If you imagine that Caravaggio was Israeli rather than Italian, that he worked with digital and motion cameras rather than a paint brush and that he lived in London today, you’d have a fairly accurate snapshot of Ori Gersht. In many ways Ori is an old master (apart from in age that is) whose art takes on the big ideas; life, death, beauty and violence with some chiaroscuro thrown in for good measure. Chiaroscuro is art speak for light and shade, one of Brian Sewell’s favourite words. Ori’s work often involves conflict, whether in the subject matter he chooses (Bosnia, Auschwitz, Hiroshima, The French Revolution or The Spanish Civil War) or in the technique he employs. In his film Pomegranate, the artist captures a high velocity bullet flying across the frame in ultra slow motion towards a pomegranate suspended on a fine thread, showing us the moment of impact and the subsequent explosion of fruit in all its glorious detail. And this transformation of a peaceful scene into a violent, catastrophic massacre is extraordinarily beautiful to witness. We’ll be visiting Ori’s studio and chatting to him about his work, his life, his influences and finding out the fascinating stories behind his practice. Plus, if he re-enacts a fruit explosion for us, we’ll probably get roped in to clean up the mess too. Unmissable.

This event is for Members Only (20 places)

http://www.mummeryschnelle.com/pages/gersht.htm

If you’ve never heard of The Catlin Guide, get with the programme. Each year curator Justin Hammond trawls the length and breadth of the country, visiting every graduate show from Lands End to John O’Groats in search of the most promising artistic talent he can find. Now in its third year of publication, this little black book (actually it was green this year) contains everything you need to know about the most exciting emerging artists in the UK. As the focus is purely on first year graduates, being selected for the Catlin Guide is for most, the very first grown-up step of their careers. Winning the prize at the end of it is like finding one of Willy Wonka’s golden tickets. From the 40 artists who make the cut, just ten are chosen to exhibit work in a final showdown judged by a panel of experts. And in addition to a massive boost up the ladder,  the winner walks away with £5,000. We’ll be meeting Justin Hammond and a selection of this year’s finalists (Great Alfaro, Poppy Bisdee, Gabriella Boyd, Jonny Briggs, Tom Howse, Ali Kazim, Adeline de Monseignat, Max Dovey, Soheila Sokhanvari & Julia Vogl) at the Londonewcastle Project Space to discuss their work and find out what winning the prize would mean to them. Outstanding.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.artcatlin.com/

The story of Rob and Nick (Nicky to pals) Carter is an interesting one. Nicky was working as a waitress in The Groucho Club in 1989 before becoming the club’s art curator. In 1997, Nicky met Rob, a fine art photographer, they fell in love, got hitched and began an artistic collaboration that hasn’t stopped since. Their work is all about three things; light, colour & form. Their ongoing exploration of these three mysterious elements has led them to work in a huge range of diverse media and materials, from neon lights to paint and everything in between. For their most recent series of work, they went out into a field on a glorious sunny day, threw industrial quantities of pure powdered paint pigment into the air from atop a scaffold structure and photographed the natural explosion of colour that took place. Each explosion lasts for just a fraction of a second so capturing these fleeting moments ain’t easy. But the results are astounding and have created quite a stir amongst those that collect their work, including Elton John, Jude Law and Kevin Spacey. The duo are also renowned for working at their studio in the dark, guided only by glow-in-the-dark stars from their daughter’s bedroom which warn of objects they might walk into as they ‘paint with light’ in the pitch black. Rob & Nicky will be chatting to us at their studio about what they do, how they do it and how often they argue. More fun than you can shake a stick at.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.robandnick.com/

Polly Morgan is the UK’s most famous contemporary taxidermist and as you might imagine, her studio is a truly mind-boggling place. For instance, there aren't many folks that have separate freezer shelves labelled ‘voles’, ‘cats’, ‘birds’ and ‘foxes’. And to add to her extraordinary menagerie she has two adorable dogs, live ones, who constantly look at each other as if to say, ‘we’d best behave otherwise we’ll be next.’ Taxidermy, despite being all the rage a few hundred years ago has in more recent times tended to languish in the dusty corners of junk shops run by old men that could do with a shower. But thanks in part to a new generation of contemporary artists like Polly, this ancient and highly skilled craft has enjoyed a huge revival, much to the delight of just about every trendy bar in the East London. And unlike in Victoria & ALbert's day, it’s no longer cool to kill animals simply to stuff them, so it’s important to say that all of Polly’s specimens are already dead. Polly's inviting us into her studio to chat about her work, how she makes it, her forthcoming solo show and with a spot of luck she'll give a live demonstration of this fascinating art in action. And in case you’re wondering, it is not gruesome or upsetting, in fact it’s extremely clean, gentle and beautiful to observe. Utterly brilliant.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.pollymorgan.co.uk/

Craig Little and Blake Whitehead (aka littlewhitehead) are an artistic duo who, in their own words, aim to “beat up the viewer, visually.” Ever since they sat next to each on their first day at Glasgow School of Art, littlewhitehead have been making mischief and carving out a name (albeit an amalgamated one) for themselves in major league art circles. One of their first big career breaks came in 2008 when they were selected for Bloomberg New Contemporaries, a show that has catapulted many a famous artist over the years. But as is so often true, it was a certain Mr. Saatchi who dragged them kicking and screaming into the big time. Their inclusion in Newspeak: British Art Now at The Saatchi Gallery in 2010 sealed their reputation as two of the most exciting young contemporary British artists. Viewed by those in the know as the new Chapman Brothers, their sculptures are dark, discomforting, blackly humorous and threatening. 'It Happened in the Corner', the work which for many critics stole the show at Saatchi’s place, depicted a group of hooded figures clustered, their backs to the viewer, in a corner of the gallery as if pouring over a violent incident. Making the viewer feel like a helpless bystander, littlewhitehead’s work represents the most current of society's collective fears; hoodies, riots and gangs. We’ll be chatting to the artists about their latest solo exhibition, The Cyclic Gate, and discussing where their work comes from, what inspires them and what their mums think. Unmissable.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.sumarrialunn.com
http://www.littlewhitehead.com/

Freud’s place as one of Britain’s great artists of modern times was bagsied long before he kicked the bucket last year. The enormous hoopla over his work that’s going on at the moment, with the National Portrait Gallery leading the charge, is a well earned celebration of an incredible life’s work. And given the time and energy we know he gave to every single picture no doubt he’s glad of a long, long rest. We’ll be taking a look not at his oil paintings but at an exceptionally rare collection of his drawings which are on display for a short time at Blain Southern.  And in the words of the curator William Feaver who spent five years working with the artist putting this show together, ‘Freud began by drawing, and drawing remained, for over seventy years, the basis of his art.' We’ll be delving behind the scenes with director Rory Blain to discuss some of the most intimate and illuminating drawings Freud produced. Outstanding.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.blainsouthern.com

Charming Baker’s real name is Alan. His adopted forename was given to him by his friends because he was the fresh faced sweet talker who would invariably get them out of trouble after too many diet cokes. And his nickname still makes perfect sense – Charming is a thoroughly bloody nice bloke. You’d be a bit disappointed if a chap named Charming wasn’t, wouldn’t you? But he’s also a damn fine artist whose reputation among the world’s top collectors has rocketed in recent years and not just for his unusual technique of shooting his canvases with a 12 bore shotgun. Damien Hirst is a big fan. As is the collector Frank Cohen. Major league dealers like Harry Blain and Alberto Mugrabi are also rumoured to collect his work. So life is good for Charming Baker it seems. Strange then, that in a recent interview he expressed his desire to find a simpler way to make a living. He likes the idea of becoming a plumber apparently.

Charming has invited us to the legendary Jealous Gallery and Print Studio run by Dario Illari which handles all the printing of Charming’s editions, a fine art in its own right, for a behind the scenes peek. We’ll be chatting to Charming, Dario and Jealous Master Printer Matthew Rich about exactly how these works are executed and the interesting dialogue that takes place between artist and printer along the way. Plus we’ll be hearing from Charming about the stuff that influences him, like cheap books, heroes, Zulus, odd-looking women, suburbia, stories, packaging, dogs, power tools, tea and tomatoes. Unmissable.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.jealousgallery.com/
http://charmingbaker.com/

My granny’s response to abstract art is always “I could do that.” Well you know what gran’ma? You couldn’t and you didn’t, so pipe down. Jeez. And just to be sure there’s no doubt left in her mind, I’ve personally enlisted the help of the Courtauld Gallery to fight my case for me. Yup, that’s right, their forthcoming exhibition focusing on the relationship between Piet Mondrian and Ben Nicholson, two elder statesmen of Abstract Art, has been staged entirely for my granny. Thank the Lord. The exhibition focuses on the important friendship which developed between these two 20^th century heavyweights when they shared neighbouring studios in Hampstead during a short period in the 1930s when London was an international centre of modernist art.

The Courtauld Gallery, despite being relatively small in comparison to the punch it packs, has proved itself to be the grand master of intimate, digestible exhibitions of the very highest order. They don’t do blockbusters crammed to the nines with far too many visitors. And we love ‘em for it. Love Art London is taking a very special behind-the-scenes tour of this extraordinary show with the curator Barnaby Wright, including a Q&A afterwards, led by my granny. Champion.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.courtauld.ac.uk/gallery

When was the last time you stared at a paperclip and thought, ‘Wow, that’s bloody clever, that’? Surely those new Dyson hand dryers found in most swanky public loos these days have impressed you? Perhaps you’re not the hand washing type. The point is that we’re surrounded by design all the time, wherever we go, whatever we do, whether we stop to notice it or not. But great design isn’t just functional, it’s beautiful. Apple don’t just make products that work, the make products that people want to own. When did you last see a frenzied pack of hipsters queuing outside the Blackberry store?

A great piece of design is like a sculpture. And all sculpture has an element of design. To celebrate this we’ll be talking to Libby Sellers, a leading light in the field of design, about the work of Nicolas Le Moigne, a supremely talented award-winning industrial designer based in Switzerland. Libby will be giving a tour of Nicholas’s first solo show in London and chatting about some of his signature designs including his leather Slip stool, some eye-popping jewellery and his famous Public Clock, first made for the City of Geneva in 2006, which displays the time through words. If you’ve never truly observed the crossover between art and design, this is a golden opportunity. Fascinating.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.libbysellers.com/

Dale Rogers is a fossil hunter. A real life Indiana Jones, he spends his life travelling the world in search of the rarest and most exquisite objects sculpted by the hands of Mother Nature. He carries a whip and everything. The objects that Dale sources for his collectors are often hundreds of millions of years old, in itself a mind-boggling fact, and unbelievably beautiful to look at. These magnificent objects appear to belong both to the past and to the future, a quality they share with the work of great sculptors like Henry Moore or Brancusi. We’ll be chatting to Dale, not at his gallery in Pimlico, but at his private warehouse in Harlesden as he rummages through the vast array of ammonites, crystals, fish fossils, dinosaur bones, stalactites and fossilised crocodiles which he has lying around. He might even show us his secret stash of Kryptonite. Each object will be brought to life through the stories Dale has to tell, from how they were formed, where he found them and how they were excavated. Indiana Jones eat your heart out. Outstanding.

This event is for Members Only (20 places)

http://www.dalerogersammonite.com/

Two birds, one stone. Idris Khan and Annie Morris are both famous artists in their own right but add the fact that they’re married to the equation and they morph into some kind of superstar couple, a la Chris & Gwyneth, Jay-Z & Beyonce and The Krankies. Or perhaps they just spotted an ingenious way to save on studio rent.

Idris Khan is an artist who wholeheartedly embraces technology, in fact he can’t live without it. “A lot of people in the art world hate to use the word ‘Photoshop’, I say bollocks to that - for me, it's my tool, my paintbrush and it lets me create my own visual language.” Well if you’re a traditionalist, stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Khan’s famous for his grand scale digital collages, some of which have incorporated every page of the Qur'an, every Beethoven sonata, every William Turner postcard from Tate Britain or every Bernd and Hillda Becher spherical gasholder. Music aficionados will know Khan’s work from The Editors album An End Has A Start.

Annie Morris got her big break in 2003 when she illustrated her good pal Sophie Dahl's best-selling novella, The Man with the Dancing Eyes. In contrast to Khan, Morris is above all else a mark maker who uses the simplest of tools to make striking works with watercolour, plaster, glass and clothes pegs. Last year Christopher Bailey, creative director of Burberry, commissioned Morris to make a full length dress from 30,000 meticulously painted clothes pegs, a work which was featured on magazine covers left right and centre. However her greatest claim to fame is that Princess Diana was her primary school teacher. We meet them both Kahn and Morris for a fascinating chin wag. Fan-dabi-dozi.

This event is for Members Only (20 places)
http://www.victoria-miro.com/artists/_14/
http://www.allsoppcontemporary.com/index.cfm#pageType=Artist/Annie_Morris

One for the romantics out there. No, we’re not staging some cringe speed dating bonanza or a swingers party although the latter did cross our minds. Rather, to celebrate Valentine’s Day we’re hitting The National Gallery for an intimate squiz at some of the greatest love paintings in the history of western art. Our expert tour guide Olimpia Isidori will be waxing lyrical about some uber famous love stories depicted by Cranach, van Eyck, Rubens, Veronese and Fragonard, plus explaining why Botticelli’s Venus has the hump with Mars. We reckon it’s because he forgot to take the bins out. Unmissable.

This event is for Members Only (15 places)

http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

Nick Hornby (no, not the writer) is something of an alchemist. His sculptures have been described as 'digital hybrids', fusing modern technologies and traditional casting processes in their production. Often monumental in scale his works are carved from what appears to be the purest white marble on earth. Only they’re not made of marble at all, in fact, they’re light as a feather. Well almost a light as a feather, perhaps a really big feather. Either way, the fact that your average human can lift one off the ground is surprising and unsettling. It makes you reconsider the work and question everything you think you know. This clever and technical work has won Nick more prizes and awards than Walt Disney has Oscars. And there’s more. As you circumnavigate these extraordinary sculptures, certain recognizable forms briefly emerge (a well known figure by Rodin, Brancusi, Frink or Moore for example) before disappearing back into abstraction. Each finished work is an amalgamation of several such visual quotations which leaves the viewer with a fascinating little puzzle to unravel. Nick invites us into his private studio to see his mesmerising work in the flesh and learn about it straight from the horse’s mouth. Oh, and wrap up warm, his studio’s vast and a tad chilly. Outstanding.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.nickhornby.com/

Get ready for something a little different. Princess Belsize Dollar, aka Helen Carmel Benigson, is a self-styled video artist, rapper, lover, activist and sushi addict, who lists amongst her key interests Eminem, Match of the Day, late night poker, youporn.com, sun-worshiping, moisturising, gold jewellery, soldiers and royalty. Fresh out of the Slade and already creating quite a frenzy, the artist will be treating us to an exclusive live performance and Q&A streamed live into Rollo Contemporary Art via Skype. Welcome to the 21^st century folks.

Princess’s work, an eclectic fusion of performance, rap, film and photography, explores the notions of boundaries (whether political, geographical or physical), stereotypical femininity, fantasy, being a female Jewish rapper, and most interestingly our obsession with cyberspace. Which is where Skype comes in. Providing we don’t encounter any unforeseen ‘technical problems’, you’ll be experiencing a pivotal moment in the history of Love Art London Q&As. Be there or be square.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)
http://www.helenbenigson.com/
http://www.rolloart.com

When you think of a coffin, what comes to mind? A dark mahogany, lead-lined number with gold plated handles, topped with a bouquet of lilies is probably about right. Think again. In Ghana on the west coast of Africa there’s an old and rich tradition of the deceased being buried in a vibrantly decorated casket that reflects their profession. If you were a fisherman, you get buried in a fish. If you were a fruit farmer, you get buried in a pineapple. If you were a barman, you get buried in a bottle of beer. And in the case of this chap, if you were a pilot, you get buried in, well, a Ghana Airways aeroplane. Each coffin’s hand crafted and beautifully painted by local artisans. In Ghana, it’s believed that when you die, you should have saved the equivalent of six months' salary for a suitable coffin, and a similar amount for a party involving the entire community. Everything about this process is designed to celebrate the deceased’s life rather than mourn their death. After all, it happens to us all and although scary it’s as natural as being born. So why not go out with a bang?

London’s resident art expert on all things African, Jack Bell, joins us for a special tour of the Southbank Centre’s extraordinary exhibition Boxed: Fantastic Coffins from Ghana, part of their Festival for the Living. Mortifyingly brilliant.

This event is for Members Only (20 places)

http://www.southbankcentre.co.uk

Architecture geeks, hold onto your undies, this’ll be an awesome ride. One of London’s most recent and beautiful hunks of steel and glass, The Angel Building has won countless awards for environmentally friendly design and innovation. However, although the building itself is a stonking sculptural masterpiece in its own right, it also contains an outstanding collection of artworks. The most impressive of which is a monumental sculpture 'Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness' by Ian McChesney which occupies most of the vast central atrium, extending the full twenty-two metres from floor to ceiling (that’s more than 5 double-decker buses stacked on top of each other). And the most fascinating fact is the design is based on an experiment with a pot of treacle and a teaspoon. Imagine dipping a teaspoon into a pot of treacle and allowing the sticky mixture to fall from it. Freeze that frame and turn the entire shape upside down. See? We’ll be taking a special behind-the-scenes tour with Derwent London director Simon Silver, who commissioned this outstanding art collection. Architectastic.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://angelbuilding.com/

Get your thermal socks on, we’re going camping. Why? Because that’s precisely what artist Alex Hartley (the chap responsible for Nowhereisland, a floating sculpture made mostly of matter collected from an island in the High Arctic which will be taking a 500-mile journey around the UK, pulled along by a tug boat, during next year’s Olympic shenanigans) is doing at the Victoria Miro Gallery. Floating on the ornamental pond in the gallery’s back garden is a ramshackle dome made from rusting car bonnets cut into triangles which, for the duration of the show, Alex is calling home. Although the artist describes this contraption as a lunar module as designed by Harold Steptoe, it’s surprisingly cosy, insulated with Hessian, complete with a wood-burning stove and a chicken coop. Fair questions at this juncture might firstly be why but moreover why in January for Pete’s sake? Questions you’ll be able to ask the artist yourself.

Alex’s work seeks to explore ideas of habitation, wilderness, belonging and isolation. It's all about the search for peace in an increasingly noisy world, the harshness of nature, its simple beauty and survival too. And what better way to explore these ideas than by turning one of London’s most celebrated contemporary art galleries into an eco lodge? We’ll be meeting Alex for a tour of his show and chatting to him about life inside the dome. Fantastic.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.victoria-miro.com/

Holy bejeezers, talk about getting the New Year started with a bang. The legendary Billy Childish (painter, musician, poet, punk and hero of the British art resistance movement) joins us to discuss the quaintly titled exhibition What is ART HATE and Other Cuntish Questions on show at L-13. The gallery, or to use its full name, THE L-13 LIGHT INDUSTRIAL WORKSHOP and PRIVATE LADIES AND GENTLEMENS CLUB for ART, LEISURE and THE DISRUPTIVE BETTERMENT OF CULTURE, will, for the duration of the show, cease to exist as a ‘gallery’ but will instead accommodate “pre-ordained and tightly controlled 'open days' where art may sometimes be viewed in and amongst the official ART HATE ARCHIVE.” Splendid.

A weird and wonderful installation including artworks like The Patented Marcel Douchebag Finger of God Painting Machine, Reginald Dada’s Automated Art Hate Horse, The Art Hate Trike, a calendar bearing the words ‘Will you die this year?’ and a collection of signs crafted from tubular metal carrying messages like TRUST YOUR DISSATISFACTION and KUNST MACHT FREI (Art Makes One Free), this is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. Billy, who is rumoured to be involved with the show, joins us for an intimate evening of explanation, conversation and poetry reading. Genius.

This event is for Members Only (25 places)

http://www.l-13.org/

As artist's studios go, Ian Garlant’s is on the more unusual side. Kind of like a Norwegian version of Andy Goldsworthy, Garlant works in a unit at the bottom of the remote Hardanger Fjord in Norway. His sculptures are all deeply rooted in nature, incorporating all sorts of unusual materials like asphalt, gold leaf, fjord sand, Iron Ore, Sulphur Ore, Bitumen, Mica, silver wax, stone graphite, glass, dirt, gravel, boat varnish and various types of woods such as Norwegian Spruce, oak, & fir. And when he’s not working in his fjord-side studio, he’s usually to be found in caves, scavenging for material with which to make work. And no, we’re we not taking you to Norway’s freezing climes to learn about this stuff, we’re bringing a little bit of Norway to London instead. Ian's just opened a show of recent work at Andipa Gallery and we’ll be taking a special behind the scenes peek at his fascinating practice, discussing it with Head of Contemporary Art Claire Mander and Richard Cole, an expert in Scandinavian Philology (language, literature, alphabets and culture including runes to you and me). Rock on.

This event is for Members Only (20 places)

http://andipa.com/

Richard Learoyd is a photographer. But not your average photographer. We like to think of him more as a magician, an alchemist or as he’s been dubbed since the recent V&A exhibition, a shadow catcher. It’s Richard’s technique that makes his practice so special - he produces life sized images without using any kind of negative, transparency or intermediate material whatsoever. Instead he focuses light directly onto a sheet of positive photographic paper using a custom-made Bertha-like contraption (acting as a camera of sorts) to create the image. That’s it. And because there is no intermediary surface involved, such as a negative or a slide, there’s also no means of reproduction - every single work produced is unique, just like a painting. Richard will be talking us through his practice and showing us what exciting things he’s currently working on. You’ll never look at your shadow in the same way again. Utterly fascinating.

This event is for Members Only (15 places)

http://www.richardlearoyd.com/