small show: Huge Talent

Craft has always been a poor relation to fine art but it's had a tireless champion in Janice Blackburn. She's a devoted collector and talent spotter, curating shows of contemporary work for museums and auction houses like Sotheby's in London and New York. Over the years, she and husband David have commissioned a wide range of designers for original pieces from jewellery, glass, ceramics and textiles to furniture and household objects. She spotted Grayson Perry more than 20 years ago, long before the Turner Prize catapulted him into the limelight. This new show showcases just 11 edgy new designers who have caught Blackburn's eye with pieces that occupy that uncertain ground between craft, design, science and art. The artists use a wide range of techniques and materials from paper, clay, metal, taxidermy, beeswax, dried herbs, pearls, bone and even cake. Nearly all the work is unique and not available anywhere else so this short show is a great example to see and buy emerging talent. And for snoopers, the venue itself is interesting. It's the former home of Future Systems architects Jan Kaplicky and Amanda Levete, and while the site is being developed, it's being used as a gallery space. Catch it while you can. 16 - 27 January, 12noon - 6pm daily. 9 Hillgate Street (behind the Gate Cinema), Notting Hill, London W8

Caption:
Honeycomb vase in natural beeswax made in a hive using the efforts of 40,000 bees. By Tomas Gabzdil Libertiny (Studio Libertiny)

 
 
 
 

Remember Love: John Lennon

When John Lennon was gunned down in New York in December 1980, he had slipped out of the public consciousness, Paul McCartney was the housewives' choice and the Beatles' glory days were far behind him. But Lennon never stopped working and his relationship with Yoko Ono stayed as firm and fulfilling as ever, despite her constant vilification by fans. This wonderful photographic exhibition shows Lennon in the final days working on a new album - intense, haggard but still mesmerising. Photographer David M. Spindel had a close, trusting relationship with him and these pictures are familiar, informal and revealing. The show also charts Lennon from schoolboy to super star to victim, using the work of a handful of other photographers who had unrivalled access and intimacy. There are shots of John and Yoko in their very ordinary kitchen, John as a schoolboy, John working on the Imagine album wearing a very dodgy tank-top and sitting at his white piano, and several shots from different decades of his distinctive relaxed pose - left leg crossed crisply over right knee. There's an irresistible shot of him in Newquay in 1967 on the Magical Mystery Tour. In a cream roll neck sweater with an expression of calm innocence, he is totally beautiful. And finally there is the image of a stunned crowd on the day of the funeral outside the Dakota building where Lennon lived and where the assassin shot him. Using infra-red film Jim Marchese creates a haunting photographic elegy to launch a legend. The work on show, chiefly silver gelatin prints and digital c-types, is all for sale. Runs to 2 March, Proud Galleries, 5 Buckingham Street, London WC2, 020 7839 4292; www.proud.co.uk

Caption:
Studio shot of John Lennon in the Double Fantasy sessions 1980, by David M. Spindel.

 
 
 
 

Fabian Marti

"Fruchtzimmer" is the first solo London exhibition of Swiss artist Fabian Marti and it's another first for the Alexandre Pollazzon gallery which has a rare knack of finding European talent before prices go through the roof. In fact Marti, still in his lateTwenties, is about to embark on a residency in Los Angeles so this may be your last chance to catch him before he hits the international big time. This show features photographs using a scanner as the camera and book covers and images modified to create a new and mysterious message. In the Abstract Cross series, stark runic lines are sliced into film negative and the results captured on a scanner with all the detritus of modern life - dust, stray hairs, all of it inconsequential alongside the mysterious Celtic and Christian symbols. There's a particularly handsome large print of a fragmented crystal seemingly floating in space, trailing clouds of glory across a darkened universe. But it's just the copying machine. 11 January - 16 February. Open Tuesday - Saturday, 10am - 6pm. Alexandre Pollazzon Limited, 11 Howland Street, London W1, 020 7436 9824; www.alex-pollazzon.com

Caption:
Kristallmethode 1, 2007
158 x 116cm
Inkjet print on paper
Edition of 5
€5,150 (£3,699.71) plus VAT

 
 
 
 

Rag and Bone

Capitalism with a conscience? The broad raised plaza outside the Economist building in St James's often hosts modern art installations but the current one is quite disturbing. Here in the heart of the Establishment, surrounded by hedge funds, venture capitalists and fine art galleries, Laura Ford's bronze animal sculptures are a shocking reminder of the poor. She has chosen familiar Beatrix Potter characters and transposed them into the dreary world of the hungry and disadvantaged. There are just three pieces: a badger rootling through a litter bin for food, a despairing fox wrapped in blankets like London's homeless, and a Mrs Tiggywinkle-type hedgehog as a confused, displaced bag lady. The sentiment of childhood memory colours perception of these pieces and stirs your heart in the way that smelly, deranged tramps don't. Laura Ford is one of the foremost sculptors working in the UK today and she asks us to look beyond our own secure existence and waken basic charity. It's an uncomfortable moment, but necessary. Many thanks should go to the Contemporary Art Society which is presenting this exhibition in conjunction with Turner Contemporary at Margate, the Houldsworth Gallery and the Economist. Runs to 1 February. Economist Plaza, 25 St James's Street, London SW1. For more information call Contemporary Art Society 020 7831 1243 or visit www.contempart.org.uk

Caption:
© Laura Ford, Rag and Bone with Bin, bronze, 2007. Photography by Matthew Blaney