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Viewing Nicola Hicks: Dump circus

The Wick Culture - An Owl on a Crate, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above An Owl on a Crate, 2021, Nicola Hicks

The Wick Culture - Don't Lose Your Shit, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above Don’t Lose Your Shit, 2021, Nicola Hicks

The Wick Culture - Now, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above Now, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above An Owl on a Crate, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above Don’t Lose Your Shit, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Above Now, 2021, Nicola Hicks

Nicola Hicks: Dump circus
11 October — 18 December 2021
Flowers Gallery, Kingsland Road
https://www.flowersgallery.com

For a dose of arresting art, see Nicola Hicks’s new solo show at Flowers Gallery in Kingsland Road. The British artist, who is best known for addressing the universal, often darker aspects of humanity through contemporary allegory, has unveiled something really quite extraordinary here. At the heart of Dump Circus is a large-scale installation casting the city as an urban wasteland, where the natural world has been ravaged by greed and waste.

Expect to see discarded objects scattered across the gallery floor, a bear mauling the ringmaster and a rearing horse on a gigantic rubber tyre. Look to the walls and you’ll come face to face with the glaring cats, dogs and horses depicted in her playful series of works on paper, recalling the exuberant designs of circus posters.

This is an engaging exhibition that will prompt you to consider the destructive impact of human activity on the environment as well as the irrepressible resilience of life on earth.

Viewing Helen Marten: Sparrows On the Stone

The Wick Culture - Helen Marten, Dead Souls, 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten, Dead Souls, 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

The Wick Culture - Helen Marten, A Starling Orbit (real facts, real fiction), 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten, A Starling Orbit (real facts, real fiction), 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

The Wick Culture - Helen Marten
The Age in which we Love (bulging the house),
2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten The Age in which we Love (bulging the house), 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten, Dead Souls, 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten, A Starling Orbit (real facts, real fiction), 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Above Helen Marten The Age in which we Love (bulging the house), 2021. Sadie Coles HQ

Helen Marten: Sparrows On the Stone
4 September — 30 October 2021
Sadie Coles HQ, Kingly Street
https://www.sadiecoles.com/exhibitions

This solo show is brimming with complex ideas, thoughts and feelings. Not surprising, given it contains 12 paintings, 2 floor-based sculptures and 14 works on paper by Helen Marten, the Turner Prize winner best known for her smart use of metaphor and word play.

At the heart of the exhibition is an exploration of the body politic — and a giant metal stick figure prone on the floor. Elsewhere, you’ll see everything from multi-layered abstract works and an embossed bar of soap to fragmented body parts glossed with words by WH Auden, American novelist William H Gass and Marten herself. You’ve guessed it — nothing is quite what it appears.

‘This was meant to be a really simple show: literally just paintings on walls,’ Marten told Frieze Magazine. ‘But, whenever I try to make deliberately smaller works, it just becomes an aggregation of parts and ideas such that it simply has to expand. When meaning twists into a constellation with something else like a knot, it’s incredibly theoretically satisfying.’

There’s a lot to unriddle here but persevere and you’ll reap the rewards. Catch it before it closes at the end of the month.

Viewing Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above

The Wick Culture - Universal Everything, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above Universal Everything, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above

The Wick Culture - Blue Sky White, ES Devlin, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above Blue Sky White, ES Devlin, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above Universal Everything, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Above Blue Sky White, ES Devlin, Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art

Lux: New Wave of Contemporary Art
13 October — 18 December 2021
180 Studios, The Strand
https://thevinylfactory.com

If you’re a fan of interactive and immersive art, head down to 180 Studios for its major new audio-visual exhibition, featuring 13 large-scale installations by 12 artists and collectives, among them Hito Steyerl, Carsten Nicolai and Refik Anadol.

Standout exhibits include Julianknxx’s Black Corporeal (Breathe), a short film exploring the relationship between materiality and the black psyche; a new kinetic media sculpture by Swiss studio iart; and Es Devlin’s monumental, red-lit tunnel, BLUESKYWHITE. Made in response to solar engineering proposals to ‘dim the sun’, the two-part installation encourages viewers to contemplate the issue from two perspectives.

‘In the tunnel visitors are immersed in a nineteenth century Romantic poet’s first-hand account of “the year without summer” caused by an 1815 volcanic eruption,’ Devlin explains. ‘Once through the tunnel they are presented with contemporary accounts of solar geo-engineered solutions to global heating based on the phenomenon experienced by Byron.’

This exhibition will likely be just as — if not more — popular than the recent Ryoji Ikeda smash-hit, so book tickets asap.