1
Martin Parr
2
Sadie Coles
3
Chantal Joffe
4
Katy Hessel
5
Broomberg & Chanarin
6
Larry Achiampong
7
Loie Hollowell
8
Julie Curtiss
9
Caroline Walker
10
Conrad Shawcross
11
Linder
12
Marcelle Joseph
13
Donald Urquhart
14
Maureen Paley
15
Joanna Piotrowska
16
Alfredo Jaar
17
Mary McCartney
18
Jonathan Watkins
19
Laura Hensser
20
Jonathan McCabe
21
Natasha Hoare
22
Kellenberger-White
23
Grażyna Kulczyk
24
Gillian Wearing
“Published this summer by the Frestonian Gallery, Welcome to Frestonia (2018) by Tony Sleep tells the tale of Freston Street in West London that was due for demolition, but the squatters had declared independence on 31 October 1977 and subsequently asked the United Nations to send in peacekeeping troops to protect them being evicted by the GLC. The photos by Tony Sleep are excellent and are a thorough documentation of community and this early protest movement.”
“2018 was a first for Sarah Lucas: her lauded retrospective at the New Museum in NYC is her first major show in an American institution. A happy highlight is the installation of Bunny sculptures arranged around a snooker table—a recreation of Bunny Gets Snookered at our Heddon Street space in 1997.”
“Infinity Pool II (2010) is a painting by Sargy Mann, who has a show at The Royal Drawing School in London next year. It opens on the 26 February and runs until 10 March 2019. I was taught by him, and love his work. He was an inspiring person and a great painter.”
“I have selected Caroline Walker’s Study for Three Maids—that featured in my exhibition In the Company Of at TJ Boulting, a show that celebrated women artists past and present—for its beauty, tenderness and for bringing a subject so overlooked into the prominence of a portrait painting, mirroring the inclusive nature of Alice Neel’s mid-century portraits.”
“I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead is a film by our friend and colleague Beatrice Gibson, which explores poetry and disobedience while looking at scenes of refugee migration across the Mediterranean, the Grenfell Tower fire in West London, and the consequences of political upheaval and war. It is a brave film that describes our collective anguish but also offers a potential resolution in the form of intimate relationships, kinship and joy. It is one from the heart, rare in this art world of ours.”
“Imran Perretta’s 15 Days is an urgent project, an important one that highlights the experiences of the masses of people who flee persecution and conflict, only to inherit further turmoil. For me, Perretta tells a human story that is usually so often misrepresented in the media.”
“Anthony Iacono’s collaged painted paper works are stunning. They are texturally seductive and playful. His flawless compositional aesthetic is the perfect medium for such funky subject matter.”
“I love being immersed in Hein Koh's world, from her big soft sculptures to her drawings and her staged photographs. Her works are bold and vibrant, emotional and fun. She is able to conjure the magic of childhood with depth and complexity.”
“I really enjoyed seeing Lisa Brice’s paintings at Tate Britain this summer. As a huge Manet fan I loved spotting the references to his and other 19th century paintings in her richly complex compositions. By taking us in to a strange blue world her work disrupts the familiar and defies a singular narrative.”
Lisa Brice, Between This and That, Installation view at Tate Britain © Tate
“One of my favourite pieces from the show I did at Victoria Miro this year.”
Slow Fold Inside a Corner, 2018
“Marianne North painted Red Water Lily of Southern India in 1878. North still inspires me 140 years later when the same lily is shown larger than life amidst an 85 metre billboard commissioned by Art On The Underground at Southwark station.”
© Royal Botanical Gardens Kew
“I loved the all women group show, Breaking Shells, curated by Justine do Espirito Santo at The Koppel Project in London this year. It was very difficult to choose one work, but I have chosen a painting by Chelsea Culprit that the Girlpower Collection ended up acquiring for its critically engaged exploration of identity and the representation of female bodies.”
Chelsea Culprit, Watermelon Crawl, 2016. Courtesy the artist and Queer Thoughts
“Drawing great performers in black and red for Luncheon magazine, I wanted to include Gwen Verdon but she didn’t make the final cut. Here she is in all her vivacious glory dancing Can Can; I am really looking forward to the FX mini series Fosse/Verdon which comes out in 2019 with Michelle Williams playing Gwen.”
“Marfa desert inspiration will guide me throughout the new year... Drawing from this energy during the holiday season with hopes for peace, love and light for all.”
Photo by Oliver Evans
“I found this image when I was researching for my shelters project. This Morrison shelter, popular in the 1940s, was a common ‘furniture’ in the UK during the war. I like how this raid shelter, designed to provide safety in extreme emergency situations, has been appropriated for normal, everyday domestic life.”
The Wheeler Family in The Morrison Shelter, Cranford Essex. Part of WW2 People's War. The archive can be found at bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar
The work consists of two very tall towers—one in industrial construction materials like bricks and cement, the other in Brazilian indigenous materials like straw and mud. A simple, poetic and beautiful exercise on the extreme fragility and objectivity of the precariousness of the concept of equivalence and balance.
Lais Myrrha, Dois Pesos, Duas Medidas, [Double Standard], 2016. Photo by Alfredo Jaar
“If you ever stand in front of something that takes your breath away and makes you question everything, that’s Philip Guston. So brave because he wanted us to ask more questions. He stuck his fingers up to everyone. It’s crackers, what was he even thinking, he was thinking I don’t care. It has soul. A complete original. Sheer take you breath away and make you think about individuality. That’s him.”
Philip Guston, The Studio, 1969. Oil on canvas © The Estate of Philip Guston, courtesy Hauser & Wirth
“This video performance by Kate Groobey is from her Pure Pleasure series (2018). A celebration of female pleasure, it is as joyful as it is philosophical, informed by the artist’s feminist observations on art history. The videos feature her dancing as different painted characters against landscape backdrops, accompanied by happy homemade soundtracks.”
Kate Groobey, Places Unknown, 2018. Video performance. Courtesy the artist
“I have chosen Evan Ifekoya’s exhibition, Ritual without Belief as my favourite work of art of 2018; a beautifully mastered, six-hour sound work investigating topics of polyvocality and collaboration. The work continues to exist beyond the exhibition as BOSS (Black Obsidian Sound System).”
Evan Ifekoya, Ritual without Belief, Installation view, 2018. Commissioned by Gasworks. Courtesy the artist. Photo by Andy Keate
“NoKnowsNose (2015) is a work by Mika Rottenberg that we showed recently at Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art, and like many of her works, it applies an absurd and hallucinogenic imaginary to globalization and female labour. It's a work that disorientates and seduces, rendering you ultimately complicit in her humorous but sincere critique of capital.”
Mika Rottenberg, NoNoseKnows (Artist Variant), 2015. Courtesy of the artist. Installation view: Goldsmiths CCA, 2018. Photo by Andy Keats
“Wherever we go, we keep collecting stones. The way they look, how the patterns and colours change when wet, the weight and feel of the surface in your hand—each one is unique. We made this photogram together, using selections from the small collections of stones kept by each of us in the Kellenberger-White studio.”
“Lenore Tawney is yet another fascinating trailblazer in my collection. I was enchanted by her cryptic and humorous objects that include elements of collage. She frequently offered them as gifts to her friends. The 1960s and seventies brought fascinating weaving forms in her practice that combined spatial thinking with mathematical precision—and which can also be traced in her drawings.”
Courtesy of The Lenore G. Tawney Foundation, New York, and Alison Jacques Gallery, London. Photo by Michael Brzezinski
“2018 was the centenary year for women's suffrage. I was delighted to be the first woman to create the first female statue in Parliament Square of Millicent Fawcett. Now it is the first statue in the square with a voice: ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’.”