August’s diary highlights a range of shows which engage with art as a form of storytelling by revealing hidden histories and telling lost stories. These include Tavares Strachan at Hayward Gallery, Lonnie Holley at Camden Art Centre, Elias Sime at Hastings Contemporary, ‘The Valleys’ at National Museum Cardiff and ‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’ at the National Gallery.
Tavares Strachan explains: “My practice as an artist is a quest to reveal hidden histories and to tell lost stories with a weight that matches the profound nature of the characters I speak for. I have always thought about making as a form of storytelling, a way for us to engage in things that might be more difficult to grasp during the normal course of our day.”
‘Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere’ at the Hayward Gallery is the first mid-career survey of the New York-based Bahamian artist. This multifaceted exhibition is dedicated to the telling of ‘lost stories’ as Strachan celebrates unsung explorers and neglected cultural trailblazers. It invites audiences to engage with overlooked characters whose lives illuminate histories hidden by bias.
At the centre of the exhibition is Strachan’s ‘Encyclopedia of Invisibility’, which he describes as “a home for lost stories”. This work, which results from a massive (and ongoing) research project, features over 17,000 entries detailing extraordinary figures forgotten by history. ‘Encyclopedia of Invisibility’ calls into question the power relationships that frame and legitimise certain stories while obscuring and erasing others. Hundreds of pages from the work, many animated by vivid images, are presented in a wall-to-wall installation, which enables visitors to scan the volume’s expansive contents. In addition, a display of Strachan’s large-scale ‘Encyclopedia Paintings’ is also included. These collage-like compositions juxtapose images drawn from diverse fields of history and culture.
Several bodies of work remap lost connections to traditional African cultures. These include ‘Distant Relatives’, which pairs tribal masks from different regions of Africa and Papua New Guinea with plaster busts of Black cultural figures in the West, ranging from well-known figures such as author James Baldwin and singer Nina Simone to Jamaican-British nurse and entrepreneur Mary Jane Seacole. A wide-ranging selection of Black cultural and political figures – from South African activist Steven Biko and Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie to pioneering dub producer King Tubby – also appear in Strachan’s painted sculptures. Some of these recall traditional clay ceremonial vessels and pots whilst bringing together dream-like mixes of objects and symbols that hint at a spiritual or mythic dimension to these public figures.
The key message is spelt out across the facade of the Hayward Gallery in a nine-metre-high neon work that declares: You Belong Here. Through new sculptural commissions, large-scale collages, neon works, bronze and ceramic sculptures, and mixed-media installations, the exhibition takes visitors on a journey of discovery and recovery that is simultaneously playful and impactful. Strachan’s vividly realised stories of erasure and remembrance highlight key questions of cultural visibility. His works shine a light not only on histories of colonialism and racism but also on how the past impacts the universal desire for a sense of belonging.
Lonnie Holley, who is exhibiting at Camden Art Centre, is recognised as an important figure in the Black Art tradition from the southern states of America and a significant artist in the mainstream of international twentieth-century and contemporary art. He finds beauty in what is immediately at hand and has a visionary capacity to intuit and reveal to others the significance, symbolism and meaning of the overlooked and discarded. He learned how to compulsively improvise to convey his meaning “by any means necessary” as a child in the “creeks and ditches” around his home in Alabama, where he would dig for worms and find buried objects. As if connected to the regenerative cycles of decomposing organic matter in the soil and in an act of recuperation, he introduces a redemptive aspect to rejected objects, giving them dignity and new life.
The exhibition is centred around new works made during a production residency in the UK earlier this year, alongside previously unseen sculptures made at The Mahler and LeWitt Studios in Spoleto, Italy, in 2023, and key pieces made over the last few decades. A monumental new work, ‘Nine Notes’, repurposes components of a pipe organ to commemorate the nine people who died in a church massacre in 2015 in Charleston, South Carolina—an important site for the Black community through the journey of emancipation. Holley had visited the church a few months before the deadly event when Dylan Roof, a white supremacist, murdered members of the congregation in a racially motivated attack.
Two large new sculptures titled ‘Without Skin’ amass groups of unupholstered chairs, wrapping them in decommissioned industrial ‘attack hoses’ used by the US Fire Service to quench fires. This poignant work invokes the memory of people who were deliberately trapped inside burning churches in acts of racial violence, as well as the hoses used in aggression to suppress the social uprisings of the civil rights movement, in some cases, literally flaying the victims.
The show also includes a large group of sculptures outlining faces seen in profile, a drawing in space made using twisted wire, a material Holley returns to again and again to signify connection, communication, and networking, as well as danger, containment, and incarceration. These portraits, alongside a new body of large-scale paintings, honour his ancestral lineage, including Yoruba and Native American heritage—the lives that have gone before and that are carried in the artist’s DNA. The faces Holley paints are a homage to those whose identities are unknown but whose contribution to the progress of humanity and the service of others deserves recognition.
Holley’s work is infused with, and highly conditioned by, his own journey—including the poverty and hardships of his early childhood, his immersion in the civil rights movement, the legacies of slavery, and the systematic oppression and exploitation of Black people. Whilst deeply rooted in a specific, traumatic place and past, Holley speaks with hope and humility to universal concerns, projecting an inspirational message about how to live a life well and prepare a world for future generations.
Commenting on the exhibition at Hastings Contemporary, Elias Sime says, “Each material I collect has its own story and has been touched by many hands. It has its own language. All the different stories related to the material move me, and I transform these intuitive reactions into my compositions.” Sime is a multidisciplinary artist who fuses extraordinary craftsmanship with a plethora of human-made objects.
‘Eregata እርጋታ’ focuses on the last decade of Sime’s career, with over 20 works on display, including complex and lyrical abstract topographies from his landmark series ‘Tightrope’ and ‘Bareness’, a large-scale ceramic installation consisting of 192 clay vessels. The exhibition title Eregata እርጋታ is derived from Amharic, which he translates to the English word ‘serene’. Although one view of that word positively conveys a sense of stillness and calm, Sime describes ‘eregata’ as recognition that our minds are never truly still or calm: “we struggle to stop and sleep because our brains are constantly stimulated by technology – we are constantly moving faster not slower”. He works against this fixation with technology, embracing a notion of slowness: “my art is slowing it down. The work forces me to slow down.”
His work is a record of the global exchange of commodities and how they are transformed from raw materials to machine, then into waste and finally their renaissance as art. Through his progressive fusion of matter and artistic ideas, he explores global issues of sustainability, the resources we consume, and the impact of technology on today’s society. His work encourages us to re-examine our relationship with our environment in today’s unstable world.
‘The Valleys’ is an exhibition at National Museum Cardiff which focuses on the people, communities and landscape of the south Wales Valleys. The exhibition explores the visual culture of the Valleys, displaying works of art alongside objects from Amgueddfa Cymru’s national collection to present an inclusive history of the communities of the coalfield for the first time. It asks us to rethink our preconceptions. What do we mean when we talk about the Valleys and their communities? What are the stories from the local people and those who visit the area?
The exhibition closely examines the lives and landscape of the Valleys and the people who lived and worked there. Dr Kath Davies, Director of Collections and Research at Amgueddfa Cymru – Museum Wales says: “We’re delighted to share some of the stories of the south Wales Valleys … We’re inviting visitors to respond and reflect on their experiences of the Valleys, spark conversations and challenge stereotypes.” Nicholas Thornton, Head of Modern and Contemporary Art at Amgueddfa Cymru notes: “The exhibition focuses on … the communities whose work, resilience and strong sense of place has been so central to one of the most important, and all too often overlooked visual traditions of the modern world.”
From Ammanford to Pontypool, artists from across the world have been inspired by the Valleys since the 18th century. Davies says: “In the 20th century, global forces brought huge economic and social challenges to Valleys communities. Artists responded to produce a unique and internationally important representation of the working-class experience. Yet this visual tradition remains largely unknown. For the first time, Amgueddfa Cymru is exploring this important story through our national collection.”
The exhibition features over 200 artworks and includes paintings, photography, film, and applied art from over 60 artists, including Penry Williams, Josef Herman, and Ernest Zobole. It also introduces the work of collaborator artists and makers, including Nicholas Evans and Illtyd David. Also included is a group of new photography acquisitions, including important bodies of work by Tina Carr, Annemarie Schöne, and Robert Frank.
John Harvey has written extensively on the work of Evans, who was a former miner and a Pentecostal lay preacher for the Apostolic Church in Wales: “He started to paint in retirement, and in the course of fifteen years produced a considerable body of paintings, the majority of which are predominantly black, square, and made using fingers, rags, and sponges … His paintings … perpetuate the visionary tradition insofar as the artist believes them to be divinely inspired, mediated in the form of a vision which he realizes in paint … Evans’s paintings are [a] manifestation of the religion of Nonconformity.”
‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’ at the National Gallery, as Dr Susanna Avery-Quash, Lead Curator, observes, “draws attention to the powerful if hidden story of the National Gallery as a catalyst in the creative life of the nation through its encouragement of contemporary artists to draw inspiration from its collection”. In a letter dated 5 March 1979 to the then Director of the National Gallery, Michael Levey, David Hockney wrote “I must tell you that I love the collection of the National Gallery”.
This focused exhibition explores Hockney’s lifelong association with the National Gallery and passionate interest in its collection in general and with the 15th-century Italian painter Piero della Francesca in particular. Indeed, on one occasion, Hockney confessed of della Francesca’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’, ‘I’d love to have that Della Francesca just so I could look at it every day for an hour.’
So, for this display, two masterpieces by Hockney that feature reproductions of ‘The Baptism of Christ’ will be displayed at the National Gallery alongside the original Renaissance painting. The exhibition will encourage visitors to draw comparisons between the 15th-century painting and the two paintings by Hockney and promote ‘slow looking’, an activity that, in Hockney’s opinion, is vital in letting people rediscover just how beautiful the world around them is.
In Hockney’s ‘My Parents’, a reproduction of Piero’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’ is reflected in a mirror on a trolley behind the sitters. ‘Looking at Pictures on a Screen’ depicts Hockney’s close friend Henry Geldzahler, peering at a folding screen in the artist’s studio on which are stuck four posters of favourite National Gallery pictures, including ‘The Baptism of Christ’.
The display is an opportunity for the Gallery to celebrate 200 years of working with contemporary artists and to reinforce its continuing role in bringing artists, paintings and the public into a fruitful three-way dialogue, a key element of the celebrations to mark the Gallery’s Bicentenary. Hockney participated in the Gallery’s pioneering exhibition series, ‘The Artist’s Eye’, which allowed artists to act as curators and share pictures in new ways with broad audiences.
Hockney, who has been a lifelong devotee of the Gallery, reminds us of the pleasures and benefits to be derived from careful looking: “I didn’t visit London until I was 18 years old. The National Gallery was just there. They didn’t do exhibitions in those days. But I often went there as a student. I was always looking at Fra Angelico, Piero, Vermeer and Van Gogh. On those early visits, I remember being affected by Piero’s ‘The Baptism of Christ’; it was marvellous. I understand what reproductions do. They’ve enriched my life a great deal, and I know a lot of things from looking at them. On the other hand, when you see the real paintings it is a different experience.”
This month, I end with three ecclesiastically-hosted exhibitions. ‘Monadic Singularity’ at Liverpool Cathedral marks the first time Anish Kapoor has presented a solo exhibition in a UK Cathedral. He brings his work to the North-West for the first time in over 40 years since his show at the Walker Art Gallery in 1983. The exhibition is also a highlight of Liverpool Cathedral’s centenary celebrations, commemorating the 100th anniversary of its Consecration in 1924.
The exhibition showcases works created over the past 25 years by one of the most innovative and influential artists of our time, some of which have never been displayed in the UK. They enable visitors to contemplate key moments in life: birth, marriage, and death. The exhibition integrates with the Cathedral’s gothic architecture, featuring a wax sculpture in the Main Space and additional works in the Lady Chapel and Ambulatory. As a result, visitors can embark on a journey through the Cathedral’s spaces, including a large-scale installation in the Well, a stunning reminder of our existence on Earth.
Elisa Nocente, Head of Cultural Programme at Liverpool Cathedral and curator of the exhibition has stated: “It is an honour that Anish Kapoor has chosen to collaborate with Liverpool Cathedral in this landmark year. As one of the leading figures in contemporary art, he distinguishes himself by a unique visual language that embraces painting, sculpture, and architectural forms. Provoking both wonder and uneasiness, Kapoor’s artworks transcend their materiality; we hope that they will resonate on a deeply physical and emotional level for our audiences.”
‘Am I My Brother’s Keeper?’ is a profound exhibition by renowned British sculptor Sean Henry at Ely Cathedral, which brings together twenty-eight polychrome figures of significantly varying scales. Each sculpture is sympathetically displayed in unusual and diverse spaces, such as vacant plinths inside the building and around the Cathedral environs.
The show has been carefully and reflectively curated by the cathedral’s visual arts advisor, Jacquiline Creswell, who says, “In a world so often plagued by division and indifference, the question ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ can be interpreted as an enquiry into one’s moral responsibility towards others.”
Sean Henry says, “I am very excited to be exhibiting my sculptures in and around the ancient space of Ely Cathedral and grateful for the opportunity. My sculptures, while often inspired by aspects of real people, are rarely portraits and not motivated by status as in much traditional figurative art. I am interested in what it is to be human and inspired by the felt sense of shared humanity.
The excitement of exhibiting in Ely Cathedral is a sense of multi-generational history, of the lives both great and forgotten that have touched this building and how this history impacts our viewing and the connections between sculpture and viewer.”
‘Landscapes’ is The London Group’s fourth sculpture exhibition in the Churchyard of St John’s Waterloo as part of the Waterloo Festival. This year’s Waterloo Festival has the theme of Gardens, Rivers and Marshes, a celebration of Waterloo and North Lambeth’s life as a large marsh in the heart of London before 1824. Unlike Vauxhall to the South and Blackfriars to the East, the Waterloo and North Lambeth area took until the 19th century to develop into a dense neighbourhood. Prior to that, it was host to fields, marshes, and wharfs. It was also well known for its pleasure gardens, including Cuper’s Gardens and Astley’s Circus, the first modern circus. However, the festival’s theme not only puts a spotlight on Waterloo’s pre-19th-century past but also highlights the area’s current role as a pivotal urban centre.
The London Group have distilled this into the theme ‘Landscapes’, which the exhibiting artists have interrogated from different perspectives and in different mediums. These include traditional, poetic, emotional and urban, to name but a few. Barbara Beyer’s installation ‘Best intentions’Intentions’ references young urban trees strapped between poles to support their early years of growth. They need this support as they are taken out of their natural environment, and the contraption reveals our ambiguous relation to landscape and environment. Marenka Gabeler explores the landscape of emotions with a series of small sculptures hanging from branches or placed among a tree’s trunk and branches. The pieces are imprints of the negative shapes her hands make when feeling intense emotions.
This exhibition celebrates green spaces and provides a chance to further reflect on environmental challenges.
‘Tavares Strachan: There Is Light Somewhere’, 18 June – 1 September 2024, Hayward Gallery – Visit Here
‘Lonnie Holley: All Rendered Truth’, 5 July – 15 September 2024, Camden Art Centre –
Visit Here
‘Elias Sime: Eregata እርጋታ’, 16 March – 8 September 2024, Hastings Contemporary –
Visit Here
‘The Valleys’, 25 May–3 November 2024, National Museum Cardiff – Visit Here
‘Hockney and Piero: A Longer Look’, 8 August – 27 October 2024, National Gallery –
Visit Here
‘Monadic Singularity’, 10 August – 15 September 2024, Liverpool Cathedral –
Visit Here https://www.elycathedral.org/events/am-i-my-brothers-keeper
‘Am I My Brother’s Keeper? – Exhibition by Sean Henry’, 27 April – 1 September, Ely Cathedral – Visit Here
‘Landscapes: The London Group at Waterloo Festival 2024’, 11 July – 11 August 2024, St John’s Waterloo – Visit Here