On Tuesday March 15th Artist Johan Andersson will be hanging a (2 meter x 2 meter)  portrait of Colonel Gadaffi on the Peace Plinth opposite Houses of Parliament tomorrow as 5000 Christians gather in the square to pray for an end to war.

 

BP portrait award and Jerwood winner Paints Gaddafi.
 

Johan Andersson has exhibited at the National Portrait gallery as the youngest ever to be nominated for the BP portrait award. He also recently exhibited in the V&A museum and last summer filmed a T.V series with Sky called 'Art of Survival' which is due to broadcast this summer.

 

In November 2010 amidst criticism from Westminster Council Art Below joined forces with Peace Strike to call upon artists to create works that inspire peace and an end to all wars to be displayed on the (2.5m x 2.55m x 1.25m) plinths situated directly opposite the Houses of Parliament.

'It is important that we put this plinth up for auction before Westminster Council destroy it' says Maria.

Maria Gallastegui, founder of Peace Strike has decided that all proceedfrom the auction would go towards projects to benefit children in Iraq including a project to build an adventure playground for the children of Halabja, Iraq.  'It has good potential to heal and show that despite all the tragedy of war and the failings of mankind there are people who care and want to repair the damage in whatever way they can'  Maria Gallastegui

Maria has been living on Parliament square as a peace activist since 2006.  In 2009 she created the first plinth with welcomed assistance at the Kew Eco village.  The second one followed shortly in the Summer of 2010.   

On 12th January 2011, organised by Art Below a 3m x 2m canvas of a blown up photograph by Emma Stoner was mounted on the plinth. The photograph captured one of many dramatic moments from 'democracy village' when protesters took over parliament square in Summer 2010 for almost 3 months turning the green into a tented camp.

This April We are hosting a dual exhibition of Nasser Azam's 'Antarctica' in the Tokyo Metro and London Underground with a video link up between the two platforms 6000 miles apart    

 

PRACTICE FOR EVERYDAY LIFE - YOUNG ARTISTS FROM RUSSIA
23 March – 29 May 2011

Sergey Ogurtsov, Gaston Bachelard burns Freud's letter at castle Marcasseles, Bar-sur-Aube, 30x22x8cm, From the series Empty Homes of Being, 2008- 2010, Books, Courtesy of the artist

 

 
 
Featured Artists:
Tanya Akhmetgalieva, Olga Bozhko, Alexander Ditmarov, Yulia Ivashkina, Sergey Ogurtsov, Taus Makhacheva, Anya Titova, Arseniy Zhilyaev
 
In association with the Institute for Contemporary Art (ICA) Moscow, and Centre for Contemporary Art - Winzavod, Calvert 22 is proud to present new work from a selection of emerging artists from Russia. This unique presentation, conceived as an annual event, aims to convey a vivid sense of current artistic practice in Russia and introduce a new generation of artists and perspectives to the UK.

The participating artists have been co-selected by Joseph Backstein (Director of ICA, Moscow and Commissioner of the Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art) and David Thorp (Calvert 22 Associate Artistic Director) and drawn from the ICA, Moscow and the prestigious START programme, established by the Centre for Contemporary Art - Winzavod in order to promote and develop young artists from across Russia.

Both the ICA, Moscow, and Centre for Contemporary Art - Winzavod, have created a unique forum and context for a discourse in contemporary art among young Russian artists that has been largely missing from the Moscow art scene previously. Beside the ad hoc relationships that usually and perhaps naturally exist between artists, there was no formal means of offering practical and ideological support to assist – especially younger - artists in developing their ideas and being able to discuss and engage with contemporary art practice more globally.

To coincide with the opening of this new exhibition, Calvert 22 has commissioned an expansive refurbishment of the main gallery spaces from newly established, upcoming architects, Feilden Fowles. Their brief was to create a more open-plan and engaging public space offering a reading area and resource hub to enrich contextual knowledge and further create opportunities for increased cultural exchange.

 

LISSON GALLERY TO REPRESENT CARMEN HERRERA
 

Carmen Herrera. Blue and some orange. 1986. Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery

 
Lisson Gallery is delighted to announce that it is now representing artist Carmen Herrera.

 

 
Striking in its formal simplicity, precise linear quality and geometric distillations of colour, Herrera’s work has only recently come to the attention of art historians and collectors. At the age of 95, she is finally recognised as a pioneer of geometric abstraction and Latin American Modernism, with her paintings joining the permanent collections of institutions including the Museum of Modern Art New York, the Hirshhorn Museum, the Walker Art Center, El Museo del Barrio in New York and Tate Modern.
 
Born in Havana in 1915, Carmen Herrera has lived in Paris, Cuba and New York, where she eventually settled in 1954. A contemporary and friend to Barnett Newman, Leon Polk Smith, and Wifredo Lam, it was only six years ago, at the age of 89, that she sold her first art work.  In 2009 she had a landmark solo exhibition at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, the first of its kind in Europe and one of only a handful of exhibitions to have featured the artist in a career spanning over six decades. Most recently Lisson Gallery displayed a selection of her paintings from the 80’s and 90’s alongside works by Peter Joseph.