Paper @ Saatchi Gallery

When my housemate was looking for a free exhibition to document for a university project, I couldn't think of anywhere better than the Saatchi Gallery, on the King's Road. In my opinion, it's the best place in London for contemporary art exhibitions, and it's always free. 

We were lucky to catch the Paper exhibition days before it closed, having already been extended due to popular demand. As quite a vague theme, 'Paper' gave space to everything from pencil sketches and collages to enormous paper sculptures. Although some sketches didn't really seem worthy of inclusion in the exhibition, there were some really beautiful, or just incredibly cool, pieces. Here are some of my favourites (photos stolen from Matej Oreskovic):

José Lerma (1971, Seville, Spain) and Héctor Madera (Puerto Rico) - Bust of Emanuel Augustus (2012)

The artists, both resident in New York, were fascinated by the story of this grandly named journeyman boxer and decided to make a sculpture equal to the size of his personality.

Steven Lowery (1980, Newcastle) - Selected Works (2003)

Dominic McGill (1963, Brighton) - Muqaddimah (2009-2010)

I nearly had to be dragged away from this enormous mural as I would happily have spent a whole day reading the densely scrawled quotes - ranging from The Bible to Das Kapital - that make up this epic dystopian vision of contemporary society.

Marcelo Jácome (1960, Rio de Janeiro) - Planos-Pipas (Kite Planes, 2013)

We were struck by the scale and beauty of this installation, made of bamboo and tissue paper, which seems to float through the gallery.

Han Feng (1972, Harbin, China) - Floating City (2008)

I was totally hypnotised by the slowly rotating buildings that form this giant mobile, playfully subverting the idea of the city as something heavy and immovable. Each box had an individual photograph of a building printed on to it, which again made me want to spend hours comparing each one and guessing at the story behind them all. Who would live there? Would these very different houses ever come together in a real city?

Visit the exhibition yourself virtually through this video:

The Saatchi Gallery is open 7 days a week and all exhibitions are free. Find out more about the whole Paper exhibition and the artists involved here. The gallery will now close to change exhibitions and will reopen on 20 November with Body Language.