Andy Harper

Whitney McVeigh

Hester Finch

Tom Gallant

Emma McNally

Emma Bennett

Emma Bennett
Al Braithwaite
Hugo Dalton
Hester Finch
Tom Gallant
Andy Harper
Whitney McVeigh
Emma McNally
Hugo Wilson

There is something crazy about a culture in which the value of beauty becomes controversial
- Peter Schjeldahl “Notes on Beauty”

There was a time when art was all about beauty. Every painting, every sculpture, every piece of music strove to be beautiful. Beauty was the most perfect kind of knowledge, reconciling the sensual and rational parts of the brain.

The movements and isms of the 20th century changed this. Avant-garde intellectuals challenged the accepted notions of aesthetics, and by the end of the century it was the anti-aesthetics of post-modernism that dominated, with conceptual art ruling the roost. Beauty had been rejected, cast out - considered at best irrelevant and frivolous, at worst decadent, oppressive, and wrong. Indeed, so potent was this reaction that it coined a term: kalliphobia.

So where does that leave beauty now? Has it been reclaimed? Can it be reclaimed? Should it be reclaimed? What is it that makes beautiful art so troublesome, and why does the anti-aesthetic continue to hold the moral high-ground? Is it because a beautiful painting is too quick to convert into a commodity? Or are we so conscious of our troubled world that beauty seems somehow inappropriate, out of touch, quaint?

Kalliphilia showcases works by a selection of contemporary artists who, unusually, and perhaps even unfashionably, embrace beauty and form in their practice. Such an approach can seem surprising in an art world where for so long beauty has been steadfastly avoided. But these artists don’t pursue it blindly, or slavishly, but rather use it as a means to an end. They are unified in their affirmation of the aesthetic, and by their desire to engage their audience through making work that is visually appealing.

Together, they demonstrate how beauty can be more than just skin deep. Emma McNally shows how it can communicate and inform, introducing pictorially thoughts and theories usually explored through the written word and acting as an eloquent entry point to more complex ideas. Her intensely worked drawings embody the philosophical concepts she investigates, and exist as physical manifestations of ways of seeing the world.  Tom Gallant proves that beauty can provoke as well as please in his exquisite pornographic arabesques, which delight and shock in equal measure. Hugo Wilson demonstrates that beauty is not always straightforward: the misleading simplicity of his holy-water-colour works belies their subversive subtext, and Al Braithwaite, in his clever manipulation of existing objects, casts new light on social and political issues and offers up new perspectives on contemporary debates in a smart and succinct way. Beauty can be dynamic, as in Hugo Dalton’s sketches of dancers, which celebrate movement and happily straddle the divide between abstraction and figuration, or it can be quietly contemplative, as in Emma Bennett’s timeless still-lives. Beauty is also capable of disturbing and unsettling, as it does in Hester Finch’s empty landscapes and distorted figures and Andy Harper’s thorny undergrowths of twisted nature. Perhaps most importantly, beauty can tap into the very essence of what it means to be human through a primal language that is illustrated perfectly in Whitney McVeigh’s abstractions.

Beauty is not vapid. Beauty is powerful, engaging and democratic. It makes us receptive. In contrast to the anti-aesthetic, which reinforces art’s elitism, beauty opens doors. And that is what this show seeks to celebrate.

VEGAS is delighted to welcome Jessica Carlisle to the gallery as acting Creative Director. Jessica will continue to grow the gallery as Suzanne Schurgers has done so successfully over the past five years and begins her appointment with the group exhibition Kalliphilia.

The exhibition is kindly supported by British Council and Maribor Art Gallery.

Vzigalica Gallery
Trg francoske revolucije 7, Ljubljana
10am-6pm Tue-Sun, closed Mon
contact: Marija Skocir, +386 (0) 1 241 2539, marija.skocir@mm-lj.si

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The Courtauld Institute of Art
Somerset House Strand London WC2R ORN

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The gallery will be closed for the holidays from Saturday 17 December - 4 January 2012

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Hayden Kays 'Today is Today' 24 x30 cm, framed, ink on paper, 2010

Bas Jan Ader 'I'm too sad to tell you' video 3:20 min, 1971,courtesy of Rene Daalder

Jeanine Woollard 'Monkey Bird' mixed media, 2010

Jeanine Woollard "Drummer Boy' 2007, c-print, 11 x 17 inches

Emma Talbot 'Candlewick' 24cm x 30 cm, watercolour on paper, 2011

Emma Talbot 'Driving away' 24cm x 30 cm, watercolour on paper, 2011

Emma Talbot 'Open Window Night' 24cm x 30 cm, watercolour on paper, 2011

Michael Tamman & Richard Jakes 'Reflections of a Sky Line' video 6:31 min, 2007

Geraldine Gliubislavich 'Untitled' oil on canvas, 30 x 40 cm, 2011

Bas Jan Ader
Simon English
Geraldine Gliubislavich
Hayden Kays
Emma Talbot
Michael Tamman & Richard Jakes
Jeanine Woollard

I hope you never give a damn
Hope you never lose your perspective
I hope you never fall in love with somebody like you
I wish you well
I wish you everything and more

-          Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers ‘Hope you never’

VEGAS is delighted to present ‘I Wish You Well’, a mixed media group exhibition curated by Anny Baranova.

Love’s fragility and unpredictability leads to numerous unanswered questions, unresolved issues and unbearable sadness. After all, to lose love is the greatest loss for which there is no consolation.  What does one experience when a relationship ends?

This exhibition explores key elements of the human condition during and after the break-up. Facing and living through the ending of a relationship is one of the most powerful experiences, and the pain of the loss of love, of that ‘death’ is one of the most intense and severe pains one is to suffer. Comprehending the complexity of the break-up is too difficult and unbearable for a tormented broken heart however one always seeks to understand it and to mourn it in order to finally accept it, release it and move on.

Ultimately, artworks chosen for ‘I Wish You Well’ identify the notions of one’s experience and one’s emotional state during the stage of the last ‘good-bye’.

The exhibition includes the renowned video ‘I’m Too Sad To Tell You’ (1971), by Bas Jan Ader, a highly acclaimed conceptual Dutch artist, whose work dealt with notions of failure and sadness, among other compelling subjects.  Swiss/French artist Geraldine Gliubislavich will be presenting a painting created specifically for the exhibition. Composed in artist’s tradition, the painting delicately merges elements of tension and sensuality. British artist Jeanine Woollard shows a sculptural work which adds a symbolic touch to the subject of the broken heart. Artist’s references to mythology manifest in the visual representation of one’s personal battle between the good and the evil.  A series of drawings by British artist Emma Talbot gently depict the fragile state of loneliness and sorrow that occupies one’s daily life. Ultimately, the series tells a story of one’s weeping solitude.  London-based artist Hayden Kays will be presenting a series of prints that fuse tragic melancholy with uncompromising honesty. Whether it is one’s attempt to bring back the loved one and start over or a hesitant effort to say ‘good-bye’ and find closure, one never knows.
British artist Simon English who combines both painting and drawing in his work presents a charming composition of bits and pieces of one’s past experience. The artwork visually echoes one’s fragmented trip ‘down the memory lane’: some fragments are meant to be distorted, (and) some will never be forgotten.
British filmmakers Michael Tamman and Richard Jakes will be displaying a short film, inspired from a single page of Sarah Kane’s play ‘Crave’. The dialogue between a man and a woman in the video confronts one with the universal subjects of miscommunication, painful separation and romantic rejection.

WHEN: Thursday 10 November 2011 from 7-10pm

WHERE: the Royal College of Art, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2EU

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