Where were who or what? Still still poking at things? We already said all this, we almost certainly do need to (or maybe don’t need to do?) do that five art things thing again don’t we? We probably should? Just a bit more of that glue that holds the who or what together. The art of repetition? Where were we? No one ever reads the editorial at the top, we could say anything here. We are kind of still repeating ourselves whilst under stress, did you even notice the repeating? Do you just cut to the chase every single time?. And well, we could do it again, we could? We could? We really could? Shall we? Who reads this? What is this Five Art Things thing? We said all this last week didn’t we? And the week before, and so five art things…

So five art things, five more art things happening somewhere around right now, or coming up any moment now, five art shows to check out in the coming days . Hey, I know we said it last time but we will try to do it most weeks and now we appear to be coming out of lockdown (or maybe going back in again?), and yes this admittedly rather fractured Five Art Things feature was and is intended to be a regular, almost certainly weekly, or something like something near weekly thing – an almost weekly round up of recommended art events. Five shows, exhibitions or things we rather think might be worth checking out. Mostly London things for that is where we currently operate and explore, and like we said last time (and the time before), these five recommendations come, as we already said up there, with no claims that they are “the best five” or the “Top Five”, we’re not one of those annoying art websites that ignore most things whilst claiming to be covering everything and proclaiming this or that to be the “top seven things” or the “best things this weekend”, no, this is simply a regular list of five or so art things coming up soon that we think you might find as interesting as we do, five art things coming in in the next few days in no particular order and not a selfie of any of us hanging out at the damn show next to a piece of art either…

Did we really see a group of artists crowing about a show they’re doing at the News International building down by the Shard?! The News building! The Sun, Murdoch?! Really! Is there no shame? Aren’t we artists obliged to give a shit?

1: Touch at Gallery 46, a group show presented by ISKAI Art and curated by Stephanie Seungmin Kim The “private view” is on Thursday 2nd September, 6pm until 10pm (with a percussionist performance by James Larter). Th show then runs from 3rd until 9th September (with a late night opening on the Friday and Saturday until 9pm). “The exhibition brings back ‘touch’ which has been tabooed and sterilised recently with the pandemic. While our touch has been scrutinised and recorded, touch-screen devices became windows for human interaction. Some people were in touch with nature, finding respite from the sudden halting of normal life, some had to suffer in the proximity of others and some were alone, devoid of touch. The exhibition began with thoughts of revitalising the joie de vivre, much needed after repeated lockdowns, but it inevitably brought the memory of our recent loss and heightened perception. The exhibition will present celebrated work from Axel Void, Cosimo Sturniolo, Dongwuk Heo, Hanuk Jung, Hayoung Kim, Jihyun Yu, João Villas, Joon Choi, Koh Sang Woo, Kristina Chan, Ligyung, Mimi Joung, Sangyong Lee, Vakki and Zoë Marden

Gallery 46 is found at 46 Ashfield Street, London E1. The show ends on September 9th, there is a late opening that night, more detsils via the gallery website

2: M E L T A w/ Lou Barnell (+ Nicola Woodham), Sunday 29th August 2021 – M E L T A  is premiering at Cafe OTO. It is an interactive immersive performance and installation by artist Lou Barnell  that fuses audio-visual composition with alchemical sculptures and wearable sensor technology. M E L T A is  a live performance based upon an approach that I call ‘Live Dreaming’  which gives language to experiences of sound, sense, and music-making in a neurodivergent body.  M E L T A features collaborators Lisa Busby (Movement and Vocals) and Robin Foster (Technical Director)  Sound artist Nicola Woodham will also be showcasing new works on the evening. “Performance is type of dream. And dreaming is a kind of performance. These are spaces where we make meaning in the moment and enact the unsayable”

Cafe OTO is at 18 – 22 Ashwin Street, Dalston, London E8 3DL

3: The Forest is still on at Parafin (until 4th September) featuring Hannah Brown, Cathy de Monchaux, Gustave Doré, Melanie Manchot, Rebecca Partridge, Sophy Rickett, Hiraki Sawa, Indrė Šerpytytė, Viktor Timofeev, Alison Watt

“Parafin is delighted to announce a group show exploring images of forests. The exhibition includes both gallery artists and guest artists and takes as its starting point an engraving by the great nineteenth century illustrator, Gustave Doré.

Throughout history forests have been powerful symbolic sites in all cultures, yet have often represented quite contradictory ideas. On the one hand, the forest has been seen as a place of retreat, of sanctuary, and of regeneration (Robin Hood’s Sherwood, Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden). On the other hand, it is a place of danger and confusion (see the stories of The Brothers Grimm or films such as ‘The Blair Witch Project’ or ‘Wake Wood’).

At the beginning of ‘The Divine Comedy’, in the first lines of the ‘Inferno’, Dante writes:

‘Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark

For the straightforward pathway had been lost.’

Doré’s iconic illustration shows the poet, a lone figure completely isolated within an impossibly tangled wood. Here, the forest becomes a visualisation of his mental landscape.

Taking Dante’s lines as inspiration, the exhibition explores how images of dense and tangled undergrowth can convey or evoke different states of mind, as well as wider societal themes. These images are knotty, impenetrable, unruly and overwhelming – feelings we are all familiar with at the moment – but we might also see them as pastoral or Romantic visions offering the possibility of escape from recent events. While the works themselves were not made with Dante in mind, by bringing them together we invite the viewer to explore subjective responses to what is one of the fundamental cultural archetypes… read on

Parafin is at 18 Woodstock Street, London W1C 2AL

4: Audun Alvestad, Tan Lines at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery’s London Bridge space – opening night, Thursday 2 September, 6:30 – 9pm and then 3 September – 2 October 2021 –  Bare pink bodies lounge on candy coloured towels and beneath parasols on the beach, while long water-slides twist through lush tropical landscapes. These latest paintings by Audun Alvestad blur the edges between reality, dream and memory to evoke a complex, sensual expression of summer. Playfully entitled Tan Lines, the artist’s latest exhibition at Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery explores the season as a feeling rather than a specific place or moment in time, presenting a curious tension between distance and intimacy, indifference and longing. After a period of isolation, the Lisbon-based, Norwegian artist recalls hearing suitcases being wheeled across cobblestones and was struck by the… read on

Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery is at London Bridge, 2 Melior Place, London, SE1 3SZ. Theon-line viewing room is open now

5: The Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair happens on August 29th, this Sunday then (if you’ve read this before t. he Sunday in question). “Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair. Over 50 artists from the LGBTQ+ community and their allies will be showing works of art for sale on Bellenden and Choumert Roads in the heart of Peckham. Free Sunday 29 Aug 12-3pm”

“MOCA London and The Queer Life Drawing Conversation (Miles Coote) would like to invite you to join us for the first ever Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair. Over 50 artists from the LGBTQ+ community and their allies will be showing works of art on Bellenden and Choumert Roads in the heart of Peckham.  The event is free for all to come along and look, join in the free life drawing events and purchase wonderful works (such as prints, drawings, sculptures, photos, ceramics, and clothing design) from amazing contemporary artists. Wander down Bellenden Road and pop into the many shops who are participating, many hosting an artist, and then attend the main area of the boot fair in the traditional Southwark market street – Choumert Road.  The fair will open to the public at 12 noon for 3 hours so it is not a long day. Many of the local shops participating are also planning wonderful surprises too!  We will have friendly volunteers in MOCA branded rainbow shirts to guide you.   Lockdown and arts funding cuts have made us aware that many Queer archives may be lost, so the event is another way of sharing Queer Art/objects in the public space, where they may be seen, archived and discussed with local communities. The Queer LDC and Drawing People Together (Lucie Russell) will run a pop-up drawing event on Choumert Road and we would love people to bring along any Queer objects they would like to share or have drawn on the day. The event will also feature artists from the Peckham Levels studios”.

Peckham Queer Art Boot Fair, Bellenden Road (SE15 4QY) and Choumert Market (SE15 4SE) Sunday August 29, 2021, 12 until 3pm

And while we’re here and talking of boots and fairs and…

The Art Car Boot Fair Autumn Sizzle is where the fair that has been forced on line for the last couple of years while we’ve all locked down and juggled with Covid and the rest of it – their last event was the rather buzzing Spring Flora and Fauna edition where some 150 invited artists took part in a four day on line event – the sizzle sees the launch of the Art Car Boot Fair online shop. The shop has launched with a revolving set of weekly releases, exclusive paintings, prints and such from invited artists. The new Art Car Boot Fair on-line shop can be viewed right now. in recent weeks there’s been new work from Susie Hamilton, Pure Evil, Christian Furr, Rachel Megawhat and quite a few more (okay there might be a painting or two from someone called Sean Worrall as well, unlike the bag of corrupt self-serving Tories who currently run the country, we like to be up-front about these things). Latest news from the Art Car Boot Fair team is there will be another on-line event in November and that they’re lopking at a new live in person physical event alive with art and people and music and noise and all those things we want from the fair that started back in 2005, for Spring 2022. More from www.artcarbootfair.com