Left Hand to Back of Head, Object Held Against Right Thigh, Bluecoat, Liverpool
The Bluecoat’s winter exhibition is a group show exploring how we can experience art beyond what we are able to say about it. Featuring film, video, installation and sculpture that affects the audience on a physical level through sensations and emotions, artists include: Rowena Harris, Mary Hurrell, Natalie Finnemore, Mitra Saboury, Marianna Simnett, Marie Toseland, Hannah James and Becky Beasley.
Until 28 March 2016. www.thebluecoat.org.uk
Bench, Tintype Gallery, London
This group exhibition takes as its starting point the concept of a bench as a place of temporary privacy in the public sphere. It includes Michael Simpson’s series of Bench paintings created between 1989 and 2009, plus Madalina Zaharia’s bench-sized wall installation that conflates 3D and 2D elements. Other artists on show are: Helen Barff, Adam Clarke, Assemble, Anna Lucas, Richard Wentworth and Joby Williamson.
Until 13 February 2016. www.tintypegallery.com
Monuments Should Not Be Trusted, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham
This bumper show brings together 30 artists and groups from the ‘golden years’ of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Over 100 artworks and artefacts explore the key contradictions of the single party state, drawing on new research on the period between the early 1960s and the mid 1980s.
Until 4 March 2016. www.nottinghamcontemporary.org
Gerard Byrne, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry
Working with photography, video and live art, Irish artist Gerard Byrne explores the way we understand the present by revisiting the past. The focal point is a new film made at the Biologiska Museet in Stockholm: the first natural history museum to use a large-scale diorama. As with much of Byrne’s work, not everything is as it seems.
Until 12 March 2016. www.warwickartscentre.co.uk
Oliver Braid, Vane, Newcastle
Oliver Braid’s practice explores definitions of objects, from their object-hood to their subsequent social application. His beautiful ink drawings have been developed through posing a series of questions, such as ‘what would a hand look like if it didn’t look like a hand?’. The results are spellbinding.
Until 20 February 2016. www.vane.org.uk
