John Wynne The Flux & I at Gazelli Art House

Anyone who visited Newspeak: British Art Now at the Saatchi in 2010 cannot fail to remember John Wynne’s monumental work, Installation for 300 Speakers, Pianola & Vacuum Cleaner 2009 (see video here on Vimeo). The undisputed star of the show it consisted of a giant gently writing vacuum cleaner hose pumping air to (from?) a pianola which in turn, seemingly randomly, activated never-repeating sounds played via a giant pile of loudspeakers. These enigmatic sounds filled the gallery and echoed around the Saatchi. It was at once monumental, minimal and immersive using sound and sculptural assemblage to explore and define architectural space and to investigate the borders between sound and music.

I was immediately therefore drawn to Gazelli Art House latest show – an exhibition of three new site-specific works by John Wynne. You enter immediately into the heart of the first work, Installation for high & Low Frequencies 2014. The whole room reverberates with both a high pitched ringing and a deep vibration. Is it a sound or rather a feeling? The effect is visceral and disturbing enough for some gallery visitors to immediately turn back and head out of the gallery looking somewhat unsettled.

Strangely this repulsive effect probably indicates success – questioning our relationship with the sounds and the internal space. Wynne certainly presents the viewer with a subtly unsettling merge between the external business of our daily urban lives and the apparent refuge of interior space.

In another work upstairs a 6 minute sonic loop played in a totally blackened space. Again it provoked an unease as the ability to use ones vision during the experience meant a total immersion in the sound that span around you.

Also showing are the works of Yoojin Jung whose works similarly are within the galleries curatorial theme of 2014 – that the only thing constant in life is change. Calm and reflective they provide a worthy counterpoint to John Wynne’s rather more provocative works.

John Wynne & Yoonjin Yung The Flux & I until 29/06/2014. Gazelli Art House 39 Dover Street London W1

newspeak part 2 at the saatchi gallery

Steve Bishop

Following the unremarkable Newspeak: Part 1, Charles Saatchi‘s review of ‘British Art Now’ continues with the opening of Newspeak: Part 2. I conducted a gloriously unscientific review of the critical opinions following Part 1 and planned to subsequently add the latest assessment to create an overall league table of artists and a full review of critical opinion to cover the whole.

Sadly, the second, similarly unremarkable, part has proved so unattractive to newspaper editors that only a handful of major papers have run a review. Here then, is a less than comprehensive selection of reviews followed in the next blog by a critics selection of artists – both good and bad.

Tessa Farmer

By way of a brief reminder Newspeak: Part 1  was, almost in one voice, branded as unco-ordinated – ‘a mess… the contents of someone’s attic’ (Independent). The quality was perceived as indifferent; ‘some good, some mediocre, some ghastly’ (FT) with ‘one or two instances of inspired brilliance’ (Guardian).

Five months down the line, we sadly have much more of the same. I wandered through one attractive space after another loosely filled with largely indifferent and uninspiring art. The critics agreed that Saatchi had perhaps once again used a scattergun approach to selection. ‘Arbitrary’ was Amy Dawson’s view in the Metro, adding that it is ‘difficult to make sense of this baggy hotch-potch of the good, the bad and the downright ugly’. Brian Sewell wondered if the work ‘truly represented British art Now’ whilst Laura Mclean-Ferris commented that the curating was ‘basic and clunky’ and that ‘if you want to see an exhibition that defines current art practice  Britain [then] this is not it’.

But was there a deeper concern – that there was actually not much good art out there to select from? Brian Sewell thought that, contrasted to Sensation and the period following, ‘there is nothing to excite nor offend’ … ‘British Art has fallen in to a trough of sameness’ (Standard). ‘There is little to get excited about’  concurred the Mirror.

Mustafa Hulusi

The only mild dissent, if you like, came from Richard Dorment in the Telegraph. He commented that the show was ‘strong‘ and gave a ‘good idea of what is going on out there’ but in the end what was out there was’ just the great big simmering bouillabaisse of good, bad and mostly mediocre art that we’ve been seeing for decades now’.

Once again there was little personal criticism of Saatchi himself and Brian Sewell seemed to hit the nail on the head observing that he was really ‘part impressario and part Svengali, part Barnum and Bailey’ and stepping in where the Tate should had not, to support the here and now of British art. It seems that – in the end – one has to say that there is not much confidence or consensus in quite what there is right here and right now!

newspeak at saatchi – who dont ya love?

Having compiled a ‘league table’  of the critical favourites it seems appropriate to also make note of those artists who did not manage to find favour. This was not easy. The majority of critics are sadly rather reticent when it comes to making negative comments about artists work. Is it some underlying delicate and caring sensibility which somehow holds them back from potentially hurting an artists feelings? I doubt it. Are they worried about potentially lightly bruising a certain Mr Saatchi’s ego by indirectly criticising his selected artists? I rather doubt that Charles cares a jot, but yes, I rather suspect they are.

Fortunately the wonderful Brian Sewell at the Standard has no such scruples about calling a spade a spade. Why are more critics not similarly forthcoming? Any perceptive and insightful critic owes it to their readers to assess good and bad, to jump off the fence, tell it like it is. In that very spirit of openness here are the lower reaches of Newspeak‘s critical pile starting at 10th and working down.

10= Steven Claydon. A sculptural head of resin, copper powder (aged with the artists urine) – and a feather. Dull.

10= Matthew Darbyshire. So-so assemblages of modern objects, questioning their cultural value.

10= Iain Hetherington. Baseball caps set against painterly backgrounds. Huh?

13 Lynette Boakye. I wont bother. ‘The work of an infant’ (Standard)

14= Sigrid Holmwood. Day-glo pastiches of Van Gogh ‘fit only for the bonfire’ (Standard) although to the Guardian they were ‘mesmerising’.

14=Karla Black. Dirty clingfilm plus dangling cellophane and paper. ‘A Saatchi Joke’ (FT).’ Disgusting litter’ (Standard). The absence of any aesthetic appeal, creativity or talent does not stop the Sunday Times calling the works ‘beautiful’.

phoebe unwin - girl

 

14= Phoebe Unwin. Strange figurative paintings with a ‘deft capturing of mood’ (Guardian). ‘A monkey-see monkey-do who can mimic bady anything done well by others’ (Standard). To be fair they do have a certain charm.

16= The Rest. Sixteen other artists were not either good enough to be noticed or bad enough to be insulted. As Wilde said ‘ there only thing worse than being talked about and that is not being talked about’. Exactly – so I wont talk about them.

So with the table complete do we know we have any better idea which of these artists will enjoy relative success and which will quickly fade from memory? The quick answer of course is no – critical acceptance rarely has any correlation with more general measures of success. I would argue that public profile is the most important factor, but it is a complex and varying equation where the drip, drip of publicity and review are all vital parts of the whole.

My own instinct? Regardless of future quality of work Scrase will succeed and despite critical response Holmwood’s paintings are very noticeable and will stay that way. For investment I would buy Daniels, Quinn, Holmwood and maybe Anderson assuming prices have not been ‘Saatchi-inflated’. But then again what do I know? I would love to hear readers opinions – do not hold back!

If you liked this post please make a comment or like it. If you like the blog please subscribe for regular updates (top right of page). Many thanks! akuta

Related Articles

• Newspeak: British Art Now, The Saatchi Gallery, London (independent.co.uk)
• The State of Young Art in Britain (online.wsj.com)
• Saatchi’s Newspeak: the good, bad and indifferent (guardian.co.uk)
• Newspeak: British Art now at the Saatchi Gallery, review (telegraph.co.uk)
• Charles Saatchi’s catalogue of disasters (guardian.co.uk)
• As he unveils the next generation of young artists, has Charles Saatchi lost his edge? (independent.co.uk)

newspeak at saatchi – who do the critics love?

The agony is over, here is what you have all been waiting for. As promised yesterday this is the result of my scrupulously unscientific survey to discover which artists shown at Newspeak (part 1), were most highly – and poorly – regarded by the critics. Saatchi has chosen his top artists in the UK, and here are the critics top nine of those. So this is la creme de la creme? See what you think.

1 William Daniels (5). Paintings of his own still-lives that have been themselves created with paper and household bits and pieces. They question originality, authenticity and cultural worth. ‘Outstanding’ (Standard). ‘Heartfelt and uncanny’ (Independent). ‘Delightful and very, very collectable’ (me!).

2.Littlewhitehead (4). It Happened in the Corner. A group of life-sized hoodies gather threateningly, backs towards us, in a  corner of the gallery. ‘Ominous and unsettling’ (Guardian).  Personally I ignore  hoodies gathered in corners and this time was no exception.

3= Ged Quinn (3.5). Allegorical landscapes in the style of Poussin/Lorrain containing strange references from recent history. ‘Thought-provoking, witty and multi-layered’ (Guardian). These works allow repeated close examination and have great appeal.

3= John Wynne (3.5). An army of loudspeakers occupy a whole gallery, building in to a monumental pile in the corner. A pianola plays its punched card at ultra-slow page and random sounds are interspersed in the soundtrack. A delicate balance between order and disorder, both visually and aurally, that is totally captivating.

5= Eugenie Scrase (3). Well who would adam and eve it? The School of Saatchi winner has slipped in with her ‘readymade’ park railings that bend under the imagined impact of a lump of tree-trunk. Brain Sewell in the Standard hits the nail on the head when he says ‘wait and see’  whilst the Guardian agrees –  is she a ‘Duchampian magpie or a total chancer?’ She is definitely a very lucky girl – will it hold?

5= Hurvin Anderson (3). His large canvases flirt between abstraction and figuration. There is a sense of disorientation and displacement and they ‘evoke colour and space in a way that recalls Peter Doig’ (Independent). I can already see these on the wall at Christies in a few years time!

7= Barry Reigate (2). Cartoonish paintings with Basquiat, Koons and Walt Disney all rolled into one. Messy, undeniably eye-catching but a bit ho-hum.

7= Goshka Macuga (2). Mme Blavatsky (a 19th century theosophist) floats, parlour-trick style, above two chairs. To quote the Saatchi, she ‘..emits a transendental aura, channelling the dark art of inspiration from beyond’. Macuga is a well-established artist who does not need our help, and with this waste of space she wont get it!

7= Rupert Norfolk (2). With Guillotine has ‘rendered duplictous a machine designed for cutting things in two… little short of genius’ (Independent). Also has a neat checked rug with trompe-l’oeil creasing.

Please see next post for the bottom of the chart!

The Publications were: The Times, Sunday Times, Independent, Guardian, Standard, FT and Daily Telegraph. The number of positive reviews to a maximum of 7 are shown in brackets. I will update the chart after Newspeak (part 2) opens at the end of October.

If you liked this post please make a comment or like it. If you like the blog please subscribe for regular updates (top right of page). Many thanks! akuta

Related Articles

• Charles Saatchi’s catalogue of disasters (guardian.co.uk)
• Newspeak: British Art Now, The Saatchi Gallery, London (independent.co.uk)
• The State of Young Art in Britain (online.wsj.com)
• Newspeak: British Art now at the Saatchi Gallery, review (telegraph.co.uk)
• As he unveils the next generation of young artists, has Charles Saatchi lost his edge? (independent.co.uk)