Artistic Alchemy: The Transformative Power of Mixed Media Art

Truly radical art has a transformative power; transcending traditional boundaries, challenging perceptions. This month, a handful of new exhibitions are popping up around London that are provoking critical thinking and artistic alchemy whilst embracing the transformative power of mixed media art.

Mixed media art emerged in the early 20th century, stemming from cubist collages by artists like Picasso and Braque. It encompasses the use of diverse materials, offering endless creative possibilities. Contrarily, multi-media art (a style increasingly gaining popularity among contemporary artists) incorporates electronic elements, such as video, film, audio, and IT software alongside traditional materials.

Against the backdrop of iconic institutions and contemporary galleries, a diverse array of voices converges, each offering a unique lens through which to explore the complexities of contemporary life; at the same time, experimenting with a variety of materials and technologies.

From avant-garde innovators to experimental creators, artists like Andrew Hart, with his soundscape-inspired painting, and Barbara Kruger, marking her long-awaited return to London with her first solo exhibition in over two decades, offer compelling showcases not to be missed throughout the month of March.

Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles

As you enter the new exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, you are transported into a ballroom reminiscent of Italian director Ettore Scola’s film “Le Bal” (1983); a time travel piece, in which the world’s social changes are reflected in a Parisian ballroom by its eclectic troupe of dancers.

Tango dancers periodically grace the space, adding to its cinematic allure, whilst other set recreations follow into different rooms. This is ‘Dreams Have No Titles’ by Zineb Sedira, an exhibition that is changing the way we interact with art and film.

Sedira, a visionary artist of Algerian descent, has long been celebrated for her evocative explorations of migration, memory, and cultural identity. In a series of multimedia installations, she invites viewers into a world of collective shared experiences, making for an incisive commentary on personal narratives.

Originally conceived for the French Pavilion, Sedira references places, memories and specific films from the avant-garde movement of french film making in the 1960s and 70s, such as Gillo Pontecorvo’s Battle of Algiers (1966) and Luchino Visconti’s L’Etranger (1967). Raised in France with Algerian roots and now living in London, Sedira infuses her art with both iconic film references and her own life story; blurring the boundaries between reality and fiction, character and narrator.

Inviting the visitor in as both viewer and participant, the final installment within the exhibition replicates Sedira’s own living room in Brixton, London, down to the smallest detail. Visitors are encouraged to settle into her sofa to read, reflect, chat or watch the TV.

As well as Sedira, other London-based artists are embracing the themes of collective memory and cross modality, such as interdisciplinary artist Andrew Pierre Hart.

Andrew Pierre Hart: Bio-Data Flows and Other Rhythms – A Local Story

Distinctive and radical, this is the world of Andrew Pierre Hart, where traditional craftsmanship dances with digital innovation in a riot of colours and textures. Working as both a visual artist and an electronic sound producer, music is central to this artist’s new interactive exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery.

For this commission, Hart has constructed an immersive atmosphere, comprising a mural tailored to the site, a set of six fresh oil paintings, a bamboo sculpture, an original sound composition; and a film captured within the Whitechapel Gallery area, titled Free Writers.

Using Whitechapel’s longstanding history as a place where many migrants and diaspora communities have settled, Hart’s vision of Whitechapel is further explored through paintings of the local inhabitants. His unique artwork echoes the style of the big murals and graffiti often seen in locations throughout the East End.

The sound composition can physically be felt throughout the exhibition; pulsing through speakers embedded into the seating of the gallery, a visceral experience that complements the visual elements of Hart’s artwork. With its binaural(Binaural recording is a method of recording sound that uses two microphones, arranged with the intent to create a 3D stereo sound sensation ) and body-responsive music and atmospherics, the sound composition adds another layer of immersion, enveloping visitors in a sensory journey through Whitechapel’s vibrancy.

Additionally, the exhibition will host three live events, transforming the space with dance, electronic music, dialogues, screenings, and performances.

Large scale abstract pieces inspired by sound is a theme which permeates artists old and new; such as the new curation of the works of Phillip King and Jeremy Moon.

Moon/King: the work and friendship of Phillip King and Jeremy Moon – 1956 to 1973

In the Thomas Dane Gallery, two spaces on Duke Street, St. James’s, a convergence of work by artists Phillip King and Jeremy Moon is taking place.

King and Moon first met in 1956 at Christ’s College, Cambridge. Both men, shaped by their experiences during the Second World War and post-war depression, reimagined sculpture and painting in new and innovative ways which challenge traditional notions of form and materiality.

Works created by Moon during the 1960s and 1970s, including both paintings and drawings, will be displayed alongside a geometric floor-based sculpture from 1972. Additionally, the exhibition will feature two sizable sculptures crafted by Phillip King in the 1960s, along with a collection of hand-made and editioned maquettes spanning the artist’s entire career.

Pattern, shape, volume, colour and the ‘art of the invisible’ are central to this multi-media exploration. King’s sculptures and Moon’s paintings, displayed side by side, offer a dialogue between form and colour, volume and rhythm, inviting viewers to contemplate the interplay of light, space and perception in the creation of meaning and emotion.

“I realise now, looking back over the years at our work together, that I am [still] … having a constant, ongoing,
subconscious dialogue with a wide range of Jeremy’s works.

Phillip King (2021)

The influence of movements such as post-modernism and jazz, is reflected in the repeated patterns of stripes and grids in Moon’s painting, an approach that establishes rhythm and movement across the canvas, integrating seamlessly with the abstract shapes of King. This exhibition doesn’t just merge media, but the varying styles and influences of two artists.

The dialogue of iconic artists from the past, such as Moon and King, is becoming increasingly relevant, evident in graphic designer Barbara Kruger’s resurgence in the London art scene. And in her new show, Kruger poses us this. What asks for attention, and what demands it?

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You.

Words words words; scrawling and cascading across the walls of the Serpentine South gallery in Kensington Gardens is the electrifying universe crafted by Barbara Kruger, graphic design icon of the eighties and master of visual rebellion.

‘I shop therefore I am’. Sound familiar? Philosopher Rene Descartes once said ‘I think therefore I am’. Our ability to think proves our existence. Cleverly playing on this famous dictum, we are faced with a reality in which our identities are shaped by our consumerist habits: what we wear, watch, eat, think. Or don’t think. The act of shopping becomes equated with existence itself, replacing man’s ability to free thinking.

From large-scale installations to intimate prints, the exhibition features Kruger’s work from the eighties reimagined as video works, characterised by the infamous bold white Futura¹ Oblique font.

Kruger is wonderfully sardonic and tongue in cheek, with an iconic visual language that mimics the bombardment of advertising propaganda in contemporary culture. Which, in a way, it is; propaganda for free thought, resistance and revolt. Yet her message is so bold its staring us right in the eye, subtle as a bull in a china shop.

Throughout the space, interactive installations invite visitors to engage with the artwork on a visceral level; prompting them to consider their own complicity in the systems of power and oppression that Kruger so vehemently critiques. Video configurations and flashing images of her past pieces throughout the decades blitz on huge screens accompanied by snippets and soundscapes from social media. Endless ironic pictures of cats, voices of celebrities echoing throughout the exhibition.

In the centre of the gallery, a multimedia installation invites visitors to envision a future free from the constraints of gender, race, and class, a world where justice and equality reign supreme.

‘Our people are better than your people,’ reads a panel. ‘More intelligent, more powerful. We are good and you are evil’

Barbara Kruger

Kruger’s work remains to be a rallying cry to anyone human. You can’t escape her line of interrogation. Billboards even outside of the confines of the gallery confront passersby with the question of:

‘Who is beyond the law? Who is bought and sold? Who is free to choose? Who does time? Who follows orders? Who salutes longest? Who prays loudest? Who dies first? Who laughs last?‘

To sum up, these dynamic multi-media exhibitions embody the diverse voices defining London’s art scene. More than just static paintings, they blend colour, shape, texture, and sound to create immersive experiences that resonate deeply. Drawing inspiration from music, film, and social commentary, the transformative power of mixed media offers a unique glimpse into the complexities of modern life; crafting experiences that defy simple categorisation.

Zineb Sedira: Dreams Have No Titles 15 Feb – 12 May 2024 at the Whitechapel Gallery.org

Andrew Pierre Hart: Bio-Data Flows and Other Rhythms – A Local Story 15 February – 7 July 2024 at Whitechapel Gallery.org

Moon/King: The work and friendship of Phillip King and Jeremy Moon 1956 to 1973 26 January – 20 April 2024 at Thomas Dane Gallery

Barbara Kruger: Thinking of You. I Mean Me. I Mean You. 1 February – 17 March 2024 at Serpentine South Gallery

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