Louisa Buck

Very very happy to pick up and unwrap my edition of Pomeroon - @hewdjlocke ‘s scary and gorgeous work made especially to celebrate @gasworkslondon ‘s 30th birthday … Couldn’t resist … Still a few left (for now) go on! Treat yourself and support this great organisation And many other lovely works too! @hewlocke #hewlocke #pomeroon #gasworks #thirtyyears

Whole lot of shape shifting going on in @fireleibaez Sueño de La Madrugada (A Midnight’s Dream) @southlondongallery - terrific debut by first cohort of @new_curators #southlondongallery main space transformed into a luscious dappled tropical glade - the Fire Station with vivid sumptuous wall paintings that open enticingly onto the street, marbled aluminium silhouettes and exquisite but trenchantly altered book pages - all addressing the complicated legacies of Afro Caribbean diaspora, presided over throughout by Ciguapa - mythical figures from Dominican folklore - here presented as fluid, partially abstract gloriously ambiguous- both threatening and celebratory - not to be messed with … An engaging, thought-provoking eyeful - with multiple histories boiling beneath and seeping through all this lusciousness … #fireleibaez #midnightsdream #ciguapa #dominicanrepublic

This beautiful former school overlooking my local @myattsfieldspark has been left to rot by @lambeth_council for nearly a decade - it’s a huge monument to apathy and waste and disregard for the community … Cormont Rd school is grade 2 listed and just plain beautiful- and with some imagination could be a great community asset and social housing (with a few private yuppie flats as well, if needs be…) It’s been on historic buildings at risk register since 2016 and now Victorian Society says it’s one of the UK’s Tip Ten most endangered buildings…. Just so distressing to watch it deteriorate year on year due to apathy (and probably greed, with uncaring council just waiting for it to need to be demolished and redeveloped ..) Nearly 1500 locals have signed the petition for #lambethcouncil to ACT to prevent further decay …even if you aren’t a local - please do sign, if only for the sake of our poor city’s depleted architecture.. Q-code and website on pic - So come on, @lambeth_council Vassall Ward Councillors - Jacqui Dyer @jahkey2uofficial Paul Gadsby pgadsby and Annie Gallop #anniegallop this one’s on your watch ! #savecormontroadschool #myattsfield #builtheritage #southlondon #saveourbuildings

@francis_alys_official ‘Ricochets’ makes @barbican sing with children’s play in all its wonder, poignancy and danger - from across the globe and from distant past to immediate present. It’s a dazzling show that uses films, animation, paintings,archive material and interactive shadow and sculptural elements to turn #barbicanartgallery into a genuine playground - that explores play in all its multifariousness with no whimsy or sentimentality - it’s a portrait of the human spirit with dark and light - and such an apposite show for our world atm - go, many times … #francisalys #ricochets #play #barbican #essential Sorry @angelachoon - I nicked 3 of your (greatly superior) pics - nos 1,5,6… xxx

Hurrah for paul de Monchaux! Here with his great artist- daughter @cathydemonchaux celebrating the opening of ‘Formation: Paul de Monchaux at 90’ @frestoniangallery It’s a stunning mini- survey of one of our greatest and scandalously underrated artists who in his 9th decade continues to develop his distinctive language of poetic rigour … My pics woefully inadequate! Go see for yourself! - and great that the 12 key works in Formation include (10) Flower (1972) a hitherto unseen early bronze that reverberates with a rugged energy which, although he later reins in and refines, still reverberates throughout! Bravo Paul! He should be in all our major national collections! (Although thankfully he has major public commissions in Cambridge; Norwich; Birmingham; Coventry and more …) #pauldemonchaux #formations #frestoniangallery #dynastyofartists #gogogo

Found a great new beach with ma boy! @frank_buck109 Suffolk side of Stour estuary opposite Wrabness (Mum now living in nearby Stutton) Fab swim with skylarks singing overhead …. (And yes, concerned readers, of course the crab got put back..) #stour #suffolk #perfectday #visitingmum #skylarksoundtrack

They’re back! Egyptian geese en famille @brockwell_lido - two of which I had to fish out of pool later as they bobbed amongst us swimmers with parents shrieking on the sidelines … Then (4) big showdown with marauding magpie (on far R) Such drama! #egyptiangeese #brockwelllido #animalmagic #brixton

@drawingroom_ldn biennial auction is now open! More than 300 works and a unique survey into the range and of concerns of a multigenerational international swathe of some of the best artist working today! Go online and get bidding ! .uk/home Closes July 3 when I will be compering the last night! 1 @lindersterling 2 @bobbyartistbaker 3 @donnahuddleston1 4 #margaretharrison 5 @davidhaines_studio 6 @mariettemoor 7 _georg_wilson 8 @ali.kazim.ak 9 #rosewylie 10 #aliciareyesmcnamara #drawingroom #drawingroombiennial2024

Couldn’t resist posting some more pics from the terrific @tavaresstrachan ‘There is Light Somewhere’ @hayward.gallery - Black heroes and heroines given due respect and presentation- 1-2 stunning neon memorials to astronaut #roberthenrylaurencejr who died while teaching a trainee on a test flight 3: #matthewhenson African American explorer and possibly first explorer to reach #northpole - his contribution erased 4: more erasure …#henriettalacks whose cells were illegally harvested without her consent for breakthrough research while she was being treated for cancer Excellent series 5-8 ‘A Map of the Crown’ celebrating the rich history and functions of African and Afro- Caribbean hairstyles set against ‘Mind Fields’ reclaiming and recreating the much-mythological minimalist monochromes so beloved of 20th century art history by using Black hair as a medium… #tavaresstrachan #thereislightsomewhere #haywardgallery Final slide #jamesbaldwin quote which gives the show its title …

Grand to see @tavaresstrachan in ‘There is Light Somewhere’ his stupendous show @hayward.gallery - the title comes from #jamesbaldwin Not so much a retrospective as a takeover - devoted to what Strachan describes as an “infinite protest” at the status quo past and present …and western history and art hostile …here a pantheon of Black heroes and heroines are remembered and honoured in multiple media…. Also a great addition (esp when #haywardgallery full of visitors, not roving hacks) is (6) a pair of performers who will be making random vocal and (gorgeous) musical interventions throughout the whole run … Esp admire the monumental ‘Ruin of a Giant’ bronze heads of #harriettubman (3) and #kingtubby (5) wirh poetry written by the artist peeping through their fissures … and what about (8) the model of #marcusgarvey ‘s flagship for his sadly never fully operational #blackstar shipping line afloat on the roof? Fab! #tavaresstrachan #thereislightsomewhere (We did a great interview for @theartnewspaper.official back in Sept 2020- check it out!)

#angelicakauffman @royalacademyarts - great networker and self promoter - what she would have done with social media! So good that Canova organised her fuck-off funeral in Rome with her paintings paraded through her streets … While it’s a disgrace that she and Mary Moser only made it on the walls of the #royalacademy that she co-founded, I was rather distracted by the position of the bloke on R’s natty cane spearing the crotch of a prone female bust in a surely intentionally phallic manner…? By both gesture and expression, he’s definitely sticking one for the patriarchy #angelicakauffmanra #patriarchalfrolics

Other @royalacademyarts #sunmershow highpoints: 1 : prizewinning corner of paintings by Dame @traceyeminstudio who has had a rather a good week.. (bravissima - not usually v interested in gongs but Dame T thoroughly deserves hers on so many counts …) 2: always adore #rosewylie 3: beautiful @helensear #sporeprint 4: another great Dame @rachelwhitereadofficial beautiful wire prints having a good convo with a #richardserra 5: @cathydemonchaux 6: @peterdoig celebrating #lyntonkwesijohnson 7: @corneliaparkerartist #psychobarn debris 8: excellent @assembleofficial room devoted to pragmatic making and materiality - here’s a toilet bowl mould by Ideal Standard looking like it’s come from Rachel Whiteread studio 9: phoenix coffin by @elsie_owusu9 on a chunk of mixed aggregate waste … 10:love Sir Joshua getting in a twist, courtesy of @nicolaturner.art ‘meddling Fiend’ #royalacademyofarts #summerexhibition