Retna: Hallelujah World Tour in London

Last week, Retna’s Hallelujah World Tour stopped in London. The show is open June 27th at The Old Dairy, a warehouse space at 7 Wakefield St, London, WC1N 1PB. If you go to see this show, you may think you’re lost. It does not look like there’s an art show at 7 Wakefield Street, but trust me, there is. It just might take a bit of searching to find. Once you do though, you realize that Retna has taken over a huge space with some equally huge paintings. I’ve seen a lot of Retna’s work over the last seven months, so I’ve been a bit spoiled for choice and certainly have some favorites in this show (the work on metal and a few others) and some that I don’t think were notable at all. Nonetheless, if you are in the UK and have not seen Retna’s work in the flesh, this is a show that you definitely should not miss. I spent about half an hour wandering the show and intend to revisit the it at least once. I just hope that in the future Retna has more time to paint his shows. It looks like most of this one was painted on site in London, which I don’t think nearly as bad a thing as I’ve heard people tell me it is, but it does limit what he can do. Here’s a sampling of the show…

Can you read the piece on the left? Hint: It is one word

Check out more images here.

Photos by RJ Rushmore