The Reel Presents…straight 8. Monday 5 March 2012 at the Cafe 1001, Brick Lane

Check out a delicious dollop of fantastic shorts, promos, experimentals and content at The Reel Presents…

They’ll be sifting through the best work from the past couple of months and putting together a programme of top-notch work from signed and un-signed directors.

This month’s guests are the irrepressible guys from straight8. If you’ve never heard of straight8, it’s an amazing competition that invites filmmakers to make a short film on one cartridge of Super 8 — without editing. They’ll be explaining the comp and showing the best work from 2011’s selection, as well as giving any wannabe 8ers the chance to sign up and get free ‘Best Of’ DVDs.

Doors will be open at 6:30 for a 7pm start.

Remember, you do need to sign up for a ticket to get entry, but the tickets are free.

Ruth Anderson : Reflections

Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells TN1 1JP
6th – 17th March 2012

Ruth Anderson is both artist and curator of her photographic images. Through this exhibition she becomes the communicator of the relationship between reflection, consumerism and reality. She creates a conversation carefully coaxed into being through layers of captured reflection and exposes the viewer to a host of reflections within the spectacle of the high street.

Ruth Anderson is a sessional tutor on the BA Graphic Design course at University for the Creative Arts, Maidstone.  Please visit the Trinity Theatre website for further details.

Alice Channer: Out of Body at the South London Gallery, 2 March – 13 May 2012

For her South London Gallery exhibition, British artist Alice Channer has created an installation of entirely new sculptural works which extend her exploration of the relationship between the human body, personal adornment, materials and sculpture. In these figurative works, Channer questions established hierarchies within the history of art, objects and clothing, and offers a unique perspective on manufacturing, the hand-made and consumer culture.

Admission free. For more details go to the South London Gallery’s website.

David Hall : End Piece…

Ambika P3, London NW1 5LS
16 March – 19 April 2012

Ambika P3 is staging a major solo exhibition by David Hall, the influential pioneer of video art, featuring a monumental new commission ’1001 TV Sets (End Piece)’ 1972-2012, as well as restaging two seminal early works, ‘TV Interruptions’ and ‘Progressive Recession’.

The centrepiece of the exhibition,  ’1001 TV Sets (End Piece)’ features 1001 cathode ray TV sets which will be tuned to different analogue stations playing randomly in a cacophony of electronic signals.  These will gradually reduce as the final analogue signals are broadcast from London’s Crystal Palace transmitter between the 4 – 18 April.

Please see the gallery website for more information.

Inspired by…the V&A’s annual art competition for people on part-time courses

Inspired by … is the V&A’s annual art competition for people on part-time courses, and is supported by NIACE, the National Institute of Continuing Education.

Participants create a work of art or craft inspired by the collections of either V&A South Kensington, or the V&A Museum of Childhood. Entries are submitted in May and judged by a panel of curators. The prize-winners and other selected works are displayed in the museum of their inspiration during October. 

Deadline for applications is Wednesday 16 May 2012.

Visit the V&A’s website for further information.

Paul Davis – These drawings were sent down to walk amongst you

Coningsby Gallery, 30 Tottenham Street, London W1T 4RJ
Until 2nd March 2012

Paul Davis is showing a selection of his recent work at the Coningsby Gallery in London.  As well as the drawings of overheard conversations that the artist is best known for, this show will also feature paintings, photographs and sculpture.

Please see the gallery website for further details.

Competition : 100 book covers to fight illiteracy

Antwerp artist Tom Haentjens (whose design company, beshart, specialises in three-dimensional paper cut-outs) has recently launched an international competition for illustrators and designers to re-design the covers of the “100 greatest novels of all time“.

The works will be turned into posters, and profits of sales will go to an organisation fighting illiteracy.  Find out more information about the competition here.

Richard Dadd exhibition video

In a recent Tate video, Nicholas Tromans, the author of Richard Dadd : the artist and the asylum, headed behind the scenes of two recent exhibitions on the artist, and also discussed Richard Dadd’s most well-known painting, The Fairy Feller’s Master-Stroke.

Ori Gersht : This storm is what we call progress

Imperial War Museum, London
Until 29 April 2012

This storm is what we call progress is the first major solo exhibition of work by Ori Gersht.  The exhibition includes both photography and video work by the artist.

Will You Dance For Me? depicts an 85-year-old dancer rocking back and forth in a chair, slowly recounting her experiences as a young woman in Auschwitz. Her punishment for refusing to dance at an SS officer’s party was to stand barefoot in the snow, and she pledged that if she survived she would dedicate her life to dance.

The two-screen film Evaders explores the mountainous path of the Lister Route, used by many to escape Nazi-occupied France. The film focuses on the ill-fated journey of Jewish writer and philosopher Walter Benjamin, whose own words give the exhibition its title.

The photographic work Chasing Good Fortune examines the shifting symbolism of Japanese cherry blossoms, which came to be linked with Kamikaze soldiers during the Second World War.

Please visit the Imperial War Museum website for further details.