The now and again Five Pieces of Art thing feature again. Well why not (again)? Again and again (and again and again), all this art flowing past on various feeds or wrapped up in press releases or jumping off actual gallery walls or wrapping chips or passing on the side of those Whitechapel white vans. So we ask (again) why not five pieces of art every couple of weeks or so alongside everything else that appears on these fractured pages on a daily basis? Can you think of one good reason why not to (again)? Well besides the time involved and the this and the that and the dancing around and the skins on the tins of paint and the man at the door

Five pieces of art then, a semi regular feature, just five pieces of art that have passed our way in the last few days, nothing more (or less) than that., nothing really to do with an upcoming show or anything else (although maybe they are), just a simple, semi regular five pieces of art feature. Let’s do it again,

1: Wolfgang Betke – Came across Berlin-based painter Wolfgang Betke via his painting Großstadtwanderer, a piece that is being used for the cover art of the new Pole album Tempus (Pole being Düsseldorf-native musician, producer and mastering engineer Stefan Betke, best is known “for his unique musical language oscillating between melody and avant-garde in electronic music, with audible influences from Dub and Jazz music”.

“Wolfgang Betke’s pictures emerge in lengthy work processes from the art of painting itself. Where this traditionally ends, the artist seizes the canvas with sometimes ruthless means; scraping, scratching, smearing or corroding the canvas to revise, uncover or paint over previously created layers.  Betke sometimes goes so far in this process of creation and destruction, construction and deconstruction, that he creates holes in the canvas, thereby breaking the limits of the image’s actual space. His colourful works show the conditions and processes of creation of the medium of painting; the application and removal of paint on the canvas as well as the duration of its genesis. Betke‘s paintings name what they are – a distinct bodily “language“ that makes both the outer and the inner world tangible. The latter draws from the memory of the body as well as from a world of thought based on intensive examination of philosophical questions”.

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2: David Shillinglaw said “My mega mural for the @riseupresidency_ captured by camera wizard Ian Cox @wallkandy” and indeed, there is te the rater impressive wall in Margate.

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3: Nara Walker and a page from her sketchbook that just went past on a Facebook feed, that’s all this page is about, pieces of art that catch our eye as they float past – here’s her Facebook page and her website.

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4: LUAP at Holborn Viaduct, that pink bear get everywhere, most of the time paste-ups annoy but there is something about that bear.

Previously on these pages – A taste of the artist known as LUAP, The Pink Bear and his forthcoming West End show The Unconscious Therapy opening next week…

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5: Sterling Ruby‘s big (big both in terms of size and feel), paintings from a couple of years ago Frieze (London) are still lodged in my head, the power of them all, all those yellows and greens together. There’s a new show and a new collection of Srerling Ruby’s work just opened….

An exhibition of new paintings by Sterling Ruby titled “Turbines” has just opened at Gagosian, West 21st Street, New Yor. “Making reference not only to turbines and windmills, but also to hurricanes, explosions, fires, war, and geographical boundaries, cardboard components are blasted across the canvas, suggesting that elemental forces are pushing them toward the edges of the frame. Rather than implying the observation of action from behind a window, they thrust the viewer into the fray. The combination of oil paint with bright cardboard swatches is tumultuous, as if a storm has blown the window apart and set its elements in motion” – read more

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Sterling Ruby at Frieze 2019 – ORGAN: FRIEZE WEEK Part 5 – The fair itself, why was it so damn conservative? Did Sterling Ruby and the Gagosian save it all with the help of Joyce Pensato’s giant Mickey? – Was it as opulent this time, was it as big a beast? The sign outside certainly wasn’t as big, no big shiny black mile-high towering sign overlooking everyone coming in this year, instead a more subdued green one, that sign says so much, things aren’t quite so bold in 2019. Is opulent the right word?…

Previously

ORGAN: Five pieces of art – Mark Burrell, Miss Bugs and Damien, a Grunwick Strike poster, a slice of D*Face’s pop art, Marnie Scarlet’s Pride dress and

ORGAN: Five pieces of art – Anne Ryan, Peter Schumann, Bread and Puppet Theater, Fergus Hare’s bath, David Shillinglaw’s pot heads, Ben Fenton’s line

And have you checked out Mixtape No.2 yet? The latest Cultivate online group exhibition, Mixtape No.2 opened on Tuesday November 15th, once again hosted on these pages, here’s the link that takes you directly to the show