Things We Like

Our weekly round up of things we like on the Design Week news desk.

David Hockney

David Hockney
David Hockney

The Royal Academy is set to host an exhibition of the last seven years of work from artist David Hockney including, for the first time, films. A typically forthright Hockney used yesterday’s exhibition press launch to get a few things off his chest. He was adament, the Guardian says, that ‘it’s not two thousand and twelve, it’s twenty twelve.’ He also held forth on one of his favourite subjects – smoking. This led Independent arts correspondent Rob Sharp to tweet ‘Hockney launch a dream. A cigarette for every quote.’

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture, is at the Royal Academy, London W1, from 21 January-9 April 2012.

Nirvana Nevermind exhibition

oh well, whatever, nevermind
oh well, whatever, nevermind

September 24, 1991 saw the release of Nevermind, the seminal album from Seattle rock group Nirvana. Their Pixies-borrowed loud/quiet dynamics; Kurt Cobain’s haunted charisma and weird, eerie lyrics and the iconic album cover by record label Geffen’s Robert Fisher, made this a record that, it’s fair to say, changed the course of music history. Marking the release’s 20th birthday, In Bloom: The Nirvana Nevermind exhibition will open in east London next week, drawing together band memorabilia and artefacts including photographs from the likes of Steve Gullick, Steven Double and Martyn Goodacre, and a replica of the Paramount Stage set up, including a replicas of Cobain’s Fender guitar and tour posters.

In Bloom: The Nirvana Nevermind Exhibition is open from 13 – 25 September at The Loading Bay Gallery, Unit 4- 5, Dray Walk, 91 Brick Lane, London, E1

Forgotten People

Forgotten People
Forgotten People

Opening this week at London’s Pure Evil gallery is a solo show from Gustavo Ortiz entitled Forgotten People, celebrating the anonymous, invisible folk who help shape our ‘common humanity’, according to the gallery.

The artist took his inspiration from forgotten ethnic groups in South  America from the past, such as the Onas, whose matriarchal power structure and anonymity rituals made them an idea starting point for the project. He then took these ideas and made them a metaphor for those people we meet throughout our lives who say or do something that resonates with and shapes us, but of whom we have no recollection of their names and faces.

Through a series of self-portraits, Ortiz looks at how these traceless individuals have shaped his own sense of self, and examines ‘the ways in which we are all forgettable.’

Forgotten People
Forgotten People

Forgotten People opens from today until October 8 at Pure Evil Gallery, 108 Leonard St, London EC2A

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