Exhibition Reopenings

posted by Emily Gosling May 25, 2021

No one needs reminding that for a year or so, visiting art galleries IRL has been but a distant memory for the most part, with many exhibitions adapted to online versions with varying degrees of success as institutions grapple with making an exhibition as engaging in pixels as in situ. With many spaces taking their first tentative steps towards post-lockdown reopening, we’ve rounded up some of the best design and illustration-focused shows around the UK, with one pretty special online-only show thrown in for good measure.

Marie Neurath: Picturing ScienceThis online exhibition orchestrated by the House of Illustration showcases Neurath’s groundbreaking images which transformed children’s learning when they were first created in the 1940s, and continue to do so today. Showing on a dedicated online platform here, the exhibition underscores the huge role Marie Neurath played in transforming the use of science-rooted illustrated books for children on topics ranging from nuclear physics to reproduction.

Neurath led a collaborative team of researchers, artists and writers from the 1940s to the 1970s, she transformed complex science into infographics and diagrams that were both factually sound and comprehensible for all ages. Marie Neurath: Picturing Science demonstrates this process of transformation from early ideas for picture books, research documents and initial sketches to final page spreads and bold book covers.

Marie Neurath: Picturing Science was produced in partnership with the University of Reading and Design Science. It was part of London Design Festival 2019 and Insiders/Outsiders, and is showing online until 31 Dec 2023.

Margaret Calvert, Woman at WorkThe Design Museum in London is reopening its postponed celebration of the work of iconic British designer Margaret Calvert, titled Woman at Work. The show was put together to coincide with the the launch of Network Rail’s new typeface, created by Calvert, and offers a look at her six-decades-spanning career. Even those who might think they know nothing about design will know her work; most likely through the design of the UK’s road signing system, created with Jock Kinneir; or wayfinding at railway stations and airports; or the typeface used on the gov.uk website that was designed in collaboration with Henrik Kubel. As the Design Museum sums up, “her work shapes much of our national visual identity.”

Network Rail’s new customised typeface, Rail Alphabet 2, was again designed by Calvert and Kubel in response to a new wayfinding system at Network Rail stations designed by Spaceagency. It will eventually be used in combination with a suite of bespoke pictograms to sign Network Rail’s stations, and as a text face for all their key built environment design publications.

The show runs from 18 May-22 August at The Design Museum, 224-238 Kensington High St, London W8 6AG

All at Sea, Chris GoodmanChris Goodman studied graphic design at Newham College in London and the University of Plymouth before going on to work both as a marine scientist and a graphic designer. His acrylic paintings and prints use vibrant colours and punchy graphic shapes, taking inspiration from his former roles and also from his nearby Devon and Dorset coastlines, which he depicts in his landscape works as well as creating still life images. To coincide with his exhibition titled All at sea!, Goodman has also designed a range of merchandise items such as coasters and tea towels.

The show runs from 5 – 11 August 2021 at Courtyard Gallery, The Town Mill, Mill Lane, Lyme Regis, DT7 3PU

Raymond Briggs: A RetrospectiveIt takes a very jaded person indeed not to shed a tear watching The Snowman at Christmas, whether it’s the first time you’ve watched it or the 32nd. For many of us, the sensitive, expressive characters of Raymond Briggs are inextricably linked to moments from childhood: festive telly with the refreshingly working-class Father Christmas at Gran’s house, reading and rereading books like Jim and the beanstalk or Fungus the Bogeyman on long car rides. Then there’s the heartbreaking When the Wind Blows, Briggs’ 1982 nuclear bomb-blighted tearjerker of a story adapted into a film with a superb Bowie song as the title track.

Now, the first ever retrospective of the influential author-illustrator is going on show in Winchester, where the exhibition begins its tour (it was originally set to be shown at the House of Illustration last year.) The retrospective will showcase never-before-seen material from Briggs’ personal archive, revealing the origins of the now-iconic titles that “have become household favourites, literary classics and international phenomena,” as the organisers put it. “ With original artwork from publications including his poignant picture book The Snowman (1980) and pioneering graphic novel Ethel & Ernest (1998), the exhibition celebrates Briggs as an exceptional draughtsman, typographer, storyteller and innovator.”

The exhibition is on show from 17 May to 18 August 2021 at Winchester Discovery Centre, Jewry St, Winchester SO23 8SB

Barbara Kruger, Tate Liverpool Constellations display collection

Five Day Forecast 1991 Lorna Simpson born 1960 Purchased with funds provided by the 2010 Outset / Frieze Art Fair Fund to benefit the Tate Collection 2010 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/T13335

American artist Barbara Kruger is renowned for her merging of fine art and the persuasive power of graphic design and typography, using her signature mixture of photographic imagery and bold Futura text. As one of the long running displays in Tate Liverpool’s Constellations series, Kruger’s Untitled (We Will No Longer Be Seen and Not Heard) 1985 piece is a nine-panel art working demonstrating the artist’s ongoing explorations of the way mass media appropriates imagery for persuasive and often misogynistic ends.

“Her work engages with identity politics and criticises the spectacle of mass-media imagery while adopting its visual language as a powerful means of communication,” says Tate Liverpool. “Ironically, Kruger’s style was itself appropriated by clothing brand Supreme for their logo. Commenting on this, she said ‘I make my work about this kind of sadly foolish farce.’”

The show presents works including paintings and photography-based art to explore the relationship between identity and mass media. “Kruger’s nine-panel work resembles a teaching-aid, using sign language and words to speak of the opposition between gender roles,” Tate adds.

Kruger’s work is used as a jumping off point to explore artists working in similar ways of responding to aligned themes, and so the room includes works by the likes of Hito Steyerl, Lorna Simpson, VALIE EXPORT and Robert Heinecken.

Swinging LondonHaving reopened last month at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert gallery in west London, this is a celebration of all things British pop art. Swiniging London presents paintings, sculpture and works on paper by artists including Peter Blake, Anthony Caro, Patrick Caulfield, Allen Jones, Gerald Laing, Eduardo Paolozzi and Richard Smith.

“Pop Art has in many ways come to define the universally held perception of the Swinging Sixties. With its early origins dating back to 1952 in Britain with the advent of The Independent Group,” says the gallery. “It gained more significant momentum with a new generation of artists graduating from The Royal College of Art in London, led by Richard Smith, Peter Blake, Allen Jones, David Hockney, and Patrick Caulfield. Their work drew inspiration from a shared understanding of cosmopolitan life, music, literature, cinema, and fashion, bringing a fresh take on the contemporary urban art scene… The glossy, light-hearted consumer culture of the 60s perfectly complemented the optimism and peculiarly British sense of humour which came to define their work. Pop Art was era-defining in its character and deeply personal representation of modern life in London.”

Swinging London is at Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert, 38 Bury Street, St James’s, London, SW1Y 6BB from 12 April

Alice: Curiouser and Curiouser

Cheshire Cat; ‘Cheshire cat’, psychedelic poster by Joseph McHugh, published by East Totem West. USA, 1967

For its reopening, the V&A in London is running with a bombastic and ambitious exploration of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland using a theatrical-leaning, immersive presentation and curation style. Curiouser and Curiouser explores the tale’s origins, adaptations and reinventions over 157 years “from manuscript to a global phenomenon.”

Among the pieces on show are an original 1967 drawing of the White Rabbit for the series Alice in Wonderland by Ralph Steadman; a gorgeous psychedelic Cheshire Cat poster designed by Joseph McHugh and printed by Orbit Graphic Arts from the same year; an albumen print photograph of the “original” Alice, Alice Liddell, by Julia Margaret Cameron from 1872; and a number of set design elements and costumes from various stagings of Alice’s Adventures, including those by the Royal Ballet.

The BFG in PicturesAn exhibition of previously unseen Quentin Blake illustrations for Roald Dahl’s The BFG are going on tour around the UK in a show organised by the House of Illustration. Opening at Turner House Gallery in Penaryh, Wales, The BFG in Pictures features 40 reproductions for Roald Dahl’s famous giant story including illustrations that went on to be scrapped when the book was first published in 1982, offering “a glimpse of a BFG that might have been.” These are exhibited alongside reproductions of the final illustrations for the book, providing a fascinating insight into the collaboration between author and illustrator.