Craft exhibitions to see in the UK this spring

31 March 2021

From thrilling textiles to glorious glass

31 March 2021

Exhibitions

Pyramid Chairs (pair), by Fred Baier, 2014 (designed 1978-9), solid sycamore, laminated plywood, stained Bolivar, lacquer. Photo: Mark Heathcote. Courtesy: New Art Centre

Pub bookings: check. Restaurant bookings: check. Gallery bookings: check. With restrictions soon easing, we’re making a beeline for all of our favourite places that aren’t our sofas for the first time since, well, 2020. Get your long-overdue cultural fix with our bumper edition of craft exhibitions to see in the UK this spring.

Fred Baier: form swallows function

A self-styled ‘furniture artist’, Fred Baier was an early adopter of computer modelling and CNC design. More recently, a period of self-reflection led Baier to rally against the increased reliance of designers upon computer-aided production and refashion salvaged offcuts from his previous designs into new objects. An exhibition at the New Art Centre attempts to reconcile these two sides of Baier with a career-spanning survey of his pioneering work. The show has the Crafts stamp of approval: editor-at-large Glenn Adamson describes Baier as ‘the most interesting furniture maker of his generation’.

Until 3 May, New Art Centre, Salisbury. To book your visit contact nac@sculpture.uk.com

The Gee’s Bend Quiltmakers

London’s Alison Jacques Gallery presents the first exhibition in Europe devoted to three generations of women quiltmakers living in Gee’s Bend: an isolated Black community perched on the Alabama River. Remarkably, this tiny hamlet with a population of around 700 is the nerve centre for one of the most compelling chapters in the history of American art. Organised in partnership with the non-profit Souls Grown Deep Foundation, the show surveys nearly 100 years of quiltmaking in the region and explores the experimental processes that have been passed down through generations of Gee’s Bend residents.

Until 25 April, Alison Jacques Gallery, London. Book your visit here

Emergence 10 (detail), by Adam Buick, stoneware with copper ore, straw ash glaze. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy: New Craftsman Gallery
Emergence 10, by Adam Buick, stoneware with copper ore, straw ash glaze. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy: New Craftsman Gallery

Adam Buick: Emergence

‘This body of work is a contemplation on the sea and the liminality of the boundary where land and sea meet,’ says Adam Buick ahead of his exhibition at St Ives’ New Craftsman Gallery. ‘The beach and the sea altered my experience of the past year; they soothed and gave me opportunity.’ Buick uses moon jar forms as a springboard for his observations of the landscape, incorporating local clay and stone into his vessels.

3-30 April, New Craftsman Gallery, St Ives

Installation view of Blue Jeans & Brown Clay at Kate MacGarry, London. Courtesy: the artists and Kate MacGarry, London

Blue Jeans & Brown Clay: Artists and designers at the JB Blunk House

For over four decades, the late American sculptor JB Blunk lived with his family in a rustic homestead in the densely wooded ridge above Inverness, California. Assembled from salvaged materials, the house – which he once described as ‘one big sculpture’ – was crafted entirely by Blunk’s hand, from the doors to the dining table, including all the ceramics used daily for eating and drinking. An exhibition at Shoreditch gallery Kate MacGarry presents new work by London-based artists and designers who have visited and worked at the Blunk House, among them Attua Aparicio, Max Lamb, Jochen Holz, Max Frommeld, Martino Gamper and Francis Upritchard.

Until 24 April, Kate MacGarry, London. Book your visit here

BoredomMischiefFantasyRadicalismFantasy, by Christian Newby, 2020, installation view at City Observatory, Edinburgh. Photo: Aly Wight. Courtesy: the artist

Christian Newby: Boredom>Mischief>Fantasy>Radicalism>Fantasy

Edinburgh gallery Collective (belatedly) kicks off its 2021 programme with a major new large-scale tapestry commission by artist Christian Newby in its City Dome exhibition space. The site-specific intervention depicts free-hand organic motifs such as flowers, birds and shells, all of which are contained by a large net that envelopes the work and alludes to our shared experience of enclosure during the coronavirus lockdown. An accompanying newspaper produced especially for the show, An Illuminated Manual for Drawing with Carpet, offers deeper context for the carpet-tufted tapestry.

13 May – 29 August, City Observatory, Edinburgh. Pre-booking is not necessary but please note you may have to queue to enter the exhibition due to social distancing measures

All bodies are good bodies, by Jonathan Baldock, 2020, ceramic, felt, polymer, wood, MDF and thread. Photo: Mark Blower. Courtesy: the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery, London
Dumah (detail), by Tau Lewis, 2021, recycled leather, recycled polyester fibres, sand dollars, acrylic paint, pvc pipes, wire, crinoid fossils, sea shells. Photo: Pierre Le Hors. Courtesy: the artist; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; and Night Gallery, Los Angeles

Threadbare

Delving into issues such as identity, gender, sexuality and race, the works in Stephen Friedman Gallery’s group exhibition Threadbare explore the transformative and performative qualities associated with textiles through their inherent connection with the body. Jonathan Baldock’s recent work uses puppetry, quilt-making and embroidery to reveal the malleable qualities of the human body, while Tau Lewis engages with personal and historical trauma through her intricate sculptures.

13 April – 15 May, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London

British Studio Ceramic

For its third annual celebration of all things clay, Messums Wiltshire invited Paul Greenhalgh, director of the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, to curate an exhibition of British potters including Magdalene Odundo, Alison Britton, Carol McNicoll, Martin Smith and Stephen Dixon. British Studio Ceramic spotlights the leading figures of a new wave in ceramics that emerged from the Royal College of Art in the 1970s and continues to help shape the scene today.

6 March – 24 April, Messums Wiltshire. The gallery will reopen to the public from 15 April – entrance is available to members only

Liverpool Biennial

After being postponed in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the Liverpool Biennial has thrown open its proverbial doors for its 11th edition, The Stomach and the Port. The biennial’s first ‘outside’ chapter celebrates the city’s iconic architecture and public spaces with a new series of outdoor sculptures and installations. From 23 April, three new commissions by Erick Beltrán, Luisa Ungar, and Daniel Steegmann Mangrané will be on view, while later in spring a second ‘inside’ chapter will launch the festival’s full programme of exhibitions and events at key venues throughout Liverpool.

Liverpool, various locations. The biennial continues at most venues until 27 June, and others to August and September

Crafting a Difference

This year’s Collect art fair has already wrapped up – but the action continues over at SoShiro in Marylebone, where five of the fair’s London-based galleries are presenting an ambitious selection of objects by 75 of their artists until the end of April. Curated by Brian Kennedy, Crafting a Difference features works from Cavaliero Finn, Jaggedart, MADEINBRITALY, Ting-Ying Gallery, and Vessel Gallery spanning a diverse mix of materials and methods.

Until 30 April, SoShiro, London. Book your visit here

Synthesis, by Archie Brennan, 1978. Photo: Kenneth Gray Photography. Courtesy: Dovecot Studios
The Wine Cask, by Archie Brennan, 1974. Photo: Shannon Tofts. Courtesy: Dovecot Studios

Archie Brennan: Tapestry Goes Pop!

Edinburgh native Archie Brennan began his 60-year weaving career at Dovecot Studios, so it’s only fitting that the under-celebrated Pop artist (and one-time Mr Scotland) is finally getting his first major exhibition at the Scottish tapestry studio where it all began. Bringing together over 80 tapestries as well as archival material, the show delves into the world of a late master of modern tapestry. The exhibition is co-curated with National Museums Scotland.

26 April – 30 August, Dovecot Studios, Edinburgh. Book your visit here

Design for a tapestry in the Andrea Doria’s First Class Reading-Room, by Michael Rachlis, 1952, tempera on paperboard. Courtesy: MITA Archive, MA Ponis, Nervi on loan to Wolfsoniana – Palazzo Ducale Fondazione per la Cultura, Genoa

Italian Threads: MITA Textile Design 1926-1876

Established in Genoa in 1926, the Italian textile firm Manifattura Italiana Tappeti Artistici (MITA) collaborated with the Who’s Who of Italian art and design over its 50-year reign, including Gio Ponti, Ettore Sottsass, Arturo Martini and Fortunato Depero. An exhibition at the London-based Estorick Collection spotlights MITA’s formidable output, from commissions produced for art fairs to private homes and clubs, culminating in the lavish tapestries and furnishing designs that adorned Italian ocean liners (Ponti considered these ‘floating art galleries’) – most notably the first-class reading room of the ill-fated Andrea Doria.

Until 20 June, Estorick Collection, London. The museum will reopen to the public from 19 May – admission tickets will be released in due course

West Dean 2, by Wycliffe Stutchbury, 2020, felled holm oak, West Dean College, West Sussex. Photo: Sylvain Deleu. Courtesy: Sarah Myerscough Gallery
Gayles Farm 5, by Wycliffe Stutchbury, 2020, discarded oak fencing on cotton hung and European oak frame. Photo: Simon Webb. Courtesy: Sarah Myerscough Gallery

Fall Line

At London’s Sarah Myerscough Gallery, wood artist Wycliffe Stutchbury transports us to the countryside by way of his vast pictorial wall panels that evoke locales from the East Anglian Fens to the South Downs, where he spent his earliest days. Using materials such as discarded barn cladding and felled holly, the works are an exploration of landscape – ‘an observation of its folds and contours, its valleys, peaks and ridges’, as the artist says.

12 April – 30 April, Sarah Myerscough Gallery, London. Book your visit here

Deildy (Arbour), by Eleri Mills, 2016, paint, handstitching and appliqué on fabric. Courtesy: Ruthin Craft Centre

Eleri Mills – Egni: a decade of creativity

‘The land has always been there in my mind, beginning with a childhood spent helping on the farm,’ reflects Welsh artist Eleri Mills. ‘The passing on of the land from one generation to the next represents continuity and instills a deep sense of belonging.’ Ruthin Craft Centre director Philip Hughes is curating an exhibition of work that focuses on the most recent decade of Mills’ prolific 40-year career, in what will be the first major showing of Mills' work in her native Mid Wales for 30 years.

Ruthin Craft Centre, Denbighshire. Take a virtual tour of the exhibition here

Sure Footing, by Sue Woolhouse, 2017, glass, steel, enamel and string. Photo: David Lawson. Courtesy: Contemporary Glass Society

Contemporary Glass Society

The Biscuit Factory in Newcastle is teaming up with the Contemporary Glass Society for a riveting showcase of glassmakers from the UK. Makers include Pat Marvell, Catherine Mahe, Helen Grierson, Kate Henderson, Morag Reekie, Sue Woolhouse, Stevie Davies and Penny Riley-Smith. All of the pieces in this show are available to purchase through the Own Art finance scheme, a national initiative that makes it easier and affordable for everyone to buy contemporary craft by providing interest-free loans.

The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle. The gallery will reopen to the public from 14 April

Installation view of Antipode at Hauser & Wirth Make, Bruton. Courtesy: the artist and Hauser & Wirth
Liquid Forms, by Adi Toch, 2020, small vessel on stilts. Courtesy: the artist and Hauser & Wirth

Antipode

This group exhibition at Hauser & Wirth’s design gallery Make in Somerset considers conceptual explorations of the vessel form. ‘Vessels and containers are an innate method of communication,’ reflects Adi Toch, one of four artist-makers taking part alongside Andrea Walsh, Studio MC (Michel Müller and Jessica Coates), and Akiko Hirai. ‘They convey a narrative of gathering, holding and storing. Not only do they surround us in our daily lives, but they also shape our perception of the world and the division between the inside and out.’

Until 24 April, Make, Bruton. The gallery will reopen to the public from 14 April

Galleries in England will be allowed to reopen from 12 April, with restrictions on museums easing from 17 May. In Scotland, museums and galleries could be allowed to reopen from 26 April if the data allows. There is currently no fixed date for museums and galleries to resume activity in Wales – the Welsh government will give its next coronavirus update on Thursday 2 April.

Craft exhibitions to see in the UK this spring

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