East End exhibitions – five of the best for April
Part of Moon Face (1999) by David Hepher. (c) David Hepher, Courtesy of Flowers Gallery London and New York
David Hepher: Grain of Concrete @ Flowers Gallery
82 Kingsland Rd, E2 8DP
It wouldn’t be unfair to say that concrete is David Hepher’s muse. His most famous works are depictions of the Aylesbury estate (the South East London manor which famously formed the Channel 4 logo in their surreal 2004 idents) – midway between dank, grey realism and splashy conceptualism. His work has this month crossed the Thames, treating the bright, airy space that is Shoreditch’s Flowers Gallery to a dose of claustrophobic South London realness. A book of the same name, with over 250 colour illustrations, will be available for purchase. Until 13 May
Artists’ Film International @ Whitechapel Gallery
77-82 Whitechapel High St, E1 7QX
Two absurd films are on show, for free no less, in this Whitechapel Gallery mini-festival. How to Become a Non-Artist (2007) by Ane Hjort Guttu treats her own four year-old child as a Very Serious Artist, as she critiques his arrangement of normal objects like cups, coathangers and cauliflower. Mary Reid Kelley and her partner Patrick Kelly present This is Offal (2016), a parody drama and radical reimagining of the Thomas Hood poem The Bridge of Sighs, where the suicidal woman of that piece lies dead as her organs argue over whodunnit. From 28 March – 28 May
Maeve Brennan @ Chisenhale Gallery
64 Chisenhale Rd, E3 5QZ
Maeve Brennan splits her time between London and Beirut, and the latest fruits of her labour consist of a new exhibition and film, premiering at the Chisenhale this month. The film was shot in Lebanon and is itself split: between the perspectives of an archaeological conservator at the American University and a mechanic and joyrider from Britel (near the Syrian border); between documentary footage and staged encounters. Ultimately this work, like her previous films, talks and publications, will likely focus on the human element between the rocks and stone. From 31 March – 4 June
Miniature: a scene from one of The Japanese House’s installations. Photograph: Miles Willis, Getty Images
The Japanese House: Architecture and Life after 1945 @ Barbican Art Gallery
Barbican Centre, Silk St, EC2Y 8DS
There’s something of an architectural theme emerging in this month’s East End Exhibitions, with the advent of this intriguing look at Japanese domestic design. The showstopper is a duo of full scale recreations: one of Pritzker Prize-winning architect Ryue Nishizawa’s Moriyama House in suburban Tokyo (where every room is its own self-contained building); with another, a replica Japanese tea house designed by Terunobu Fujimori and built by students from Kingston University, filling the other half of the gallery. Until 25 June
Lawrence Abu Hamdan @ Maureen Paley
21 Herald St, E2 6JT
Another theme running through this month’s column is Beirut – Jordanian (via North Yorkshire) sound artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan lives and works in the Lebanese capital. However the work of this ‘private ear’ has a global impact. From turning crisp packets into listening devices in New York to broadcasting two Cairene Sheikhs’ concerns about noise levels (at a hugely amplified volume) against the military government’s wishes in Cairo, Abu Hamdan’s grapples with “the politics of listening” have even led him to be an expert witness in certain UK asylum hearings. From 28 April to 28 May