[title]
Every year, Bloomberg New Contemporaries picks the best recent art graduates and whacks them all in a room together. The results can be messy, but they’re always interesting, and every year you get to have a glimpse of what young artists are making right now, and the chance to try to figure who might go on to bigger things. This year’s selection is the best in years, and is oddly full of horror and gore and nightmares. Here are eight artists that make the trip to the South London Gallery more than worth the bus ride.
Jinjoon Lee’s video of mangled bodies that morph and transform, all soundtracked by deep, ululating throat singing: horrifying and atmospheric.
Karolina Dworska’s nightmare tapestry is filled with gross bodies, dripping with gore and violence.
Rafal Zajko’s amazing suspension pod sculpture is a future sarcophagus for a glowing being, peering out from within. It feels like a 1990s kids’ TV vision of the future.
Davinia-Ann Robinson’s pile of mud and disembodied limbs looks like someone burst into flames and returned to the earth right on the gallery floor.
Nisa Khan’s photo of a woman in a shalwar smoker a ciggie is austere and quiet.
Orsola Zane’s painting of a dead pope is probably the best thing here, both threatening and silly, intense and absurd – a very dark, weirdly art-historical thing.
Karabo Monareng’s warrior head bust looks like cracked, overbaked bread – and maybe it is? – a clever way of playing with skin tone
Christopher Hartmann’s painting of a pile of dirty laundry is beautiful and detailed. It feels full of narrative and history, but it’s still just, you know, some laundry.
Bloomberg New Contemporaries is at South London Gallery until Feb 20. Free. Details here.
Want more art? Here are the top ten exhibitions in London.
Want more art, but free? Here are the best free shows in London right now.