art blog since 2009
In her much-talked about retrospective, the first piece of art is not by Tracey Emin. Nor does it seem much like a work of art. Despite the frame, it is clearly also a letter from her father. Halfway through the show is another work in which the art is hard to discern. This is a …
June 9, 2011
The fridge looks nothing like my fridge. In truth it is more like a “dark mirrorâ€, a “walled garden†or a “monstrous insectâ€, all comparisons made by an anguished, robotic first person voiceover. Manufacturers Samsung surely realise they are in the business of fabricating metaphors. How else could they justify a $1,799 price tag for …
June 2, 2011
Although there may be no candles in these painted scenes, there is arguably candlelight. There is certainly romance and the echoes of a nocturnal interior by, say, Georges de la Tour. And in this light the vulnerable nudes, of which there are three, also call to mind Rembrandt. It may be worked out they are …
May 31, 2011
You are in the HEROIN ROOM. You can see: a painting, a broken chair, a lighter and some tin foil. There are exits: SE, SW. What do you want to do? _ That’s not meant to be the worst dropped intro ever written, but a faithful reproduction of the game-like dynamics of one of Mike …
May 18, 2011
From the pencil shavings and strewn magazines on the floor, it looks something like Maxime Angel has been living in the gallery. Indeed, there are reports she has slept on several works. She may even have slept inside the containerboard on the wall. The gallery assistant tells me the college-trained artist was also for a …
May 17, 2011
Lights which flash in time with music will be familiar to anyone under the age of about 80. They are the trappings of a nightclub or rock concert. They gear people up for action. It seems appropriate that younger folk take drugs, get drunk and seek out intensities like this on a Saturday night. But …
April 16, 2011
There is something unholy going on, although it is not clear quite what, and there was nothing about bones and hair in the manifesto for the show. “Voodoofesto,†Melissa Logan corrects me. Stacks of folded t-shirts are laid out on a white shelf. The logos say Chanel, but the slogans add “voodoo”. I look around …
March 9, 2011
According to a 2003 book, there were 3.6 million Anderson Shelters in use during WWII. They must have been a common sight, as common as catching a glimpse of your parents having sex. Mary Kelly, b.1941, has spoken of the War as a political ‘primal scene‘ for people of her generation. And so into this …
February 23, 2011
Good news comes by phone, as the old adage goes. It has even been said more recently that it’s good to talk. So visitors to Carey Young’s show may already be keen to pick up this phone. In a gallery context it promises even more excitement. As Alex Farquharson points out in a highly informative …
February 19, 2011
Tooling presses once used to manufacture a dream sports car of the 1980s are now to be found 18m below sea level, a habitation for crabs, sea cucumbers and a lobster. This is not a metaphor. A metaphor would be the 1981 commercial for the DeLorean DMC-12 which showed the car by the ocean with …
January 25, 2011