29 January 2009 to 27 March 2009

Admire exquisite bronzes and stunning jades in this new display of Shanghai's treasures at the British Museum.

Sixty spectacular Chinese jades and bronzes, loaned from the Shanghai Museum, are on show in this new exhibition.

Delicate early jades carved into strange human-like figures, birds and monsters are some of the main draws.

Beautiful bronzes from the Zhou dynasty are also on display.

Bronze is highly regarded in Chinese art and even has its own separate section in the Imperial Collection.

Sacrificial vessels and wine vessels were commonly made out of bronze for ritual purposes. It was only after the Zhou dynasty (around 250BC) that they became appreciated as pieces of art in their own right.

Jade is also an important material in Chinese art and considered inherently valuable. It is often associated with human virtues such as durability and moral beauty.

4 October 2008 to 2 January 2009

Royal Academy of Arts

Burlington House

London

W1J 0BD

 

 

 

 

The Royal Academy tells the remarkable story of Aimé Maeght –  a 20th century art-dealer, exhibition-maker and publisher – with this exhibition about the artists most closely associated with him.

 

This exhibition at the Royal Academy showcases more than 140 paintings, sculptures, ceramics, prints, and books by these four artists, as well as works by Bonnard and Matisse.

The Royal Academy has devoted an entire gallery to the work of Miró and Calder, close friends who were united by a love of colour and an exuberant approach to their work.

Expect to be dazzled by Calder's inventive mobiles and stabiles alongside Miró's bold pictorial compositions and highly original ceramics.

Another gallery brings together works by Giacometti and Braque.

Sculptures by Giacometti range from his famous Surrealist piece, Spoon Woman (1926), to his iconic sculptures from the 1960s: Standing Woman and Walking Man. The sombre mood of these thin, solitary figures is echoed in Braque’s moving late canvases.

 

 

 

5 September 2008 to 4 January 2009

Design Museum

The exhibition looks at how these cities contributed to the evolution of design and how design, in turn, shaped contemporary culture.

Design Cities tells the story of contemporary design by focusing on 7 cities at their creative heights: London, Vienna, Dessau, Paris, Los Angeles, Milan and Tokyo.

Design Cities takes you on a journey around the world, identifying particular periods that shifted the direction of design, including:

• The Great Exhibition in London (1851)
• Adolf Loos in Vienna (1908)
• Bauhaus in Dessau (1928)
• Le Corbusier in Paris (1936)
• Charles and Ray Eames in LA (1949)
• The Milan scene (1957)
• The creative explosion in Tokyo (1987)

Design Cities features a wide range of objects, from textiles and fashion to industrial pieces, furniture and prints.

7 October 2008 to 18 January 2009

The Hayward

Hayward Hosts Major Warhol Retrospective in London

Apart from his instantly recognisable paintings and screen prints, Andy Warhol produced a number of films and TV programmes, leading some commentators to brand him as the father of reality TV.

Andy Warhol: Other Voices, Other Rooms takes its lead from Warhol's films, screen-tests, videos and television programmes to give a fresh insight into the mind of the man.

Alongside Warhol's film work, the exhibition features extraordinary archive material, paintings and installations that examine Warhol's creative process and shed new light on his life's work.

The exhibition includes some of Warhol's most famous films:

• Sleep (1963)
• Empire (1964)
• Poor Little Rich Girl (1965)
• Chelsea Girls (1966)

Warhol's video diaries are also on show, alongside all 42 episodes from his 1980s TV serials entitled Fashion; Andy Warhol's TV; and Andy Warhol's Fifteen Minutes, in which he appeared with friends such as Debbie Harry and Jerry Hall.

There's also the chance to catch Warhol's rarely seen screen tests of artists and musicians including:

• Marcel Duchamp
• John Cale
• Salvador Dali

14 October 2008 to 22 February 2009

12 November 2008 to 15 February 2009

National Gallery 

Trafalgar Square, London

London

WC2N 5DN

 

 

Alfred Sisley (1839–1899) was one of the greatest landscape painters of the 19th century and a leading figure in the Impressionist movement. Yet as the only Englishman among the French Impressionists, he remains relatively unknown.

Sisley was born in Paris to English parents. While he remained a British subject throughout his life, he only went on two painting campaigns in the United Kingdom – in 1874 and 1897.

This small but enchanting exhibition brings together these two groups of paintings for the first time, showing Sisley at two of the most creative moments of his life.

This exhibition focuses on Sisley's British landscapes, offering a rare opportunity to see British landscapes rendered in an Impressionist style.

Sisley's earlier works date from the year of the first Impressionist exhibition in 1874. They include depictions of London and surrounds, focusing particularly on the Thames.

Look out for classic impressionist depictions of life and light in:

• View of the Thames: Charing Cross Bridge
• Regatta at Hampton Court
• Molesey Weir, Hampton Court, Morning

In these radiant paintings, Sisley captures the Thames in colourful scenes of suburban sociability: boating parties, swimming, and strolling in the sunshine.

Until 25 January 2009

The Courtauld Gallery

The Courtauld's amazing collection of Turner's watercolours includes work from across his career.

From a view of the Avon Gorge made when Turner was just 16 years old to his dramatic late works such as Margate Pier, the exhibition charts his success as one of Britain's most celebrated painters.

The Courtauld Gallery's own pieces are supplemented by related loans from the Tate and other private collections.

With these additional pieces, the exhibition offers a wonderful opportunity to see the full process of certain compositions, from early sketches to published prints. 

Paths to Fame includes 9 magnificent Turner watercolours that were recently bequeathed to The Courtauld Gallery by the late Dorothy Scharf.

A concurrent display of selected British watercolours from this bequest will show Turner's work in the broader context of British painting from the so-called Golden Age of watercolour painting.

14 January 2009 to 18 January 2009

Business Design Centre

This established fair offers a unique opportunity to view and buy some of the best art from the last 100 years.

Serious collectors can expect to find museum-quality pieces worth in excess of £1 million. But if your budget doesn't quite stretch to that, you can also find work by emerging artists for as little as £20.

Galleries selected for the London Art Fair 2009 include Alan Cristea, Richard Green, Bearspace and FAS Contemporary.

Together the exhibitors present a broad variety of art from the 20th and 21st centuries, from both celebrated artists and emerging talents.

Featured artists include:

• Keith Coventry
• Barbara Hepworth
• Patrick Heron
• Gavin Turk

27 September 2008 to 11 January 2009

Victoria and Albert Museum

Concentrating on the period from 1945 to 1970, this exciting exhibition at London's V&A examines how the battle between communism and capitalism shaped modern design on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

This fascinating exhibition brings together over 300 exhibits from around the world including:

• An Apollo Mission space suit
• Futuristic fashion by Paco Rabanne and Pierre Cardin
• A Messerschmidt micro-car
• Peter Ghyczy's Garden Egg Chair
• Films by Stanley Kubrick
• Work by Pablo Picasso

Visit the museum to check out designs of interiors for NASA spacecraft as well experimental space suits.

4 October 2008 to 25 January 2009

Leading British artists Damien Hirst, Antony Gormley, Ron Mueck, Marc Quinn, and Noble and Webster pay tribute to the cultural significance of sculpture through the ages.

Each artist has created a sculpture for a different gallery of the British Museum. 

• Cornucopia: Damien Hirst fills the wall cases of the Enlightenment Gallery with 200 skulls, addressing his ongoing fascination with death, and commenting on the legitimacy of exhibition displays.
  
• Siren: Marc Quinn's solid gold statue of Kate Moss is central in the Nereid Gallery, interacting with great Greek beauties surrounding it.
  
• Case for an Angel I: Antony Gormley takes up the Front Hall of the Museum with a huge angel, linking with the Egyptian, Assyrian and Classical statuary which inspires the sculptor.

30 September 2008 to 18 January 2009

Tate Britain

The Turner Prize is widely recognised as the most prestigious arts award in Europe. The competition was established in 1984 and is intended to support and encourage new developments in contemporary British art.

Previous Turner Prize winners include Damien Hirst, Gilbert and George, and Grayson Perry. The shortlisted artists for this year are:

• Runa Islam – for her choreographed films
• Mark Leckey – for his combination of sculpture, film, sound and performance
• Goshka Macuga – for her mixed media installations
• Cathy Wilkes – for her figurative sculpture

The 5 members of the jury will have the difficult task of deciding who should take the prize, based on each artist's work over the previous year. The winner will be announced at Tate Britain on 1 December, during a live television broadcast.

16 October 2008 to 1 February 2009

National Portrait Gallery

Over 150 striking images document Annie Leibovitz's illustrious career as a photographer alongside intimate insights into her private life.

The photographs are arranged chronologically, with iconic portraits of famous public figures interspersed with personal photographs of her family and close friends.

Leibovitz's personal collection forms the heart of the exhibition and records key moments in her life, including the birth and childhood of her 3 daughters. 

The exhibition features many of Leibovitz's renowned celebrity portraits, including:

• Jamie Foxx
• Daniel Day Lewis
• Al Pacino
• Nicole Kidman
• Brad Pitt

9 October 2008 to 18 January 2009

The Saatchi Gallery

25 February 2009 to 7 June 2009

National Gallery

The exhibition features around 60 major works by Picasso, who is widely recognised as the most important artist of the 20th century.

Renowned for creating the Cubist movement, Picasso experimented with a wide range of styles throughout his career. He was particularly passionate about the grand European painting, and regularly visited the Louvre and Prado for inspiration.

The exhibition is arranged in sections that illustrate these themes, including:

• The self portrait
• The male portrait
• The female nude
• The still life
• The seated female figure

There will also be examples of Picasso's later work on display, where he parodied great works of the past, such as Manet's Déjeuner sur l'Herbe.

Cildo Meireles brings his amazing installations to London for his 1st major UK retrospective.

The Brazilian artist is famed for his mysterious, large-scale works, 8 of which will be on display at Tate Modern as part of this intriguing exhibition.

14 October 2008 to 11 January 2009

Tate Modern

Highlights of the Cildo Meireles Exhibition Include:

• Volatile 1980-94: A multi-sensory environment
• Babel 2001: A massive tower of radios
• Fontes 1992/2008: Includes 6,000 carpenters rulers and a 1,000 clocks
• Red Shift 1967-84: An intense, red living room

Born in Brazil in 1948, Cildo Meireles is widely recognised as one of the leaders in the international development of Conceptual art.

26 November 2008 to 15 February 2009

Dulwich Picture Gallery

Dulwich Picture Gallery hosts a retrospective of art by Saul Steinberg – an American artist who lit up the pages and covers of The New Yorker for six decades.

This new exhibition in London covers the whole range of his work and includes over 100 drawings, sculptures and collages.

Saul Steinberg used his skills to work in many fields including as a cartoonist, an illustrator, a card designer, stage designer and advertising artist. The whole range of his work is included from high art to caricature.

Saul Steinberg was born in Romania and studied architecture in Milan during the 1930s. He first found fame as a cartoonist there.

He moved to America after World War II and starting working for The New Yorker in the 1960s. He died in 1999.

19 December 2008 to 20 December 2008

Artsdepot

As the name suggests The Notcracker is not a classic Christmas tale, but it does have all the elements of one! Packed full of Christmas dances and Christmas disaster, it features the age-old message about the triumph of good over evil.

Featuring an unfortunate game of charades and an unhelpful Ghost of Christmas Present, The Notcracker will delight audiences aged 10 and over. Be warned, however; it's not suitable for children who still believe!

New Art Club was formed in 2001 by Tom Roden and Pete Shenton. Their shows are typically a mix of philosophical comedy, live art and dance.

Serious and silly in equal measure, the pair has been described as "the Morecambe and Wise of dance".

With a wealth of funny and clever dance shows under their belt, New Art Club has toured internationally, picking up many awards along the way.

10 December 2008 to 22 February 2009

Indian Highway presents a snapshot of artists working in India today.

The show includes work by well-known and up-and-coming artists working across a wide range of media.

A major exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery is accompanied by an exciting series of events featuring performance, dance, film, literature and architecture.

Indian Highway reflects issues that are central to Indian life today, such as environmentalism, religious sectarianism, globalisation, gender, sexuality and class.

The exhibition explores the importance of the road in migration and movement, and the link between rural and urban communities.

The show also focuses on technology and the information superhighway, which have played a key part in India's economic boom.

Radiator, the region’s festival for art and media, returns in January 09 to spread rays of hope through the gloom brought about by rumours of Recession.

Radiator 09 explores how the foundations for the City of the future is being built right here under our feet and over our heads. It’s a city that is being shaped by a large number of individuals who have no need for the expense of office space but require connections and networks to operate. This suggests freedom, but inherent in the infrastructure are traps that can affect us all, eroding our hard fought for personal liberties. The citizens’ creative utilisation of their space can easily be crippled by a sudden monopolisation of the urban environment by a global concern, sold back to us as the way forward.

The Performing Space Symposium (15-16th Jan 09) with Nottingham Trent University gets artists together with architects, sociologists, city planners and urban theorists to share information about how our cities are changing and what new and challenging spaces are opening up as a result of digital media.

And, as the last 3 years has seen an explosion of culture houses in the East Midlands, Radiator is delighted to work with Broadway, Quad, AGM, New Arts Exchange and others to bring the best of the regions’ exhibitions to within walking distance.

See Frank Bacon's exhibition at the Tate Britain from 11 September 2008 – 4 January 2009

Daily 10.00-17.50, Fridays until 22.00

The exhibition highlights include his infamous portraits of Pope Innocent X and celebrated triptychs such as Three Studies for a Crucifixion, 1962. This exhibition is a treat for fans of Bacon's paintings, and the perfect introduction for people less familiar with his work.

Bacon is world famous for his twisted images of people and animals, often splattered with paint, displaying raw emotion and considered to be some of the most powerful images in art. The human body is a recurring theme in Francis Bacon’s work and these paintings will be displayed just as they were when they were first made, with many other paintings of animals and visceral landscapes.

The Autumn Antiques and Fine Art Fair, staged in association with LAPADA The Association of Art & Antiques Dealers, will be at The Centaur, Cheltenham Racecourse in Gloucestershire between Thursday 27th and Sunday 30th November.

The fair is an annual event where some of the country’s leading antiques and fine art dealers offer for sale an exciting selection of the finest period furniture, glamorous jewellery, traditional and modern paintings and sculpture and much more.

Find unique Christmas presents and everything for the home, including exclusive dining room furniture and items for the Christmas table from the selling exhibition “The Art of Fine Dining”.

Thursday 12 noon – 8 pm
Friday & Saturday 10.30 am – 6 pm
Sunday 10.30 am – 5 pm

The Arts & Business Awards highlights the success stories from the last 30 years of business engagement with the arts.

Along with a retrospective prize honouring the best arts sponsorships of the last 30 years, the year’s best arts sponsorships were announced at the 30th Arts & Business Awards as:

• Old Mutual A&B Cultural Branding Award Morgan Stanley & The British Museum
• Prudential A&B People Development Award Rolls-Royce plc & Sinfonia ViVA
• British Council A&B International Award Cambridge University Press & Britten Sinfonia
• A&B Young People Award Bank of Scotland & Aye Write!
• BP A&B Sustainability The Sage Group PLC & The Sage Gateshead
• JTI A&B Community Award Port of Tilbury London Ltd & Thurrock Council
• Arts & Business Volunteer of the Year Award Paul Ralley & Nofit State Circus

Also announced was the inaugural Lloyd’s A&B Innovation Prize, a retrospective prize awarding the most ground-breaking partnerships between business and the arts in the UK in the last 30 years.

Lloyd’s A&B Innovation Prize
Deutsche Bank for partnerships with Frieze Art Fair, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Royal Academy and the Royal College of Arts

Sue Ryder Care’s Art Liberating Lives Exhibition

Museum of East Asian Art
12 Bennett Street
Bath
BA1 2QJ
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 464640

The centrepiece of this exhibition will be a visit by Tibetan Buddhist monks from the world renowned Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in India, from 14th- 19th of October. The monks will spend six days creating a sand mandala, which they will destroy in a traditional ritual during a ceremony of chanting and music. The destruction of the mandala will take place on Sunday 19th October, with the sand then being carried in procession to Pulteney Bridge, where it will be poured into the River Avon.

The Mandala, a diagram of perfect worlds which buddhas inhabit, is found in various types of artwork in both Hindu and Buddhist traditions, and within Buddhism has also developed into sandpainting. It is made with sand poured from traditional metal funnels called chak-pur. The chak-pur is held in one hand while a metal rod is run along its serrated surface to produce vibrations, which cause the sands to flow like liquid. Once completed, the mandala is ceremonially destroyed as a lesson in impermanence. A sand mandala is also thought to benefit all those who view it.

Museum of East Asian Art
12 Bennett Street
Bath
BA1 2QJ
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 464640

The miniature paintings, often called tsagli, generally depict buddhas and other deities – some peaceful, some wrathful – and are commonly referred to as “initiation cards”. Although the artistic styles closely follow that of Tibetan precedent, references to Mongolian history and culture can be found in the Tibetan Buddhist art produced in Mongolia, along with the stylistic influences from neighbouring cultures of China, Nepal and India.

25 Oct 2008 - 4 Jan 2009

Victoria Art Galley
Bridge Street
Bath
BA2 4AT
Tel: +44 (0) 1225 477244

The star of a forthcoming exhibition of Paintings by Peter Lanyon will be a very large oil painting titled ‘Porthmeor’, commissioned in 1962 as a mural by the American collector and patron, Stanley J Seeger.

The idea for the mural was to show the sea and myths associated with it such as the legend of the Golden Fleece. As Lanyon explained: “The main appearance of it is as a fast-moving sea with cross-shore drift and counter drift.” The artist began the painting in his St Ives studio and completed it on site, Debussy’s La mer inspiring him to phrase the work musically.

Also included in the show is the full size study for the mural which will be hung directly above the mural itself, bringing these two important works together for the first time since they were created.