A while back I read an article on The Atlantic titled ‘Art for Instagram’s Sake’ by Katherine Schweb, which questioned whether immersive exhibitions were changing the nature of the gallery experience. Undoubtedly visitors are spending more time looking at the art through their phone, ‘meticulously choosing filters to best highlight the vibrant colours and textures of the art before them’, or using the exhibition backdrop for the ‘ultimate selfie’. As she rightly comments, the phenomenon brings art to the masses in a way that hasn’t been achieved before, making people more curious and perhaps more likely to visit galleries themselves. Like her, I disagree that it’s nobody’s place – art critic, art institution, or cultural elite – to say what ways art should or shouldn’t be experienced by an individual, and this is precisely why I found the recent Yoyoi Kusama’s exhibition at London’s Victoria Miro gallery to be a disappointment.

The Chelsea Art Fair has been a key date in the International Art Fair calendar for 21 years.

This year, 30 leading UK and International galleries have once again come together in the elegant Chelsea Old Town Hall for four days, from Thursday 21 April until Sunday 24 April. 

SLMpickings headed to the VIP Birthday preview on Wednesday evening to check out the beautiful art on display this year. ​

Founded in 2001, teamLab is an artistic collaboration with over 400 members, bringing together professionals from various fields of practice in the information age. The interdisciplinary group work to produce completely immersive environments using digital technology.
 
They weren’t immediately well received in the art world, but since 2011 they have exploded onto the international scene, exhibiting in Japan, the USA, France, Australia, Turkey and just last year, the UK.

​I speak to Takashi Kudo about digital technology's important role in promoting positive relations between people.

The Saatchi Gallery is toasting it’s 30th Birthday with ‘Champagne Life’, its first all-female exhibition. It was the gender-specific promise which inspired me to visit; Saatchi and his crew successfully made enough of a point about it to fool me into thinking it would in some way inform what was on show. Critics have thus far collectively noted that the show had no real theme or curatorial arrangement, and that the all-female element was nothing more than ‘tokenism’...and on the whole I’d have to agree. Very little information was to hand to suggest reasoning behind the chosen artists or work, leaving nothing but the knowledge of shared gender to guide you through the show.

​
I searched for meaning on these grounds, and found it to be lurking in the domesticity implied by Maha Malluh’s ‘Food For Thought’ pans, the mundane yet essential objects signifying the nurturing mother figure; the tenderness in Seung Ah Palik’s ‘Maitreya', bare flesh touching bare flesh; and Alice Anderson’s giant bobbin ‘Bound’, just waiting for a giant woman to pick it up and begin making and mending. This is, however, where it stopped.

​
Such meanings were ascribed by myself as a way to make sense of the combination of works bundled together. Shellie Sojhanvari’s taxidermy horse ‘Moje Sabz’ and Mia Feuer’s ‘Jerusalem Donkey’ seemed at odds with the theme I was trying to build, serving instead as a sign to stop looking for something that really wasn’t there.

This evening marks the end of London's first major light festival, Lumiere London, which has seen the capital's iconic architecture transformed with 3D projections, installations and unique light works. The 4 day festival ran from Thursday 14 - Sunday 17 January, every evening from 6.30pm-10.30pm . Produced by Artichoke and supported by the Mayor of London, it has widely been hailed as a success, with works shown in central locations, from Kings Cross, Mayfair, Picadilly, Regent Street and St James's to Trafalgar Square and Westminster. 

My favourite works were Janet Echelman's 1.8 London at Oxford Circus and Patrice Warrener's The Light of the Spirit at Westminster Abbey. 
​
'Read More' for full gallery.

​As the final months of 2015 arrived and the year sped towards its final hour, I visited a flurry of participatory art exhibitions across London, all of which had something in common. In a city which constantly churns out exhibitions and events, it was, as ever the immersive shows which won my time and appreciation. The Old Masters never did appeal to me; a child of the times, it has always been Contemporary Art which strikes a chord. 
 
Viewing art is always fascinating on some level, but truly experiencing art is something altogether more memorable. With so much visual stimulation in today’s world, now more than ever it is not enough just to look, we want to get involved. Art which forces the viewer to in some way participate is not new. In the 1960s American artist Bruce Nauman’s ‘Performance Corridor’ forced his viewers to walk down a 20 inch wide corridor, and experience the constraints of space - not too dissimilarly to Höller’s opening corridor in his 2015 ‘Decision’ show, albeit with light rather than space being withheld. Such experiences place the viewer in situations which stimulate the senses and provoke a reaction; this is the artist’s intent.

When the viewer becomes a performer in the work, they are given a role to play in creating its meaning. It is the participation itself which completes this kind of work; unlike a painting which needs no viewer to add the finishing touch, without the viewer participatory art remains incomplete.

Today the Royal Academy closes its doors to Ai Weiwei’s first British survey show. An artist arguably more famed for his political activism than his works alone, Weiwei's blockbuster show was bound to be met with mixed reviews. Like most art, particularly that which comes with a political message, his is not to everyones taste.

He is renowned for creating works which speak of exploitation and injustice, particularly pertaining to the Chinese Government. Whilst I appreciate the concepts behind his work, not all of it resonates with me and whilst I wouldn’t go so far as to say it myself, I can see why some critics label it nothing more than a spectacle. That said, his enormous ‘Straight’ installation certainly wowed.