• 10 art exhibitions to see in July

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10 art exhibitions to see in July

By Bethany Holmes

Published 29 June 2018

From a pairing of master printmakers Goya and Hogarth, to a comprehensive survey of the painter Yves Klein, here’s our pick of 10 new art exhibitions to check out this July.

  • Hetain Patel: Don’t Look at the Finger

    New Art Gallery, Walsall, 22 June - 29 July 2018
    Hetain Patel blends Hollywood, West Africa and East Asia in his new moving image work, Don’t Look at the Finger (2017). The film charts a ritualistic ‘fight’ between two characters in a church; as they converse through choreography, the power struggles of relationships are expressed, culminating in a ceremonial coming together. This fusion of signifiers is characteristic of the Bolton-born artist’s work. He connects marginalised identities with popular culture to challenge assumptions about what is ‘authentic’. Patel’s work encompasses photographs, videos, sculptures and live performance; alongside Don’t Look at the Finger, The New Art Gallery is showing the artist’s sculpture of himself in a Spider-Man suit, The Other Suit 2.

  • Hetain Patel, Don't Look at the Finger (still)

    Hetain Patel , Don't Look at the Finger (still) , 2017 .

    Courtesy FVU.

  • Christopher Le Brun: New Painting

    Lisson Gallery, London, 4 July - 18 August 2018
    Christopher Le Brun’s first exhibition with Lisson Gallery in his 40-year career consists of a series of large-scale abstract oil paintings he has created over the past two years. The glistening surfaces are testament to the President of the Royal Academy’s acute understanding of colour and his sensitivity to layering, movement and light. Allusions to literature and poetry emerge within the works, as do references to music, seen in the shimmering blues and oranges of the harmonious Concert (2017) pictured below. Equally, influences from Le Brun’s drawing and printmaking practices are noticeable (he has drawn on some surfaces directly with paint tubes).

  • Christopher Le Brun, Concert

    Christopher Le Brun , Concert , 2017 .

    Oil on canvas. 220 x 440 cm. Photographer: George Darrell © Christopher Le Brun; Courtesy Lisson Gallery.

  • Evan Ifekoya: Ritual Without Belief

    Gasworks, London, 5 July - 2 September 2018
    A custom-made sound system hangs from Gasworks’ ceiling, a greyscale ocean conceals the floor and a multitude of balloons lie at the crest of the largest wave. This is London-based artist Evan Ifekoya’s ‘site of abundance’, containing a six-hour sound work that explores polyvocality. Their immense piece of work - described by Ifekoya as a “a black queer algorithm across generations, locations and political affiliations” - is made up of diverse textures, qualities and recording techniques. Meanwhile, verbal samples range from literature, theory and music to conversations and personal reflections, in order to examine wide-ranging emotions and circumstances that accrue and overlap.

  • Evan Ifekoya, No.1 Start from a place of Abundance

    Evan Ifekoya , No.1 Start from a place of Abundance , 2018 .

    Courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Bernice Mulenga.

  • Prints of Darkness: Goya and Hogarth in a Time of European Turmoil

    The Whitworth, Manchester, 7 July 2018 - August 2019
    Through their extraordinary graphic prints, William Hogarth and Francesco José de Goya Lucientes scrutinised societal ills and the turbulent times they lived through. Prints of Darkness includes 100 prints by the two artists and, notably, will be the first to compare the striking similarities within their work. Yet an undercurrent of the exhibition (referenced in its subtitle) is the relevance of their prints to the context of debates taking place in contemporary Europe, particularly those concerned with national identity. Whilst the scenes subjected to the artists’ examination often provoke unease, they urge the viewer to consider the problems their own societies face – something timely and necessary.

  • Francisco Goya Y Lucientes, No hay que dar voces (It's no use crying out)

    Francisco Goya Y Lucientes , No hay que dar voces (It's no use crying out) , 1863 .

    Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester City Galleries.

  • Emil Nolde | Colour is Life

    Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, 14 July - 21 October 2018
    Similarly focusing on an artist working during fractious times is Emil Nolde | Colour is Life. The show encompasses more than 120 of Nolde’s spectacular paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints: from the ethereal landscapes of his early career to the vivid oil paintings produced late in his life, such as Large Poppies (Red, Red, Red) (below). As one of the first German Expressionists, Nolde was integral to the European avant-garde. Despite being a member of the National Socialist party, he was deemed a ‘degenerate artist’ by the Nazis and forbidden from openly working. Such moral complications make Nolde’s career as controversial as it is admired, and these conflicts are successfully tackled in this impressive show.

  • Emil Nolde, Large Poppies (Red, Red, Red), (Grosser Mohn (Rot, Rot, Rot))

    Emil Nolde , Large Poppies (Red, Red, Red), (Grosser Mohn (Rot, Rot, Rot)) , 1942 .

    Oil on canvas. 73.5 x 89.5 cm. © Nolde Stiftung Seebüll.

  • In Focus: Scottish Photography

    City Art Centre, Edinburgh, 7 July 2018 - 12 May 2019
    Also in Edinburgh, In Focus charts the development of Scottish photography. The exhibition begins with the ground-breaking work of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson in the 1840s, and ends with the photographers of today: Wendy McMurdo, Calum Colvin, Christine Borland and Dalziel + Scullion. Encompassing portraits, landscapes, still life and conceptualism, In Focus explores how advances in camera technology have influenced both photography’s documentary and aesthetic capabilities. Equally, the powerful images included – part of City Art Centre’s rich collection – are a tribute to the magic of photography, and Scotland’s essential role within the medium’s history.

  • Thomas Vernon Begbie, Cowgate Port, Edinburgh from the South

    Thomas Vernon Begbie , Cowgate Port, Edinburgh from the South , c.1857-1860 .

    City Art Centre, Museums & Galleries Edinburgh.

  • Memory Palace

    White Cube, London, 11 July - 2 September (Bermondsey), 11 July - 15 September (Mason’s Yard)
    Containing 90 recent artworks by over 40 artists, Memory Palace is an extensive group exhibition spreading over White Cube’s London Bermondsey and Mason’s Yard galleries. The show considers six types of memory: Historical, Autobiographical, Traces, Transcription, Collective and Sensory. Additionally, its architecture has been specially designed by vPPR (a RIBA award-winning all-female practice) to bring the works into conversation with architectural and cultural memory. As well as works by Tracey Emin RA and Etel Adnan, highlights include a colossal new sculpture by Miroslaw Balka. Made with more than 500 used bars of soap, their shapes have been moulded by individual use over time.

  • Miroslaw Balka, Hanging Soap Women

    Miroslaw Balka , Hanging Soap Women , 2000 .

    Soap. 163 3/8 in. (415 cm). © Miroslaw Balka. Photo © Todd-White Art Photography Courtesy White Cube.

  • John Moores Painting Prize 2018

    Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 14 July - 18 November 2018
    The John Moores Painting Prize is the UK’s longest-established painting prize, entered and judged anonymously by a group of jurors and open to all UK-based artists working with paint. This year’s winner will be announced on 12 July. Recent Turner Prize winner and Juror Lubaina Himid has described the five shortlisted artists as “deeply passionate… about what a painting can do when presented in a meaningful conversation with an audience”. The passion Himid refers to is evident in Joseph O‘Rourke’s painting inspired by Budapest: the lively ‘GIANTS’ (2016) which combines oil, acrylic and spray paint (below). Past winners of the prize include David Hockney RA, RA Schools alumna Sarah Pickstone and Rose Wylie RA - to name but three over the prize’s 60 years.

  • Joseph O'Rourke, GIANTS

    Joseph O'Rourke , GIANTS , 2017 .

    Oil, acrylic and spray paint on two canvases. 200.3 x 360cm. Courtesy of the artist..

  • Yves Klein at Blenheim Palace

    Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, 18 July - 7 October 2018
    In what is the 90th year since his birth, Blenheim Art Foundation presents the most comprehensive exhibition of Yves Klein in the UK to date - in the somewhat surprising, yet exceptional setting of an 18th-century palace. Best known for creating his vibrant pigment, ‘International Klein Blue’, the exhibition explores beauty, sensibility, the sublime and how Klein’s extensive practice and visionary experiments inspired later innovations in conceptual art, minimalism and performance art. Among the 50 artworks included in this ambitious show are a sizeable blue pigment installation, paintings from Klein’s Anthropometry series (for which Klein controversially used ‘living brushes’, and his later works in gold.

  • , Yves Klein and the Blue Globe in his atelier, 14, rue Campagne-Première, Paris, France, 1961

    Yves Klein and the Blue Globe in his atelier, 14, rue Campagne-Première, Paris, France, 1961

    © Yves Klein Estate, ADAGP, Paris / DACS, London, 2018 © Photo : Harry Shunk and Janos Kender © J.Paul Getty Trust. The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.

  • Lindsay Seers: Every Thought There Ever Was

    The MAC Belfast, 4 May - 29 July 2018
    Schizophrenia remains deeply stigmatised and Lindsay Seers’ important project at The MAC considers both its historical depictions alongside up-to-date understandings realised through virtual reality. Drawing on the brain functioning occurring in the condition, and Avatar Therapy as a treatment, she has deployed industrial robotics in combination with a three-screen video projection. Two of these screens are held up by robot arms that move in response to the images. Steered by personal stories of schizophrenia, Seers’ powerful work also draws on philosophy, research into consciousness and her collaborations with scientists.

  • Lindsay Seers, Every Thought There Ever Was

    Lindsay Seers , Every Thought There Ever Was .

    The MAC, Upper Gallery.

    Installation Photography by Simon Mills.

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