The Shock of the Now - Issue #232

Afternoon All - Welcome to Issue 232 of The Shock of the Now! I hope you’re having an enjoyable week.

This week, the full issue includes eight Recommended Exhibitions, as well as twenty-two fresh Artist Opportunities.

Additionally, thanks once again to all those who have signed-up for a paid subscription recently! Last week I released The Shock of the Now’s Guide to Backyard Biennial East, an in-depth issue providing comprehensive coverage of this new 8-week summer arts festival celebrating the culture and creativity of East London. The inaugural edition featuring over forty participating partners, presenting exhibitions, installations, screenings, performances, panel discussions, talks, walks, workshops, residencies and open studios, and I prepared a complete breakdown of the biennial programme, covering twenty-one exhibitions, the Whitechapel Gallery’s accompanying film programme and forty-eight associated events. With the festival continuing until early September, for those who missed out or wish to catch up, it can be accessed with a paid subscription Here.

I hope you enjoy Issue 232, and if so do forward it along! As always, questions and comments are welcome, so feel free to get in touch, H x

Adam Leef - ‘Contrapposto’ Solo Exhibition - Art Ultra at 44 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury (23rd July - 3rd August, opening Wednesday 22nd July, 6:30-9pm)

Art Ultra presents Adam Leef’s solo exhibition ‘Contrapposto’ at 44 Great Russell Street, curated by Alice Black, former Director of the Design Museum London.

“Bringing together a series of oil paintings, watercolours and ink studies inspired by the collections of the British Museum, the exhibition reflects Leef’s sustained engagement with classical sculpture, mythology and close observation. At its centre is a new body of work responding to the marble reliefs from the Parthenon Sculptures. Presented in a venue directly opposite the British Museum, Contrapposto creates a compelling dialogue between a contemporary painter and one of the world’s greatest museum collections, exploring how ancient works continue to shape artistic practice today. Leef’s practice is rooted in close observation, exploring how painting can translate encounters with objects, landscapes, and places into richly atmospheric compositions. Working both in the studio and en plein air, he investigates light, colour, and spatial relationships, using painting to construct what he describes as an “overall system of subtle correspondences” that evoke sensory and emotional resonance. While his work encompasses landscapes, portraits, bathers, mythology, and the relationship between artist and environment, Contrapposto turns its attention to the British Museum’s collections, reinterpreting historical artefacts through a contemporary painterly language.” - Art Ultra

‘We Have Never Been Powerless’ Group Exhibition - Bleur, Marble Arch (23rd July - 23rd August, opening Wednesday 22nd July, 6-9pm, RSVP)

Bleur presents ‘We Have Never Been Powerless’, a group exhibition featuring work by Dulcie Davy, Ken Nwadiogbu, Melissa Newbery Welcome (above), PJ Harper, Sam Wootton and Jake Santos, with an opening performance by Otamere Guobadia.

“We Have Never Been Powerless takes its point of departure from a moment in an interview with Jean-Michel Basquiat, when asked if there is anger in his work, he quietly responds: ‘Of course there is.’ What lingers in that moment is not outrage, but the exhaustion of having to explain what is already there, of having to perform anger. This exhibition reflects on that same condition - the quiet resistance of moving through systems that continuously ask certain bodies to justify their presence, their emotions, their visibility, simply for being. Bringing together 6 artists, the exhibition explores resistance not as something loud or performative, but as something lived daily: in endurance, in resilience, in refusing to conform, in continuing to create within structures never designed to hold you. Across painting, sculpture, and installation, the works assert that power does not only belong to those who dictate the rules - it also belongs to those who remain, who resist quietly, who hold space, and who continue to exist on their own terms.” - Bleur

Jacob Blackaller - ‘Regulus’ Solo Exhibition - Final Hot Desert, Haggerston (24th July - 1st August, opening Thursday 23rd July, 6-8pm)

Final Hot Desert presents Jacob Blackaller’s solo exhibition ‘Regulus’.

Ryszard Rabsztyn - ‘Painted Syntax’ Solo Exhibition - Krupa, Clerkenwell (24th July - 9th August, opening Thursday 23rd July, 6pm)

Krupa presents Ryszard Rabsztyn’s solo exhibition ‘Painted Syntax’, in collaboration with DESA Unicum.

“Images appeared in history as a vehicle for narrative long before the invention of writing. Signs carved in stone, paintings, or cave representations preserved to this day constituted a form of passing knowledge and history down through generations. Today, we perceive engaging with art primarily as a visual and aesthetic experience. Meanwhile, from the very beginning, art was also a tool of communication: a record of history, a testament to memory, a carrier of ideas, fears, or personal experiences. The work of Ryszard Rabsztyn reminds us of this primal function. It shows that an artwork is not merely an object of visual experience, but also a material record of information. The Braille and Morse alphabets – systems created to transcend the limitations of perception and distance – become in his works both a tool and the language of artistic expression. We are therefore not merely engaging with an abstract composition; we stand before concrete content. What is a legible system of signs for one group of viewers remains for most merely an arrangement of forms creating the rhythm and structure of the painting. A fascination with hieroglyphs, ciphers, and other methods of notation became one of the directions of the artist’s exploration and defined the character of his creative practice.” - Kurpa

Michael Coppelov - ‘Mangia Mangia’ Solo Exhibition - Three Colt Gallery, Canary Wharf (24th July - 9th August, opening Thursday 23rd July, 6-9pm)

Three Colt Gallery presents Michael Coppelov’s solo exhibition ‘Mangia Mangia’.

“This series, all taken from photographs of meals I’ve eaten, is a brand-new collection of 33 oil paintings on paper pulp on cardboard panels. It marks my first solo show using these materials. Starting as experiments using ceramic and then cast resin, I’ve discovered that paper pulp offers what I need. Cheap, readily available and pleasingly lo-fi, pulp begins as a squelchy material which is easily manipulated and which can be made to take on all manner of different forms: from smooth glass to clay pots whilst also looking and feeling itself like paint. When dry, it becomes rock-hard and a surface onto which paint can easily be applied. The dates of the exhibition were selected to coincide with this year’s Transcontinental Race: an annual self-supported bike race which crosses the European continent and which I attempted unsuccessfully in 2023 and successfully last summer with a 25-day schlep from Santiago de Compostela in Spain to Constanta in Romania. During this trip, I maintained my habit of photographing all I was eating and drinking (as is common practice) and these photographs became the direct source-material for making these 33 new paintings. The name of the show, an Italian expression which literally translates as ‘Eat, eat’’ could also be translated as ‘Dig in!’ and is the name of the Italian restaurant which I ate in after finishing my trans-European cycle and which I stayed in an apartment above for my three days in the city.” - Michael Coppelov