhibiting ven- tures are always worth high- lighting. Such as the latest one (2 to 26 March), entitled ‘The In- visible Line’ at Piers Feetham, the brainchild of painter member Philip Crozier, whose intriguing title was designed to get the participating artists thinking about how to close that almost inde- finable barrier between abstrac- tion and figuration. With artist/- members as distinguished as Anthony Whishaw, Alex Ramsay, Bill Henderson, Tricia Gillman and Julie Held among the 12 invitees, the exhibition promises a serious, handsome and lively practical debate on this fascinating subject. Nice too that a commercial gallery is supporting such a venture. ZERO TOLERANCE With Somerset’s Arts budget re- cently slashed by 100%, it is prob- ably a very good moment to draw attention to the Atkinson Gall- ery ’s excellent annual – some 15 years now – M.A. & Other Post- Graduate Contemporary Art Show. Not for a long time now has the outlook for emerging artists been quite so unpromising, so the news that this event is continuing