I forgot how exhausting it was to move country. Not only from a logistic point of view, but also from how it drains you emotionally. Excitement mixed with nostalgia is my daily state of mind since I moved to London about 10 days ago, this city is so alive, bold, adventurous, scary and filled with art that I’m sure it will become my happy place very soon.
We settled in Shoreditch, a extremely lively neighbourhood home to MANY (too many?) hipsters, and some really cool coffee shops and markets. Even though my schedule is pretty busy I managed to go see some exhibitions including Emily Jacir’s “Europa” at the Whitechapel Gallery , Lee Ufan’s “From Points, From Line, From Wind” and Brent wadden’s “How Long is Now” at the Pace Gallery, and Anj Smith’s “Photosphor on the Palms” and Tetsumi Kudo at Hauser & Wirth Gallery. This weekend the Art Licks Festival was on so I also discovered some alternative art venues that are promoting completely different visions and ways of experimenting art than the “regular” commercial galleries, like for example Art Barter that is emphasising the idea of exchanging artworks against goods or services and not against money.
As I’m living 10 minutes away from The City district I also really enjoy walking around the area to discover the sculptures that are part of the project “Sculpture in The City” that present works of artists such as Sigalit Landau or Ai Weiwei. It’s interesting to see how these artworks are interacting with their surroundings, especially in such a busy contemporary space filled with construction sites.
It’s been a while I’m working on ideas to slightly change the format of the blog by incorporating really short spontaneous posts after each exhibition I see (good or bad), as I want to take the blog back to its original concept : documenting. I’m also reading a very useful guide on “How To Write About Contemporary Art” by Gilda Williams, so hopefully my reviews will get better and clearer for my dear readers. Before sharing with you my first “shorts” in the next few days, here are some pictures of my first days in London.
For more pictures and videos don’t forget to join me on Instagram and on Snapchat at thebubblisarty. Also if you happen to visit London and want to know more about the art scene without going trough the “classic” tours feel free to shoot me an email at eva.kirilof@gmail.com and I can recommend you alternative tours and what’s hot at the moment.
Have all an amazing & creative week.
Eva
The Bubblist 