EXHIBITION: HONG KONG
Everything and Nothing by Xie Lei
Artist Xie Lei’s solo exhibition opens this weekend in the spacious Feast Projects gallery located on the harbour of Hong Kong’s Ap Lei Chau district. Xie Lei was born in Huainan but lives in Paris and this personal duality seems to influence his works, which he explains is an exploration of “the ambiguity of ourselves and the ambivalence of situations.” We recommend a visit to see his vivid, vibrantly coloured oil paintings and then taking in the view of the sea from the gallery’s garden terrace.
Unit 307, 3/F, Harbour Industrial Centre, 10 Lee Hing Street, Ap Lei Chau. Open daily 12.00-19.00. Closed Sunday and Monday. Until 7 June.
feastprojects.com
FILM: LONDON
Latvian Documentary Film Afternoon: Then and Now – Part 1
This Saturday, London’s film-goers have the opportunity to sample a slice of Latvian cinema at east London’s Rich Mix Cinema. The first-come-first-served event will air three documentary features that chart the nation’s changing cinematic style. The trio includes Herz Frank’s Ten Minutes Older (1978) that captures the reactions of children watching a theatre production, and Juris Podnieks’s exploration of teenage rebellion in then soviet-occupied Latvia in Is It Easy To Be Young (1987). Also worth staying for, is Juris Poskus’s But The Hour is Near (2004); a contemporary rendition of day-to-day life in Riga mixing tragedy and farce in a depiction of the country’s Christian residents.
Rich Mix Cinema, 35-47 Bethnal Green Road. Saturday 4 May, from 12.00.
richmix.org.uk
EXHIBITION: RIO DE JANEIRO
Lugar Nenhum
The Lugar Nenhum exhibit at Insituto Moreira Salles in the Rio neighbourhood of Gávea continues this weekend. Fifty-six works from Brazilian painters such as Marina Rheingantz, Ana Prata and Rodrigo Andrade are on display, as well as the photographs of Celina Yamauchi, Lina Kim, Luiza Baldan, Rubens Mano and Sofia Borges. With Lugar Nenhum meaning “nowhere”, the works are all based on the concept of empty, abandoned lands from forgotten pasts. Of particular emphasis is the combined ability of paint mediums and the lens’s power to distort images. The strong differences between Kim’s photographs of ex-Soviet army plants, Yamauchi’s haunting black-and-white images and Rheingantz’s void landscapes, are celebrated.
Insituto Moreira Salles, 476 Rua Marquês de São Vicente, Gávea. Open daily 11.00-20.00. Closed Monday. Until 2 June.
ims.uol.com.br
ART: BERLIN
5 Cuts: A Visual Dialogue with Yohji Yamamoto
This weekend will be Berliners’ last chance to catch the public exhibition of five themed interviews with Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto (the winner of his home country’s Medal of Honour for his services to the industry). The video installations explore five themes taken from intimate conversations conducted in Tokyo and Paris by German gallerists MADE. The footage reveals Yamamoto’s musings on love, life and art, and offers a rare insight into the public figure’s private thoughts.
MADE, Alexanderstrasse 7. Open 16.00-19.00. Until 5 May.
made-blog.com
MUSIC: GLOBAL
Beacon: The Ways We Separate
Brooklyn-based duo Beacon are Thomas Mullarney III and Jacob Gossett. The two met at art school and have carried that sophisticated – some might argue slightly imperious-sounding – taste for the very best onto their debut album, The Ways We Separate. But that’s not to say they’re not accessible. Beacon mix the best of uplifting pop melodies with a subtle undercurrent of well-thought out electronic beats. Recent single “Bring You Back” is a pulsing, rippling, slice of oddly lively melancholy. It’s not party music, but you’ll be glad Beacon are over-thinking things – so you don't have to.
The Ways We Separate is available to buy now.
beacon.bandcamp.com
