{"id":7668,"date":"2012-03-19T14:15:25","date_gmt":"2012-03-19T14:15:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/?p=7668"},"modified":"2012-03-19T14:19:02","modified_gmt":"2012-03-19T14:19:02","slug":"victoria-miro-and-parasol-unit-contemporary-art-galleries-london-n1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/victoria-miro-and-parasol-unit-contemporary-art-galleries-london-n1\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria Miro and Parasol Unit contemporary art galleries, London N1"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Situated in a pair of nondescript industrial buildings\u00a0betwixt the painfully trendy parts of Islington and Hoxton are two galleries that are\u00a0definitely\u00a0worth a visit; the Victoria Miro and Parasol Unit contemporary art spaces.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Located right next to each other, both these galleries offer free admission, and there’s usually some interesting stuff to see.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

On display at the Victoria Miro gallery was\u00a0an exhibition of new paintings by ‘Japan’s most revered contemporary artist’, Yayoi Kusama.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Her paintings certainly caught the eye, containing flat bright colours and mad energy, and I loved the alien-esque sculptures.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

The upstairs\u00a0space\u00a0at the Victoria Miro gallery is stunning, with the exposed roof timbers letting natural light flood in.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

In the garden around the back can be found\u00a0Yayoi Kusama’s, ‘Narcissus Garden,’ a jostling collection of shiny\u00a0mirrored\u00a0balls that made a delightful sound as they clinked into each other on the water.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Next door in the\u00a0Parasol\u00a0Unit gallery was the fascinating\u00a0Lines of Thought exhibition.<\/p>\n

Exploring the work of 15 contemporary artists,\u00a0selected from the 1960s to today, the work “brings together a number of disparate works that prompt thoughts about how the simplicity of line is the core element of so many and often unpredictable forms of artistic expression.”<\/p>\n

I loved \u00a0\u00d6zlem G\u00fcnyol & Mustafa Kunt’s, ‘Ceaseless Doodle (2009)’ piece above.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Hemali Bhuta: Stepping Down, 2010, created with\u00a0wax sticks of various lengths and cotton threads.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Fred Sandback’s\u00a0Untitled (Nr. 4)\u00a0was a deceptively\u00a0simple\u00a0yet compelling sculpture. The more you looked at it, the more ‘solid’ the thin air became.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

Adrian Esparza\u2019s ‘Here and Now’ cleverly turned the thread from a\u00a0Mexican serape into a wall sculpture.<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

\"Victoria<\/p>\n

The gallery shop at Parasol Unit.<\/p>\n

Neither gallery has a proper cafe (you can only get tea and\u00a0coffee from a machine), so I recommend taking a sprightly walk to the fantastic Brill cafe in Exmouth Market<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More info on both galleries:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Victoria Miro Gallery<\/strong>
\nYayoi Kusama exhibition runs till 15th April 2012
\n16 Wharf Road
\nLondon N1 7RW
\nTuesday – Saturday 10.00am – 6.00pm
\nClosed Bank Holiday Weekends and Public Holidays
\nwww.victoria-miro.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Parasol unit<\/strong>
\nArtists: Helene Appel, Hemali Bhuta, James Bishop, Raoul De Keyser, Adrian Esparza, \u00d6zlem G\u00fcnyol & Mustafa Kunt, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Jorge Macchi, Nasreen Mohamedi, Fred Sandback, Conrad Shawcross, Anne Truitt, and Richard Tuttle <\/em>
\nRuns till 13 May 2012
\n14 Wharf Road
\nLondon N1 7RW
\nTuesday\u2013Saturday, 10am\u20136pm
\nSunday, 12\u20135pm
\nAdmission is free.
\nwww.parasol-unit.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Situated in a pair of nondescript industrial buildings\u00a0betwixt the painfully trendy parts of Islington and Hoxton are two galleries that are\u00a0definitely\u00a0worth a visit; the Victoria Miro and Parasol Unit contemporary … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7669,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,193],"tags":[34,10],"class_list":["post-7668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-places","tag-art","tag-london"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/victoria-miro-parasol-unit-art-15.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-1ZG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7668"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7722,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7668\/revisions\/7722"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}