Elsinore Library at Shandy Hall

Tom Phillips installation work The Library at Elsinore, will be the centrepiece of an exhibition at the Shandy Hall Gallery this autumn. Amongst the exhibits are six new pages from A Humument completed especially for this exhibition. The show will run from 22nd September to 30th November and all readers are invited to the private view to meet the artist on Sunday 21st September between 11am and 3pm. A special Elsinore Library blog has been created as a resource for schools who will be working on projects associated with the exhibition.
Shandy Hall Gallery
Laurence Sterne Trust
Shandy Hall
Coxswold
York YO61 4AD

Cardinal Newman

On Wednesday September 10 there will be a formal unveiling and dedication of a new mosaic by Tom Phillips of John Henry Cardinal Newman at Westminster Cathedral. The dedication will take place after the 5.30pm Mass to which all are welcome.
Illustrated here is a study for the mosaic.

Heart of Darkness

The first UK performance of Heart of Darkness will take place on August 8th 2008 to an invited audience at the ROH2 Linbury Theatre. This is a piano version of the new chamber opera composed by Tarik O'Regan to a libretto by Tom Phillips based on Joseph Conrad's novella. The workshop is part of the OperaGenesis programme which sets out to identify and develop new opera composing and writing talent from around the world and give it an international platform.
To request tickets for this performance please apply to charlotte.penton-smith@roh.org.uk
For more information about OperaGenesis follow this link.

Certain Trees

Whilst the V&A's Blood on Paper exhibition continues downstairs (until 29th June) a second exhibition, in Room 74 is strongly recommended by Tom Phillips. Certain Trees: the Constructed Book, Poem and Object from 1964 to 2008 surveys an energetic community of poets and artists in Britain discovering and developing the expressive potential of publication as an art practice.
And, while you are there, in a display cabinet close by to the exhibition you can see Tom Phillips's celestial and terrestrial Humument Globes
Certain Trees opened on the 1st April and runs until 17th August 2008. Admission is free. For more information please follow this V&A link.

Heart of Darkness reviewed in The Walrus Magazine

As readers of these pages will know, last November American Opera Projects in Brooklyn hosted the second workshop performance of Heart Of Darkness. This is a new chamber opera composed by Tarik O'Regan to a libretto by Tom Phillips and based on Joseph Conrad's novella of the same name. Read an account of the evening by Siobhan Roberts at The Walrus Magazine online.

Last Chance to See...

Tom Phillips's portrait of Sir John Boyd is currently on show at the Mall Galleries as part of the Royal Portrait Society Annual Exhibition. The gallery is open every day between 10am and 5pm. The exhibition closes at 1pm on May 11th. For more information follow this link.

The Magic Flute at Opera Holland Park

Tom Phillips is currently designing a new production of Mozart's The Magic Flute for Opera Holland Park. The opera which opens on 28th June is directed by Simon Callow and the conductor is Jane Glover. Tickets are available from the Opera Holland Park website.

Sir Jeremy Isaacs at the NPG

Tom Phillips's recently completed portrait of Sir Jeremy Isaacs, commissioned by the Royal Opera House, will be shown for the first time at the BP Portrait Awards exhibition. The exhibition opens at the National Portait Gallery in London and runs from the 12th June to 14th September 2008. For further information visit the NPG site.

RA Forum: Architecture & Music

The second Architecture and Music forum on Monday 21st April at the Royal Academy explores performance, silence and space. The forum, which has already sold out, will feature a performance by Tom Phillips of John Cage’s 4’ 33”, and a discussion with electronic musician, music theorist and record producer, Brian Eno and architect and musician Vesna Petresin Robert. The event will be chaired by Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner.

Blood on Paper: The Art of the Book

A new exhibition about the art of the book opens at the Victoria and Albert Museum today. Blood on Paper, which features work by Tom Phillips, aims to show the extraordinary ways in which the book has been treated by leading artists of today and the recent past. Blood on Paper will focus on new and contemporary work, and on books where the artist has been the driving force in conception and design. Admission is free and the exhibition runs until June 29th 2008. Illustrated here is Dante in his Study from Phillips version of Dante's Inferno.

Humument Pages at the Kowalsky Gallery

Three pages from A Humument appear in a group exhibition, Romance, which runs until June 6th at the Kowalsky Gallery at DACS. The gallery is open Monday to Friday between 10am and 5pm by appointment and as part of the Time Out First Thursdays initiative will open until 9pm on Thursday 1st May and Thursday 4th June. For more information visit the Kowalsky Gallery website

Museum Practice Magazine

The current issue of Museum Practice Magazine, Spring 2008, profiles Tom Phillips as artist, curator, museum trustee and collector.