Borderlands at GRAD was provocative and thrilling

GRAD (the Gallery of Russian Art and Design) is my sort of gallery. I have always found the exhibitions unusual and stimulating, and the gallery's location and size make it an ideal place to pop-in to during a lunch break.

And so it was that I found myself there on a Tuesday lunchtime.

The exhibition was called Borderlands and it looked at the boundary between art and political comment, something that the V&A has also been looking at recently in exhibitions like All of This Belongs to You, the difference being that this was from a Russian perspective and it is always good to see things from a different perspective.

The front of the exhibition space was dominated by a brick wall with wallpaper on one side. I've shown the wall paper side but viewed from the other side it was more obvious that the shape of the wall was that of Ukraine and that the section of bricks lying on the floor away from the wall was shaped like Crimea, the obvious point being that this part of the country had split away from the rest.

You could argue that Russia was in the wrong over the breakup of Ukraine, and many people have, so it was a provocative and brave act to include a piece like that in the exhibition. That was a good thing as art should be provocative and brave.

There was a series of photographs, displayed on lightboxes, of demonstrations in Moscow. These were made arty by the way that they were taken and presented. They were taken over a short period, 41 seconds apparently, and that gave them a smudged look as some of the elements of the picture smeared in dramatic lines.

Another effect, not that obvious here, was to squash parts of the photos along vertical lines in the way that things like Apple's Photo Booth do. In the big picture above this was done by the grey post on the left. I found the combination of the contrasting effects of smearing and squashing very effective.

The final element was the original scenes and and these were colourful and powerful because they were what they were, i.e. demonstrations with lots of people carrying banners in large public spaces.

I did not get the connection between these outfits and protest but that did not matter as I liked them anyway. I did get that these were not meant to be normal fashion outfits so there was a question there as to whether these were clothes, art, both or neither. I would call then Abstract Fashion in that they were Abstract Art produced using Fashion.

Treated as a form of Abstract Art it was easy to appreciate their use of shape and colour.

This was my fourth visit to GRAD in just over a year and I was thrilled every time. That's why I'll keep going there.

BOLT at GRAD

I like the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design (GRAD). That is hardly unusual, I like lots of galleries of all sorts, but there is something quirky and edgy about GRAD that especially appeals to me.

It helps that they often cover Russian art in the style of, or inspired by, Constructivism and I love that. The little room of Russian posters at the Tate Modern was my favourite and I miss it.

This visit was also helped by their friendly opening hours. Being open until 7pm meant that I could work at our London office until 5:30pm, walk all the way there (boosting my daily step count) and still have time to see the exhibition, go for a curry and then head to Big Ideas, the real reason that I was in London that evening.

The excuse for this exhibition was The Bolt, a ballet with music by Shostakovich that was first performed in the early 1930s. The music was playing quietly in the background but the main purpose of the exhibition was to show off the designs by Tatiana Bruni.

These designs were mostly sketches of various characters and these were strung in long lines on four of the walls in the oddly shaped gallery. The Bolt had a large and varied cast from posh ladies to drunks.

In the centre of the room was a collection of costumes which I compared with their original sketches. My favourite was a young woman's outfit because of its colourful stripes.

The other thing that I liked about the pictures was the action in them with many of the characters leaning forward in unnatural poses. These were pictures for a ballet so the movement was useful to indicate what the characters could have looked like in motion.

There were other nice touches too, as I've always found at GRAD. In addition to the sketches, outfits and music, there were two displays about the ballet with cuttings and photos from the time, and a synopsis of the ballet that put it into historical context and also explained why it suddenly became unpopular.

I had to wait until later for the final part of the story. There was a BOLT at GRAD iPad app that had more detail about the ballet and it's creators. I tried to download it while I was there but I struggled to find sufficient signal just to sign in on Spawn/Twitter; either the gallery is made of lead or that corner of Oxford Circus is a mobile dead zone.

The political theme, the bolt and what it was used for, seemed to be a small, almost insignificant, part of the actual ballet that had lots of excuses for the workers and villagers to dance. Though, to be fair, even the might Swan Lake has a ball scene just so that it can include several regional dances which do nothing to advance the plot.

BOLT was a simple idea neatly executed that gave an interesting glimpse into the society, politics and fashion of the time.

TAINT at GRAD

Having stumbled across GRAD (Gallery for Russian Arts and Design) for their Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen exhibition I am now following them on social media to keep informed on what they are doing.

What they are doing now is TAINT, which they describe as "a deconstruction, interrogation and exploration of the art of painting through contemporary art practise".

That means the works are a reaction to painting and are not necessarily paintings themselves.

The art starts rights at the door with a piece on the floor made out of small coloured pieces. They are arranged in swirls across the floor. The overall effect looked something like a map and I could argue the case that I could see some familiar continents in it.

The exhibition only opened the day before and already the pieces were being spread away from their original clumps. I am sure that was expected and/or planned and the spread added to the effect. It also meant that I had to take great care over where I walked.

One of my favourite pieces was this one.

It took me a while to realise but it is a high-quality (Giclée ) print. I thought it was real until I got close to it.

I like the composition and the colours but best of all, I like the title "Six plasticine balls, three of which are sculptures".The mischief in that is cute but it also raised the serious question as to the definition of art.

All of the pieces were very different. There were constructs with lights, a video, a towel-rail, a painting, some coloured acetate and a page from a notebook with some straight cuts in it. I did not like all of it, and nor did I expect to, but it was all interesting and I spent a fair amount of time, twenty minutes or so walking around the pieces.

GRAD is quite a small gallery so I am unlikely to ever make a special trip in to London just to see something there but it is well situated just off Oxford Circus so it is easy to include a quick visit there in to a larger programme. And as long as GRAD keep putting on exhibitions like Kino and TAINT I'll keep going to see them.

Kino/Film: Soviet Posters of the Silent Screen at GRAD

I like London's big show-piece art galleries (National, Tate, etc.) and these are neatly complemented by a myriad of smaller ones that increase the diversity of art on display. Places like GRAD.

GRAD, the Gallery for Russian Arts and Design, is the sort of place that I should have known about earlier but didn't. Enlightenment came via Londonist, and not for the first time.

I have mentioned my love of Soviet-style art several times previously so this exhibition was close to unmissable.

GRAD is a small gallery with just one reasonably sized room, much like the commercial picture galleries in nearby Mayfair or one of the smaller rooms at Tate Modern.

That was still plenty enough space to hold around twenty large and well spaced film posters together with half a dozen screens showing excerpts from some of those films.

Obviously I did not know any of the films and I could not read any of the posters (I guessed Battleship Potyomkin) but that did nothing to curtail my enjoyment of the exhibition. I can read pictures and the films were silent anyway.

My favourite posters and associated film clip boasted of some of the post-revolution industrialisation of Russia; the poster on the right says "cement" and the one next to it is "oil".

The long film clip showed the railway being built across Mongolia and the resultant modernisation of industry and agriculture.

It was a slow and very artistic piece, for example there were some unusual camera angles used as the train moved across the desert. It was a fascinating look at history and I watched the clip all the way through, which must have been ten minutes or so. Who can resist steam trains?

The exhibition was a nicely presented little gem. The posters were grouped sensibly and arranged against an attractive grey background, a pleasant change from the common stark white. In the centre of the room were a few block seats which made viewing the clips more comfortable.

And it was free. And they allowed photographs provide they were taken just for personal use. I like those two characteristics in a gallery.

My arty day in London got off to an excellent start thanks to GRAD.