August
Europe half-empties. The shows that matter in August are the ones you have to take a boat to.
August on the continent runs on skeleton staff and ferry timetables. Most institutions coast through summer hangs from June. We went looking for things you could only see this month, which mostly meant Hydra, a lagoon in Venice, and a handful of holdout gallery rooms.
Apocalypse Now and Then
Andra Ursuța
The old abattoir on the cliff, and Ursuța puts bronze and cast-glass figures where animals were once hung. Eight new pieces from the Desolation Ware series. A jug with desert rocks stuck to it. A chair you would not want to sit in. By August the sun sets behind the building at around eight and everything glows. Photos by Dario Lasagni. You have to take the fast boat from Piraeus, and then walk.
Also this month
Edward Burra
Burra in watercolour, first London retrospective in forty years. Harlem jazz bars and Spanish civil-war street scenes pushed to oil-painting scale. If you are in London in August and the big shows are all reruns from the spring, this is the one still worth the Millbank walk.
Xíloma. MCCCLXXXVI
Dala Nasser
Last days of Nasser's Kunsthalle show before the gallery swaps over for September. Surfaces made from latex, earth, and what the artist has been picking up in Lebanon. Worth catching in the first week of August, before it comes down.