Something for the Week, Issue 4

Welcome back to Something for the Week — your weekly selection of things to see, read, listen to, and experience across the arts.

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Shu Lea Cheang’s Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023 at Project Native Informant, London

Taiwanese American artist Shu Lea Cheang has, in her decades long career, been referred to as a “cyberfeminist pioneer.” Her work submerges desire and its commercialised expenditure back into the murky soup of sexuality from which they come. Currently based in Paris, Cheang’s debut solo exhibition at Project Native Informant focuses on a rotating screening of her four major film works: Fresh Kill (1994), I.K.U. (2000), Fluidø (2017), and UKI (2023).

Running until 20 April 2024

High & Low — John Galliano directed by Kevin Macdonald

John Galliano was the first British fashion designer to head a French haute couture house, known for daring work that challenged the fashion world. However, he was also plagued by alcoholism and substance abuse. In 2011, Galliano was convicted after he was filmed making anti-Semitic remarks, ending his career at Dior. Candid footage, alongside conversations with Naomi Campbell, Anna Wintour and more, trace the designer’s turbulent life.

The History of Nothing and Other Excursions by Eduardo Paolozzi & Jasia Reichardt

In 1962 Eduardo Paolozzi made his famous film History of Nothing. A surrealist collage in time, it is a twelve-minute paean to the broad and mysterious culture of the mid-twentieth century. In 1975 the curator and critic Jasia Reichardt, in collaboration with Paolozzi, wrote The History of Nothing and Other Excursions, a fascinating — and until now, unpublished — essay about the making and ideas that informed the project.

Gina Fischli: Love Love Love at Soft Opening, London

In Love Love Love, the second solo exhibition of Zurich-based artist Gina Fischli at Soft Opening, the artist presents a runway show of urban animals. Frozen in states of poised motion while progressing down a catwalk, Love Love Love puts adoration in stark relief with dominance. The treatment humans extend towards domestic pets via overbreeding, styling and accessorising evidences a conflation of love, care and control.

Running until 6 April 2024

My anxiety – an essay by Lauren Oyler in the New Yorker

“Is what’s wrong with me what’s wrong with everyone else?”, Oyler asks in a piece that explores the shared traits and fundamentally personal nature of anxiety and its myriad manifestations.

Visit Delhi Grill in London before it closes

One of London’s most popular neighbourhood north Indian restaurants will close on Sunday 17 March after Delhi Grill announced its location on Islington’s Chapel Market would shutter after 17 years. Its outstanding butter chicken and grilled lamb chops, among other renowned comfort foods, will be sorely missed; its many regulars from over the years will hope that owner Ashik Ali has something else in the works.

Listen to Saudade Vem Corendo by Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa

The great Stan Getz and Luiz Bonfa’s Jazz Samba Encore! includes a number of outstanding pieces of music. Saudade Vem Correndo is perhaps the standout (famously sampled by the Pharcyde in Runnin’) but is closely followed by O Morro Nao Tem Vez and Ebony Samba. Guaranteed to perk you up or chill you out – soothingly energetic music that sorts you out.

Feature image: Installation view of Shu Lea Cheang, Scifi New Queer Cinema, 1994-2023 at Project Native Informant, London. Courtesy the artist and Project Native Informant