FILM: LONDON
BFI London Film Festival
Being one of the world’s most highly regarded cinema festivals, the 248-strong film programme on offer from London’s BFI this weekend features narratives on love, journeys and experimentation as well as a selection that don’t flinch from facing tougher topics. From Japanese director Naomi Kawase comes Still The Water, a visually beautiful tale of two lovers whose paths cross on a small island off Japan’s mainland. For some comic relief try P’tit Quinquin. Written and directed by Frenchman Bruno Dumont, this film (which actually began as TV mini-series) tells a sinister yet darkly comic story set in the north of France amid a series of crimes that both scare and inspire local children’s imaginations.
At BFI Southbank, Belvedere Road, and venues across London. See website for screening times and tickets. Until 19 October.
bfi.org.uk/lff
MIXED MEDIA: SINGAPORE
Slippery Surfaces
Slippery Surfaces is an exhibition at Singapore’s Taksu art gallery that showcases four Filipino painters exploring the many ways in which paint can be oozed, splattered, and sculpted upon the surface of a canvas. Highlights include the “Transformed and Disappeared” series by Jigger Cruz, who deploys a unique form of pentimento (the physical and visual evidence of painting over previous imagery in a work) as he layers thick globs of vibrant oil paints and veils of spray paint over scenes, obscuring them in the process. Lubin Nepomoceno, on the other hand, does away with the traditional canvas entirely – opting to paint directly onto three-dimensional objects and models.
Taksu, 43 Jalan Merah Saga 01-72, Workloft at Chip Bee. Open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.00-19.00; Sunday, 12.00-18.00. Closed on Mondays. Until 31 October.
taksu.com
SCULPTURE: MILAN
Louise Nevelson: 55-70
Visitors to Milan’s Cardi Galler this weekend will be treated to a selection from 15 years’ worth of work from an icon of the Feminist art movement, US sculptor Louise Nevelson. 55-70 traces the evolution of Nevelson’s oeuvre from her modernist phase into her work in the 1970s when she began to incorporate industrial materials into her sculptures such as steel, aluminium and Plexiglas. The pieces are accompanied by a series of reliefs and mixed-media collages that demonstrate Nevelson’s mastery over composition, her dedication to exploring new material and commitment to ever-more advanced ideas.
Cardi Gallery, Corso di Porta Nuova 38. Open Monday to Saturday, 10.00-19.00. Until 31 December.
cardigallery.com
PHOTOGRAPHY: LONDON
Spasibo by Davide Monteleone
Davide Monteleone is an Italian photographer who has divided his time between Russia and Italy since 2003 and is a winner of the Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Award, a grant from which allowed him to focus on Chechnya during 2013. His exhibition Spasibo at London’s Saatchi Gallery is a document of that time, with the title referencing the Russian word for “thank you”: a satirical gesture towards the Kremlin’s handling of the Chechnyan region. Monteleone’s images capture economic turmoil in the republic amid a volatile, autocratic regime and how it affects local people. Whether the Kremlin will be thanking Monteleone is another question.
Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road. Open daily, 10.00-18.00. Until 3 November.
saatchigallery.com
MUSIC: GLOBAL
Iceage: Plowing Into the Field of Love
That title is quite literal. Danish four-piece Iceage have so far put out two albums of short, sharp, brutal punk but third effort Plowing Into the Field of Love dives wholeheartedly into newly emotional territory with forlorn ballads, Gun Club-style honky hoedowns (as heard on standout single “The Lord’s Favorite”) and even horns and acoustic songs, too. Does this make Copenhagen’s formerly none-more-hardcore lot of sullen-faced anti-everything rockers now some kind of loveable mainstream concern? Well, yes it does. And the mainstream should be very happy to have them.
‘Plowing Into the Field of Love’ is available now.
matadorrecords.com/iceage
