Art News
More summer show tips from Paul Carey-Kent
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| Snow Leopard |
has a seething abstract intensity close-to yet retains figurative coherence
when you step back. He applies that push-pull to crowds, mountains, tower
blocks, seascapes and piles of rubbish at his latest Purdy Hicks show, all
building on previous versions of those subjects. The application of his
technique to camouflage was new to me, though, and seemed immediately logical
albeit – in a kind of reverse of the natural world – you could make out nothing
of this leopard right up close, but it swam into focus if you stood far enough away…
ideally, in the gallery’s office.
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| Large Two Forms |
– King’s Cross
Street gallery was built to accommodate and stand
the weight of Richard Serra, enabling it to swallow the biggest Henry Moores
with some ease. The point, I suggest, is to show how successfully the scale
effects of interaction with a landscape can be replaced by an indoor set of
relations. ‘Exceptionally well’ is the answer, especially in the case of one of
his most original late works, the monstrous green 15 foot high ‘Large Two
Forms’. Yet a shelf of maquettes shows that inches can work as well as yards:
look out for a found flint which is so obviously a Moore in embryo he hardly needed to base a
sculpture on it.
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| Niki de Saint Phalle:Tir aux Ciseaux, 1961 |
Nouveau Réalisme @ Luxembourg
& Dayan, 2 Savile Row – Central
exemplary sample of work by all 13 of the artists who signed up to French critic Pierre Restany’s manifesto for
‘new perceptual approaches to reality’ in the early 1960’s shows they’re a
diverse group, but a shared delight in re-using commonplace objects is obvious.
Several also find an aesthetic through violence: the four affichistes exploit the ripping away of layered posters; Arman
smashes a coffee mill; César compresses a car; Niki de Saint Phalle shoots a
painting which has some lethal-looking scissors attached; and Yves Klein
scorches a Peinture de Feu, albeit
with a Bunsen Burner rather than by his more frequent and extreme flame thrower.
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| ‘Lorenzo’, ‘Ali’ and ‘Katie I’ |
I can’t say that Julian Opie has
interested me all that much in the past, but this vast presentation of
paintings, mosaics, sculptures, glassworks and films features two particularly
happy alliances with developing technologies.
Several portrait busts made through three dimensional laser scanning are
painted with two-dimensional shadow effects, so that not only does a spatial
contradiction occur, but a racial ambiguity develops. And Opie uses algorithmic
loops to infuse (for example) a schematically-rendered apple tree bough with
contrastingly realistic insects moving across it.
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| Mustapha Hulusi: ‘Abstract Roses’ |
THIS IS LONDON
@ Shizaru, 112 Mount St
– Mayfair
This intensely-hung exhibition fits more
than a hundred works by 46 London-based artists into an unusual set of spaces
which used to be a jeweller’s and includes three barred vaults. Much of what’s
on show is sourced from such high quality collaborators as Victoria Miro,
Max Wigram, Seventeen, Josh Lilley and Anita Zaludowicz. No-one will like all of such a
gathering, but all will enjoy a good percentage: David Ersser’s wooden neon, a
new-to-me variant on Mustafa Hulusi’s hallucinatory diptychs, Keith Coventry on
crack and Bouke de Vries’ broken ceramics, for examples… and a dozen of Alison Jackson’s celebrity-like
photos topically include the Queen’s attempt on the 100m hurdles.
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| Untitled 22, 11:30 AM – 4:30 PM, July 14, 2012 |
Dault @ White Cube,
Bermondsey
fascinating quartet of process-oriented artists showing over summer at the
newest and biggest White Cube. Her performative sculptures are made from rolls
of Plexiglas and formica which she wrestles into place on site: they’re titled
for how long it takes to fix their gleamingly coiled energy with Everlast
boxing wraps – some kickboxing classes having alerted her to its suitability.
Dault is slight, though, and told me she felt the irony when struggling with
her work at New York’s recent New Museum
triennial amongst plenty of installers – whom she couldn’t allow to help
because her own negotiation with materials is of the essence.
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| Stefan Brüggemann: Untitled (Joke & Definition Painting) |
Misrepresentation Mistake and Non – Disclosure @ the Rove
space, 33-34 Hoxton Square
– Hoxton
www.mmand.org
Stefan Brüggemann emerges as the key figure in
this stimulating survey of five Mexicans who tend towards the dystopic with a
conceptual twist. London/Mexico City based
artist is known for the paradoxically fecund play he makes with negation, in
such work as scribbled-out neons and obliterated mirrors. Now he’s found a way
to negate two conceptual works by overlaying definitions from Joseph Kosuth’s philosophically-driven ‘Art as Idea as
Idea’ series onto Richard Prince’s jokes from popular culture. Oddly enough (or
perhaps predictably given that -2 x -2 = 4) the result feels positive.
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| Ayan Farah: The Magic Hour |
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| Untitled 373 |
To 9 Sept: www.rocketgallery.com
Rocket is one of the few small galleries
to run right through August – maybe on account of the furniture side of the business – and I’m pleased to see Dutch painter Ditty
Ketting’s group show appearance last December followed up by a solo
presentation. Her peculiarly complex yet comprehensible hand-painted takes on
the geometric tradition continue to evolve: the new direction here is towards
fewer verticals and less use of black and white as a regulator of her rhythms.
‘Untitled 371’ is the first to feature only coloured verticals. That, I would
think, carries a higher tariff in Olympic diving terms – but Ketting enters
without a splash.
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| Talia Chetrit: Studio Through Legs |
Photorealism @ Bischoff/Weiss, 14a Hay Hill – Central
Summer suits this combination of black
and white ‘photorealism’, which looks more abstract than you might expect from
its title. Four young Americans make faithful, mostly analogue images of such
unfigurative subjects as photogrammed beakers (Sheree Hovsepian), billowing smoke (Lisa Oppenheim) and multiply
abused and rephotographed sheets of paper (Andrea Longacre-White). Cool indeed, but my favourite work
was Talia Chetrit’s imposition of abstraction on a room through the simple
device of photographing it through someone’s legs. Which sort of chimes for me with…
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| Mark Wallinger: Diana
Metamorphosis – Titian
2012 @ the National Gallery
To 23 Sept: www.nationalgallery.co.uk
I recommend hot-footing
it down to the National Gallery to not-quite-see a real naked woman through three peeping opportunities in Mark Wallinger’s daringly original version of Titian meets Duchamp meets Princess Di, which did make me more fully inhabit the nearby experience of Actaeon. One of the views is through the back of a two-way mirror in which the facial intimacy is startling as the Diana of the time makes up. Not only that, but you also get Chris Ofili’s lush Trinidadian counterpoints, Conrad Shawcross’s robot contraption, stage sets and poetry recitals. Oh yes, and three of the greatest Titians, brought together in a conclusive starting point for those riffs. |
About the Author
Rebecca Wilson is Chief Curator and VP of Art Advisory at Saatchi Art. She was formerly a Director at the Saatchi Gallery, London, where she was instrumental in the launch of the gallery's online presence. In 2007 she created New Sensations, a prize for art students which identifies and supports the most exciting emerging artists in the UK. Prior to joining the Saatchi Gallery, Rebecca worked for 14 years in book and art magazine publishing: she was editor of ArtReview, and before that deputy editor of Modern Painters. She has over 10 years of experience working with emerging artists.
