Antony Gormley at the White Cube Bermondsey

At the weekend I ventured south of the river (not my usual territory) to Maltby Street food market followed by a visit to the White Cube Bermondsey, where there was an exhibition of new works by Antony Gormley. The exhibition aims to challenge the physical possibilities of the gallery space with an ambitious larger-than-life model of his sculptures, which visitors can enter through a 'foot' and journey through its inter-connected internal chambers. Fabricated from 100 tonnes of weathering sheet steel, the work is both sculpture and building, human in form but at no point visible as a total figure. After seeing similar works of his at the White Cube in Hoxton, I was glad to see Gormley had taken it a step further and created more of an architectural intervention. The internal chambers demanded the visitor to adjust their pace and bend their bodies to its awkward heights, guided by fractions of light above. Another interesting room proved to be a space dedicated to Gormley's working models from 2002 to the present day.

The building itself is also worthy of a mention. White Cube Bermondsey is the largest of the gallery's three London sites and dates back to the 1970s when it was used as a warehouse. The building was converted into a gallery by London-based Casper Mueller Kneer Architects. The 70s dark brick block has been modernised by a white mesh canopy and a set of huge glass doors at the entrance. Inside, there are three main exhibition spaces, private viewing rooms, an auditorium, a bookshop as well as three smaller galleries, collectively known as the 'North Galleries. Internally, the gallery spaces live up to the name of 'White Cube', with white boxes and polished concrete floors. The variety of rooms proved ideal for Gormley's sculptures, the full effect of the human-proportioned silhouettes appearing as you look back down the long central corridor.

Images: White Cube

Tim Walker: Story Teller at Somerset House

I have long admired the photography of Tim Walker, many would curse me for ripping out pages of my beloved Vogues, but some of his images were just too great to stay in the folds of a magazine, and had to take pride of place on my bedroom walls. So I was super excited when Somerset House announced an exhibition of his photography, sponsored by Mulberry. The exhibition itself certainly didn't disappoint, not only was it free admission, the rooms were extensive and well laid out. They were also as visually exciting as his photography, larger-than-life props complimented the framed photos, from giant grotesque dolls and clown puppets, to huge snails and detailed insects with delicate, transparent wings.

The extraordinary photographs in the exhibition are drawn from the pages of the world's glossy magazines: British, French, American and Italian Vogue, Vanity Fair, W and The New Yorker. With the addition of an interesting behind-the-scenes video, the exhibition showed me just how extensive the production of his photography is. It is less like a fashion shoot and more like a film set- there are hair and make-up artists, fashion stylists and costume fitters, model makers, set designers, builders, producers and painters, prop suppliers and that is just the beginning. He claims the camera "is simply a box put between you and what you want to capture". But there you have Walker at the centre of it all, among all this creative noise, creating unique, fantastical images that go beyond fashion and the clothes the model is wearing.

Images: Tim Walker

Flying Houses by Laurent Chehere

French photographer Laurent Chéhère has created this magical and surreal series of photographs using traditional photography and digital manipulation. Flying Houses takes a variety of Parisian houses out of the claustrophobic street scene, allowing them to float in the sky like kites. Inspired by the short-length film The Red Balloon by Albert Lamorisse, Chéhère explored the Belleville and Menilmontant arrondissements of Paris for traditional but tired looking buildings that looked in need of release.

Laurent Chéhère exposed the series Flying Houses at Dock en Seine City of Fashion and Design in June 2012, where he won the Prix Special. The series is being shown in China at the 2012 Pingyao International Photography Festival.

The images are also being shown at an exhibition at La Galerie Paris-Beijing on Rue Vertbois, Paris, until December 8.
See more: www.laurentchehere.com

Images: www.laurentchehere.com

In Praise of Doubt at Punta Della Dogana gallery renovated by Tadao Ando

Tadao Ando first met art collector Francois Pinault- France's own Charles Saatchi- in 2001 when he was selected in an international competition to design the Foundation Francois Pinault pour l'art contemporain, on the bank of the River Seine in Paris. When the project fell through, Pinault again approached Ando to renovate the 18th century Palazzo Grassi on the Grand Canal of Venice. Though the Palazzo Grassi is beautiful, there were severe preservation guidelines that prevented Pinault creating the contemporary art gallery he so wanted. Beating a proposal to expand their own collection by the Guggenheim Foundation, Pinault and Ando won the proposal to renovate the Punta Della Dogana, further down the canal near Accademia. Ando said of the building, which was completed in 2009: "We were again faced with the theme of how to produce a modern space while drawing out the latent power of the original building. By exposing the bricks of hidden walls and the wooden roof trusses that had been concealed during the frequent renovations, I wanted to further emphasise the charm of the spaces by adding just a few new architectural elements, while highlighting the individuality of the building."

Sited on the furthest tip of the Dorsoduro, the original building takes on the shape of the triangular volume of the land. The old building of the Punta Della Dogana is brought into the present by a concrete cube inserted into the full height of the museum from which all routes are brought together. Ando's renovation strips back the building to its original form, showing off its classic Venetian traits, while at the same time juxtaposing them with monolithic, smooth, grey concrete. You can also see echoes of the Italian master Carlo Scarpa, with the twenty water gates that perforate the ground floor designed by Ando. The building remains distinctly Venetian- with glimpses out to the Grand Canal through the semi-circle windows- but the success of the project has been the subtlety Ando has employed in the renovation: in other words, he has let the original building do the talking, and not his own architecture.

Caroline Bourgeois has curated an exhibition at the Punta Della Dogana titled In Praise of Doubt, that discusses our certainties about our identity, our relation with personal space and the space of Art. As Bourgeois says: "in Praise of Doubt we are referring to intimacy... The artists presented in this exhibition are interested in what is perceptible, what we can do, who we are, the clichés which we- as they- must deal with, and how in one's interior life one must wonder about and question oneself." Each room is dedicated to one artist, most of which have never been exhibited in Venice, apart from a few staple pieces, such as Cattelan's horse, which has become a virtual symbol of Punta Della Dogana. Artist Julie Mehretu was specially commissioned for Ando's central concrete cube, taking inspiration from the architecture and history of Venice, Mehretu has created two large canvases full of expressive squiggles and line drawings. One is horizontal, and one is vertical, to reference the tradition of Renaissance painting, where horizontal painting represented everyday life, and vertical painting represented religious themes. In many ways, this exhibition, along with it's sister gallery Palazzo Grassi's exhibition Voice of Images, could be seen in the same vein as Saatchi's Sensation exhibition in 1997.

Images my own