david shrigley at stephen friedman

Humour is not hard to find in postmodern art – a typical definition of postmodernism will probably include humour alongside parody and irony – and we are all familiar with works like Maurizio Cattelan‘s Pope Struck by a Meteorite (below), Jeff Koons‘ Rabbit and Gavin Turk‘s Blue Plaque. But this is not laugh out loud humour – or should I say nowadays lol humour – this is more like the knowing chuckle of the West End audience in a performance of an Alan Bennett play. So when we do get a work of art that we can really laugh at (presuming that we are not laughing at its awfulness) it is instinctive to ask ourselves whether this really is art or not. Surely we should not be lol-ing at proper art?

But lol I did at the wonderful David Shrigley‘s exhibition at Stephen Friedman. Shrigley of course has a big retrospective currently showing at the Hayward Gallery on the South Bank (to be reviewed later) and Friedman has taken the opportunity to use both his West End gallery spaces for a parallel exhibition. A lot of his work of course is on paper but he has broadened his output to include sculpture, animation, taxidermy and photography.

The first gallery space at Steven Friedman is taken over by the darkly humorous and rather disconcerting Bombs, an installation of black ceramic sculptures, subverting the destructive nature of a real bomb using a rather delicate material. In the next a sculptured word - writing - sits upon a small wall mounted platform, no explanation required.

A clever animation in the back room is of an artist faithfully depicting his model on canvas: the breasts are first (is that what that the artist is really interested in?), then the rest of the body and head, until finally after careful consideration, adding a smile to replace the glum expression of the model. The cynical suggestion of course is that art is there to please – the artist changing the reality to fit the expectations and commercial realities.

The most humorous works are those on paper over the road at Friedman’s other gallery space. Too many to describe and I do not have any images, but some random images below just for fun or for some more examples of his work have a look at the Steven Friedman Gallery website or better still drop in next time you are in the West End!

David Shrigley is at the Steven Friedman gallery until 10 March 2012.

Related articles

• David Shrigley: one of the cleverest, funniest conceptual artists (thetruthiswhere.wordpress.com)
• In pictures: Shrigley’s weird world (news.bbc.co.uk)
• David Shrigley: art’s White Rabbit (guardian.co.uk)
• david shrigley: brain activity at hayward gallery, london (designboom.com)
• David Shrigley: Brain Activity – A Reality Check for Modern Art (rattlingoastick.wordpress.com)

photographers gallery announces reopening date

The excellent Photographers Gallery, closed for a year or so now, has just announced that it is to reopen on the 19 May 2012. Put it in the diary right now! This is an important institution that I have greatly missed in recent times. It is still open by appointment and the excellent bookshop is also open but the three new exhibition spaces will bring a huge boost to photographic exhibitions in London. Furthermore it is widely involved in projects, talks and works with schools and education and its importance cannot be underestimated. Expect also for the new cafe to be a good place to drop in to an an arty place to hang out!

The Photographers Gallery is certainly the most relevant and important gallery of its kind in London, and the UK for that matter, founded 1971 in a converted Lyon’s Tea Bar. It was the first independent gallery in Britain devoted to photography and was the first public gallery in the country to exhibit many of the key international names in photography such as Juergen Teller (fashion), Robert Capa (photojournalism), Sebastião Salgado (documentary) and Andreas Gursky (contemporary art). It has also been instrumental in establishing many contemporary British photographers including Martin Parr and Julie Cockburn (illustrated below).

Additionally it has established the highly regarded annual £30k International (now Deutsche Borse) Photography Prize. Past prize winners include Andreas Gursky (1998), Juergen Teller (2003), Robert Adams (2006), Esko Männikkö (2008), Paul Graham (2009), Sophie Ristelhuber (2010) and Jim Goldberg (2011).

The Photographers Gallery is currently on the 3rd Floor at 7 – 9 William Road, London NW1 3ER. Call prior to arrange a visit.

Opening hours Tue – Sat: 10.00 – 18.00  Contact 020 7087 9320

The new Gallery will open on 19 May 2012 at 16-18 Ramillies Street W1F 7LW

phyllida barlow RIG at hauser & wirth

At long last I managed to drop in to the much talked-about Phyllida Barlow exhibition in their Piccadilly space. A couple of years ago Barlow retired from her long-time post as professor of art at the Slade where she had built up a formidable reputation. The high regard in which she is held is evidenced by her rapid rise to the equivalent of art ‘stardom’ – a solo show with one of the top galleries in London.

And what a good exhibition it is. Barlow has filled the gallery with her sculptural work – from cramped basement rooms, to expansive wood-panelled main space and balcony and up in to the loft. When I say filled, I do not mean that her works sit neatly in the gallery rooms, but that they seem to occupy them entirely – wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Visitors are forced to step carefully through the works that stand, hang, spread or are stacked in the spaces.

Using industrial and low grade materials like concrete, plywood, plaster, rough hewn wood and cardboard Barlow effectively brings the claustrophobic world of the modern urban environment indoors. The large main space is occupied by a forest of wooden bars that stand in rough concrete bases. As you reach the first floor balcony you realise that this forest supports hugh concrete blocks, each covered with a brightly coloured fabric cover, that also occupies the aerial space of the room. Another large room has crudely-painted plywood constructions of varied shape and form whilst in the cellar more concrete, plaster and steel constructions respond to the architecture of the gallery. A ladder leans in to a loft where you can peer in at hanging objects that loiter in the semi-darkness.

The overall effect is disturbing and raw. The sculptures not only occupy the gallery but have taken it over and almost consume it. One realises just how dark and menacing the work actually is when you step back outside in to the hustle and bustle of central London and find it a whole lot sunnier and more cheerful than just a short while ago. Highly recommended.

By the way, for those of you that enjoy investing in good art, if Richard Saltoun’s gallery still has any Barlow watercolours left at pre-H&W prices (about £2-3k versus £4-5) I’d grab one fast!

RIG is at Hauser & Wirth Piccadilly until 22 October 2011

marius bercea, adrian ghenie & the cluj school

Well, what do I know? Rather unimpressed with Adrian Ghenie at Haunch of Venison the other day (see post) I went to see what the erstwhile owners of Haunch had to offer at Blain Southern. It turns out Marius Bercea is another Rumanian and also from the ‘Cluj School’ – a group of artists I was, up to that point, blissfully unaware of.

I should not have been. Apparently this particular school is sizzling hot in the contemporary art world (why did nobody tell me?) and both shows were completely sold out – so the galleries say – before they even opened. With the works selling for about £5 to £10k and up to about £50k this is no mean feat.

I felt the Ghenie exhibition was a little confused but to be fair I have discovered that the curator (see video at HoV site) actually sought to give an overview of some recent themes. His recent exhibitions have actually individually been much more cohesive and set around more specific ideas such as evolution/Darwin/eugenics and so forth.

Over at Blain Southern his fellow countryman Marius Bercea has only just joined the gallery roster. The similarity with Ghenie is immediately evident in respect of the way that he applies both rough and energetic as well as tight and controlled brush strokes across a canvas replete with complex imagery. Colours are often vivid. He also looks to make socio-political statements with for example derelict buildings and signs of poverty.

The works are probably more reflective than Ghenie’s with dreamlike and surrealist elements. One can gaze deeply in to the canvas where there is a feeling of drifting in and out of complex dreams. Disparate objects co-exist in a strange world which could be memories from past, a view of the present or a vision of the future – perhaps all three, perhaps none of them!

This is a very enjoyable and cohesive small show that gives perspective to the Cluj school. Try and see both together and find out what the fuss is all about.

Blain Southern until 1 October 2011

Related articles

• adrian ghenie at haunch of venison (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)
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adrian ghenie at haunch of venison

The privilege of holding the first show at Haunch of Venison‘s restored and revamped space goes to Adrian Ghenie, a Romanian artist. A modest group of new paintings is supplemented by less successful collage works that are pasted directly on to the gallery walls.

Ghenie takes found images of historical icons and overlaps them with an array of cultural references on moody paint splashed canvases. Often dark and brooding he reflects on good and evil introducing figures like Ceaucescu and Mengele before almost obliterating them behind smears and streaks of multicoloured paint.

He says ‘I am interested in the presence of evil, or more precisely how the possibility for evil is found in every endeavour, even in those scientific projects which set out to benefit mankind.’ In one large-scale work for example Charles Darwin is connected to the Nazis by their search for Aryan perfection. In another deformed dogs scrabble around in the shadow of a nuclear test (we are told) or perhaps it is a post-apocalypic vision.

The works are undeniably eye-catching and the technique impressive but I found the purported links tenuous or opportunistic. The execution did not really reflect what we were told of the thought-process or perhaps they did not engage. The collages I will ignore as a decorative afterthought in order to fill the airy gallery space. Personally I would prefer more clarity in execution and perhaps in the future we could see something rather more special? Not sure really. Opinions welcome.

Haunch of Venison until 8 October 2011

ryan mosley at alison jacques gallery

Even by modern standards Ryan Mosley’s rise in the art world has been a pretty fast one. Graduating from the RCA in summer 2007 he was already featured in the Independent later in the year as a ‘Hot Star of 2008′. Alison Jacques wisely picked him up soon afterwards plus the Saatchi collection scooped up a bunch of works and he was part of their British Art Now exhibition last year.

Mosleys paintings are dark, strange and brooding. They initially seem to indicate some sort of narrative with an otherworldy cast of costumed characters, strange landscapes, disembodied heads and odd symbols. This is a narrative that morphs as look deeper, and, as Mosley admits, also changes as he paints  ‘you set out to paint something and it doesn’t quite turn out how you want it. That’s not to advocate lazy painting, but when it doesn’t turn out as you imagined, but takes on its own sensibilities that can be really interesting. Born of a fuck up, X can turn to Y, and Y can turn to Z.’

There are frequent references to the masters - here ‘A Bar in France’ is clearly  a hommage to Manet – but for Mosley they are more incidental than referential. His process of painting allows the subject to drift and mutate and you are just as likely to spot references to history or popular culture as art history. It makes for interesting viewing – this is a world where anything is possible, the canvas a stage for a world of timeless characters and motifs.

At the gallery he is already on his fourth solo show  – if you include a project room outing – which is again a sell-out. With most works selling north of £20,000 (still good value I would say) Mosley is an artist that we need to keep an eye on.

Exhibition runs at Alison Jacques Gallery until13 August at 16 Berners Street, London W1T 3LN

Related articles

• Artist of the week 148: Ryan Mosley (guardian.co.uk)

artists to watch 7 – iain andrews

Iain Andrews, you may recall, had his ‘fifteen minutes’ of fame as one of the few painters featured on the BBC’s ’School of Saatchi‘. Inevitably, given that Tracey Emin was one of the judges, anyone with any recognisable talent with a pencil or brush was immediately discarded – conceptual art installations only please!

I am sure that much more than ‘fifteen minutes’ will ultimately come Ian’s way as this is an artist with real talent. He has just won the Marmite prize, competing against 48 other talented artists and was last year shortlisted for the Jerwood Prize.

Iain’s paintings take an image from art history to begin his dialogue with the past. A painting by an Old Master that may then be rearranged or used as a starting point from which to playfully but reverently deviate. His recent work is concerned with the ‘struggle to capture the relationship between the spiritual and the sensual - apparent opposites that are expressed through the conflict of high narrative themes and sensuous painterly marks. The sheer enjoyment of making these marks is not intended to drown out the appearance of the real through a curtain of expressionistic gestures, but rather an attempt to transform and redeem the form through the act of making.’

Iain treads a path that plays between the borders of figuration and abstraction, and thus slows down the viewer. His work is sensuous and material, yet also deserving of contemplation. If his works continues to develop he could go far and is worth looking out for.

artists to watch 6 – david brian smith

David Brian Smith originally had to insert his middle name in exhibition catalogues to avoid confusion with multiple others of the same name. Nowadays it is less necessary as his talents have become more widely recognised. Picked up by the wily Carl Freedman gallery in east London Charles Saatchi has been quietly buying a few works – most recently The Birthday Party in a February charity auction. Smith recently featured in his Newspeak: British Art Now II exhibition, which incidentally closes on the 30 April 2011 – if you have not yet been it is well worth a visit – see previous post.

Drawing from his father’s background – a farmer in his native Shropshire - Smith has developed a unique style.He draws on autobiographical incidents and memories which root his colourful and intricate landscapes in the real world. With their ‘intense palettes, dramatic skies, folkloric subjects, and passages of pure dream-like invention, they radiate an almost spiritual quality’.

The Carl Freedman gallery has recently had a second – sell-out – solo show and another is planned for the end of the year whilst his latest piece, featured in Fruchtbaresland which opened last week (closes 14 May 2011), sold before the show opened. His work has a healthy waiting-list and anyone interested would be advised to get their name down  – or get in touch with me asap!

Related Articles

• fruchtbaresland at carl freedman (akickupthearts.wordpress.com)
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marmite prize winner announced

Ok, the name does not quite have the resonance of the Turner Prize but the biennial Marmite Prize (either you love it or hate it?) does however offer a good selection of what it happening in contemporary painting with forty-eight artists from around the world competing for the award. The finalists are now being shown at an exhibition at the Nunnery in east London (details below).  This exhibition of a diverse selection of paintings by 48 artists provides the opportunity to view new work by established painters alongside emerging artists.

The selected works offer a broad look at contemporary painting, ranging from the monumental, as seen in Tom Ormond’s The New Light of Tomorrow (2010), to the very dark, such as The Decomposition of Violets (2010) by Ben Walker. Amongst the less conventional paintings on display are Daniela Sarigu’s, Loop (2010), which is made up of cut up strips of painted canvas sitting in a pile on the floor and Soheila Sokhanvari’s Not Dead Yet (2010), painted directly onto the hard cover of a book.

This years prize-winner has just been announced as Iain Andrews (top), an artist that I have had my eye on ever since he was (thankfully) thrown out of  infamous School of Saatchi TV series at the very first post. One of the shortlist of  – I think - 24 artists to make the show he was sure to get knocked out the moment I uttered ‘that guy is the sure-fire winner’!…. I will post him as ‘One to Watch’ in the near future.

Kate Knight (left) and Tina Jenkins (above) were deserving of the two runners-up spots.

The London exhibition will take place from the 8th April to 1st May (Friday – Sunday 12 -6pm), at The Nunnery, 181 Bow Road, London, E3 2SJ (Tube – Bow Road, DLR – Bow Church, Bus – 8, 25, 205, 425)

Tel: 020 8709 5292

E-mail: nunnery@bowarts.com

 

5 – artists to watch – paul mcdevitt

McDevitt’s intricate pencil drawings suggest a lost or undiscovered world, his subject matter derived primarily from 1950s European cultural magazines as well as the artist’s own photographs. Much of McDevitt’s imagery focuses on anonymous graphic design. This ranges from the commercial styling of old publications to the municipal murals and street graffiti of Europe.

In McDevitt’s drawings, graphic images are fused with elements of architecture and landscape. Graffiti trapped in icebergs imply a transmigration of styles, culture, and language. Flamboyant automobile decals are displaced in atmospheric skies – a mundane addition to epic surroundings.

Sprayed tags compete with the stained glass images of civic buildings. Representations of flightless birds, such as penguins and chickens from journals of the space-race era, are superimposed on architectural structures. Animals take the place of people in McDevitt’s drawings of deserted locations and transient gestures are given a permanent position.

Cosmic scenes are often part of McDevitt’s vision, bringing to mind both 1960s psychedelic culture and 1990s rave music. This depiction of extreme and chaotic phenomena also appears in the artist’s consistently ‘unstill’ still-lives. Fireworks replace flowers, lightening tears through otherwise quiet scenes and imagery appears to be plundered rather than arranged.

In all of McDevitt’s drawings, the viewer’s attention is drawn to the subjects and issues that construct our social fabric. However, it is the displacement of these elements into a unique visual panorama that produces such ominous, compelling and intensely alluring works.

Incidentally I must also reveal a personal bias in favour of McDevitts work as I currently have two excellent small works on my inventory for sale. Please contact me if you would likeany further information!