2022 Roundup Roundup
If there’s one thing I learned in the lockdowns, it’s that even with all the time in the world you’re still not going to become bilingual or master a new skill if it ain’t something you’re not supremely passionate about to begin with. So I cancelled my DuoLingo subscription, traded away my electronic drum kit for an espresso machine and set myself one simple Goal for 2022: see as much art as possible and write about the stuff I liked.
✅ Mission accomplished!
London Art Roundup officially launched in January and by all accounts, it’s been a very productive first full year. I’m not entirely sure how many shows I actually saw, but 75 caught enough of my attention for a long-form review. They’re categorised and listed alphabetically below. How many of these did you see?
🔥 Indicates Top Dozen most read, based on site stats.
Art Show Reviews
A Thousand Words for Weather (Senate House)
Allison Katz - Artery (Camden Art Centre)
Andrew Salgado - A Never-Setting Sun (Beers London)
Art Miami + Context 2022 (Miami, FL)
Bad Art Presents Let Them Eat Fake (The Bomb Factory)
Blush (ASC Gallery)
🔥 BRICKFLATS (various locations)
Caroline Walker - Birth Reflections (Fitzrovia Chapel)
Cecilia Vicuña - Brain Forest Quipu (Tate Modern)
Christian Avram - Lapse (Workplace)
Celina Teague - Nature Interrupted (Kristen Hjellegjerde)
Chris Rivers - Odyssey (Pontone Gallery)
🔥 CJ Hendry - Epilogue (Mile End Church)
Coffee Art Project (Truman Brewery)
🔥 Contemporary British Portrait Painters (The Department Store)
🔥 Cornelia Parker (Tate Britain)
🔥 Crucible / Fool’s Gold - group shows (Thames-Side Studios SE18)
Danica Lundy - Stop Bath (White Cube)
David Shearing - The Rising Sun (Romford)
Gina Birch - In My Fucking Room (Gallery 46)
Globe Primary School Mosaics (Bethnal Green)
Hallyu! The Korean Wave (V&A)
Hew Locke: The Procession (Tate Britain)
In the Black Fantastic (Hayward Gallery)
Isamu Noguchi - A New Nature (White Cube)
Jenna Gribbon - Light Holding (Massimo de Carlo)
Joy Yamusangie - Feeling Good (NOW Gallery SE10)
Leandro Erlich - Liminal (Pérez Art Museum Miami, FL)
Lily van der Stokker - Thank You Darling (Camden Art Centre)
Louise Bourgeois - The Woven Child (Hayward Gallery)
Lux et Veritas (NSU Art Museum, Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Maria Bartuszová (Tate Modern)
Mohammed Sami (Modern Art)
🔥 Outdoor Sculpture Trails (various locations)
Penny Goring - Penny World (ICA)
Phillip Allen - Coarse Grain (The approach)
Postwar Modern (Barbican)
🔥 RCA Graduate Show 2022 (RCA - Battersea)
Repeater - group show (Sadie Coles)
Rhys Coren - Everyone I’ve Ever Known (Hanover Square)
Roundels Project (Gospel Oak)
Scope Miami Beach 2022 (Miami Beach, FL)
🔥 Small is Beautiful: Miniature Art exhibition (South Kensington)
Strange Clay: Ceramics in Contemporary Art (Hayward Gallery)
Surrealism Beyond Borders (Tate Modern)
🔥 The London Open 2022 (Whitechapel Gallery)
Trenton Doyle Hancock - Water Ground Hell Sky (Hales Gallery)
🔥 Universal Everything - Lifeforms (180 The Strand)
V.O Curations - Assemble (56 Conduit Street)
Vomit Vault of London (The Crypt Gallery)
Winter - ArtCan Group Show (Kingsgate Workshops)
Winter Sculpture Park (Gallery 32)
Women Artists’ Art Week (various)
Yess Lad (TJ Boulting)
Your ship has landed (NOW Gallery SE10)
Venue Reviews
Bass (Miami, FL)
Battle (East Sussex)
Bonnet House Museum & Gardens (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Camley Street Natural Park (Camden)
The City Model (The City Centre)
Courtauld (The Strand)
Estorick Collection (Islington)
Freud Museum (Hampstead)
Garden Museum (Lambeth)
Havering Museum (Romford)
Leyton Art Walk (Leyton)
🔥 Lift 109 (Battersea)
Margate Art Day (Margate)
Migration Museum (Lewisham)
Paddington Basin (Paddington Basin, W2)
Selfridges: A Store of Stories (Oxford Street)
Senate House - UCL Library (Bloomsbury)
The Bunker (Palm Beach, FL)
Weekly Roundups
In addition to the detailed reviews, I recommended another 227 shows via the 44 weekly Roundups I published throughout the year. I used to subscribe to lots of magazines back before the digital age, and one thing I loved about their annual year-end recaps was a look back at all the covers. So I thought I’d do something similar.
If you’re new to this site, then you should know that my weekly Roundups is not a listings service. I only recommend shows I think are worth seeing, and I saw every single one before I wrote about it. I didn’t count how many others I saw that didn’t make the cut… but there were lots! (And no, I won’t tell you which ones or why.) Set your reminders for Monday mornings, because I plan to continue to do these throughout 2023.
You can click this to browse a filtered list of Roundups, but if you’re wondering whether a specific show, artist or gallery made one or more mentions, it might be easier to do a Search.
Why I Like It
In the latter half of the year I introduced a monthly series titled ‘Why I Like It’ in which I explain just that about one work of art, or artist, or movement. The series introduction outlines the concept, but if you wanna dive right in, here you go:
Dec — Seurat & Pointillism
Nov — Lay Down Dream (2007), Jessica Anne Schwartz
Oct — Family of Robot (1986), Nam June Paik
Sep — H2O (2005), Vassilis Karakatsanis
🔥 Aug — Composition C (No.III) with Red, Yellow and Blue (1935), Piet Mondrian
Why I Like It will continue in 2023.
Most importantly…
A heartfelt THANK YOU to everyone who reached out throughout the year with comments, suggestions, compliments, constructive criticism and insights about my writing, website and art reviews. I sincerely enjoy seeing and talking about art. Both online and in person, I’ve had countless chats with gallerists, gallery staff, artists and art lovers that have informed, challenged and influenced my views.
But writing? Hmm. It’s an incredibly fulfilling creative outlet, but a solitary and often lonely affair. Maybe that’s why even the simplest bit of feedback brings so much more joy than any of my site stats ever could. Though I am constantly amazed that people from 101 different countries have managed to find and read my reviews. (To that person who visited from a beach in Barbados... Thanks!) So please, don’t hesitate to get in touch. If it’s about art, you can slide into my DMs any time!
Speaking of… you can also follow me on Instagram at @LondonArtRoundup where I post alerts about site updates along with other imagery and random notes on art. And some occasional fun things like this reel that went viral, generating over 2.3 MILLION views in the week of Christmas. Yes, I’m bragging.
Happy holidays to all — whatever you celebrate — and see you in 2023!
Darren
PS - If you know someone who likes art, or London — or both! — please share this site.