Student Work: A2 Applied Quentin Jones Inspired Installation

To kick off their personal project our A2 Applied students worked on a collaborative piece inspired by the wonderful Quentin Jones. Each student created a sheet of ideas and inspired works, a research page in their sketchbook and created a design on a woodcut shape. The work was then installed across our exhibitions boards and students took a series of photographs to capture the movement of the piece which were used to create the animated gif above. To see the full collection of work check out our flickr page.

Josiah McElheny: The Past Was A Mirage Id Left Far Behind

Josiah McElheny for the The Bloomberg Commission has transformed the Whitechapel Gallery into a hall of mirrors. Seven large-scale, mirrored sculptures are arranged as multiple reflective screens for the artists interpretation of groundbreaking experimental abstract films, programmed to change throughout the year. The sculptures will reflect and refract the projected film selection, saturating the whole gallery and visitors in images and light. Distorted and multiplied, the moving images explore how abstracting is used to depict an image of visual enlightenment.

The Bloomberg Commission is displayed in Gallery 2, a dedicated space for site-specific works of art that was previously the reading room of the former Whitechapel Library. Inspired by the history of thr Library as a creative haven for early modernist thinkers such as Isaac Rosenberg and Mark Gertler, McElheny's new work explores the history of abstraction in film and video, reinterpreting them by presenting fractured, constantly morphing versions.

The work is being shown until 20th July 2012 and is worth several visits to see the changeover of films. The best part is that it's free and you can make a day of it by visiting the Rothko show too!

Anish Kapoor Leviathan Sculpture

British artist Anish Kapoor has a new 35m structural blob on show in the Grand Palais des Champs-Elysees in Paris. The monster which appears from every corner to fill this grand space is part of the current 'Monumenta' exhibition. Leviathan is 35 metres high and comprised of tautly-stretched PVC over a giant metal frame. People are invited to immerse themselves in it's colour by walking around and inside it to capture a poetic experience.

Kapoor said: "My ambition is to create a space within a space, responding to the great height and light of the nave of the Grand Palais."

Pyramid of beer

Alternative artist Cyprien Gaillard has found a way to make his installations 'a little more palatable'. Gaillard constructed a pyramid containing 72,000 bottles of beer at the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. The artist asked dozens of Germans to drink the beer as part of his performance project titled 'The Recovery of Discovery'. Gaillard's inspiration for the pyramid was the strange tail of an ancient Turkish monument, the Pergamon Altar. The Pergamon was excavated in the 19th Century and later rebuilt in Germany after the fragments were transported in Europe. In this case, instead of using building materials, Gaillard substituted bricks with beer by importing a popular Turkish lager.

Don't you wish you were there?