Oscar Murillo at Carlos / Ishikawa

Dinner at the members club? Yes! i’ll have a black americano first pls

23 March - 11 May

Unit 4, 88 Mile End Road, E1

http://www.carlosishikawa.com

The role of an art reviewer, per se, seems to be to recommend whether or not it’s worth going to see an exhibition. Usually the piece is published just after the private view, and then it’s on to the next opening, no hesitations or second thoughts, just consume, produce, provide, get the job done. I say this because I would recommend you go see this show, but  I know that there’s only one last day to go, so...So perhaps this is not a review, it is, more accurately, a reflection on an encounter that has stayed with me, that I’m still trying to figure out, no conclusion necessary. 

I remember the smell, oily, like freshly installed flooring, or half-dry paint lingering in the air. I remember the smooth, but tarnished and dirty cooper sheeting that covered the floor, even into the office, even into the loo. I remember the mess of strewn drink boxes and brightly coloured candy wrappers. And the massive paintings, a patchwork of marked and battered fabrics, propped against the walls like spectators to a party that’s long gone. 

The impression of roughness  is striking. Amidst an art world full of finished, polished, clean and carefully placed objects, it’s wildly disconcerting  and strange to encounter all this ‘mess’. Until I realise that what I’m actually feeling is relaxed and not uncomfortable at all. I let out a sigh of relief to be free of that subtle, white-cube-induced fear that I might damage something / make a scuff / ruin the cleanliness of the gallery with my dirty trainers. 

The other striking thing about this show is the sense of proliferation and production that underlies the work. I imagine that Murillo is constantly creating, sewing, marking, molding and scrawling, and that he must have a studio just chalk full of stuff. But, for all of their evidence of being hand-made, this work doesn’t feel precious or sacred, the artist clearly isn’t self-consciously pondering each mark and there’s something frankly gutsy and refreshing about this approach. Primarily because it all feels rather intelligent, unusual, and even shrewd. 

Especially as I start to suspect that the subject of the work seems to be us. Or rather the invisible ‘us’ that is at the centre of a newly globalised art world, a place that quickly becomes as complicated and as conflicted as the regular globalised world. I’m reminded of how interviews with Murillo always reference his Columbian heritage, and the inclusion of his family in his performances, but now I wonder if what they are actually referring to is the sense of ‘difference’ which that very description inherently provokes. 

In a quantifiable and physical way, this is work about residue: one thing rubbing off on another, and then fitting together all the odd pieces to make a whole. It is about the artist making a mark on his surroundings, and then inviting the viewer to the show. But I think the interesting thing that happens, specifically when making the exhibition an immersive installation, is that the viewer becomes poignantly aware that they don’t actually belong. This is the world of the artist, where no doubt he feels at home, yet we remain outsiders. And it seems like a metaphor for that complex emotion that is awakened by feeling both entirely immersed in, yet ultimately not part of a group or culture. A very interesting proposition indeed, I’d like to see more - no conclusion necessary. -JB

Robert Morris at Sprüth Magers

Hanging soft and standing hard

3 May - 15 June 2013

Sprüth Magers London

www.spruethmagers.com

I felt like I had walked into a history book. That is what I’ll remember about this almost-warm evening in early May - not the well dressed people lazily finishing their drinks, scattered about the gallery sidewalk and leaning against the thick iron railings, nor the way  the extra daylight seemed to give the whole scene a sense of suspended time - but the fact that before today this seminal work by Robert Morris had existed only in my imagination. 

Large white L-shapes filling a room, how interesting could that really be? And what was the fuss about a bit of floppy felt? 

Well I now know that the L-shapes are actually not white at all, but a subtle shade of grey, and are in fact interestingly the same matte painted texture as the gallery wall. And when you stand next to them they have presence, that physical, bodily thing that makes you feel more alive by its very imposition into your world. This work is talking to you, it wants your reaction, it gets in your personal space, and there’s something quite exciting and compelling about being solicited in this way. 

Rear gallery space

And I can report that the felt is indeed white - tremendously white, ridiculously white, a pale drained colour that is just aching for some dirt, or some smudge, whether it likes it or not. Pierced through, and hung on metal hooks, then split open and folded in upon itself, it’s both a simple material assembly and a set of actions that have clear bodily connotations. 

Detail of felt work

Finally, to complete the trio of materials, are steel caged shapes - tough, unfinished bulks that are decidedly industrial in contrast to the soft layers of felt and chalky white Ls. All together the effect is one of several clear material and spacial sensations felt simultaneously. This is the classic, definitive experience of sculpture I think, and I was left feeling a bit surprised to encounter something so straightforward and ultimately, something so satisfying. It is rough, and then it is hard, and then it is soft. Indeed, it imposes on your body in a way I never could have imagined and it pushes you around the space in an authoritative, domineering way. 

The poster

All of a sudden Morris’s famous 1974 show poster from Castelli Gallery seems less of an anomaly in a ‘Minimalist’ body of work, then a starkly truthful image of an artist who managed to bring to his historical moment a very evocative sense of the physicality and theatricality of one body confronting another. 

As I wander back out into the street the tableau of relaxed evening drinkers seems unchanged, but me, I’ve been to history and back. And I’m left wondering: is the authority and effectiveness of this experience a reflection of the fact that this work was truly groundbreaking? Or does it feel groundbreaking simply because it’s very good art? 

I think you know my answer. 

It’s good to be back. 

Yours faithfully,

Articula

'Historical' pictures

Sarah Lucas at Sadie Coles HQ (offsite)

'Situation Classic Pervery'
1 December 2012 - March 2013
1st Floor, 4 New Burlington Place, London W1

www.sadiecoles.com

 
By the time my friend and I arrive at the inconspicuous black metal door leading to Sarah Lucas’ exhibition, the afternoon has turned dark and windy. But for a deep golden light escaping the underside of night, the city is chilly and grey. From this quiet corner, I can just about see the stream of shoppers on Regent Street, and I sense the dull push of eyes scanning shiny products and dreaming of newer versions of themselves.

And, after the impressively immaculate white spaces of nearby Hauser & Wirth, there’s a sense of relief that sweeps over me and I climb the modest concrete steps.  I feel my body relax. I’m starting to realize that these big expensive gallery spaces create a kind of tension in the viewer. Something about the perfectly white walls, ever vigilant invigilation, and seamless architectural facades feels oppressive, and causes something to tighten up inside. The artwork they house is clearly important and expensive, and possessing a kind of value that seems to have little to do with pleasure and creativity, and all to do with money, status and exclusivity.

In contrast, I feel as if I’ve just walked into Lucas’ living room, albeit a slightly quirky, less ‘comfortable’, and more aggressively challenging living room than the standard variety. For the past year or so Sarah Lucas has been given this space to put on a series of exhibitions, and ‘Situation Classic Pervy’ is the seventh revolution of work. The previous show was ‘Situation Franz West’ in which Lucas presented work that was in collaboration with the late Franz West. As the exhibitions change, wall coverings remain from previous iterations, and this does not feel so much like a presentation of ‘new work’ rather than an invitation to see how the artist envisions the relations between her various productions.
 

There are chairs with nylon legs splayed off the front. Bulbous stretchy breasts of soft material make up a cozy-looking lounger, white porcelain toilet bowls are given a cushion and become stools, while (surprisingly) delicate concrete arms in that familiar offensive gesture are perched atop a plinth.  The wall has been plastered with an image of the artist smoking, and a larger montage composed of grey-scale flesh-wrapped cock tops (that would be images of penises from above) against a soupy, almost vomit like, concoction of peas and carrots in white sauce.

More sculptures using old metal bed springs and concrete block fill the rest of the room, while stacks of even more white toilet bowls can be seen through the door to the kitchen. There is also a short video being projected, where the artist is seen accompanying a goat farmer around to check on his animals. I could barely hear what was being said, but at one point the elderly farmer finds himself in a pen of goats excitedly standing up on their hind legs as the he nervously fends them off.  All of a sudden the apparently ‘unsexy’ scenery of the barnyard reveals itself to be teaming with vital energy, and the forwardness of the animals becomes unsettling, and just a little bit amusing.

I wish more exhibitions were like this, finding that delicate balance of being both intriguing, comfortable and unsettling all at once.  In a room so full of work, I can really start to engage with what the artist is doing, and there is a very real sensation of the time spent creating linkages between work, those invisible intricacies of thought that structure the most interesting practices.  And it starts to feel like the singular object is less important than its existence as part of a larger conversation of ideas, and this feels very generous. After this ‘situation’, white walls seem crass and blunt, miserly and bare.

The question that remains to be asked is what does this work mean to us today? Afterall, it comes to a large extent out of the YBA moment, some 20 years ago now.

As I ponder this question, I’m thinking about how this exhibition both puts me at ease and excites me; seems familiar yet unfamiliar. It makes me think about how sex is everywhere and how the sexual impulse underlies all that we do, with the gateway drug being, so to speak, material sensuality and a ‘pervy’ eye. This sexuality that I see underlying Lucas’ work is one that is a vital force, and seeing it emerge from such banal, familiar objects and materials is, in a certain way, profoundly comforting. The tension of repression and denial is given a moment of light and release. 

Indeed, our latent sexuality is constantly provoked and leered at in the form of obvious displays of ‘sexy’ ads, ‘sexy’ popstars and ‘sexy’ lingerie models. But it occurs to me that compared to the earthy, fertile, bodily, bawdy and spunky sexuality in Lucas’ work, all the other stuff isn’t really sexuality at all but propaganda for some cult of sterile, repressive perfection. And there seems something downright sinister that the two might get confused. This work matters because it gives expression to a profoundly human joy centred in the lived body, and extends the beauty of our imaginative interpretations of the ever so stimulating world in which we find ourselves. -JDB

Paradise Garage at Eighty One

31 January - 23 February
Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm & by appointment
81 Curtain Rd, Shoreditch, London EC2A 3AG

www.eighty1.co.uk

Curated by Henry Kinman, including work by: Joe Crowdy, Matthew Darbyshire, Nic Deshayes, Anthea Hamilton & Julie Verhoeven, Jack Lavender, Simon Mathers, Oliver Osborne, Myles Painter, Prem Sahib, Marianne Spurr, Jesse Wine

Not many people know that I had a past life as an interior designer. On one of the last jobs I worked on, I helped design the offices for a large international, 'hip' advertising company. There were these ‘ironic' moose sculptures, industrial brushed metal workstations, and funky curved ceiling panels. I left design because I didn’t see a future in it. Well I guess I did, but I just didn’t think I would get much satisfaction out of picking an endless stream of slightly different quirky objects, designing slightly different ‘cool’ ceiling panels and picking out slightly different ‘somewhat’ unusual (though not too much so) finishes for desk partitions.

I turned my mind away from all that stuff to become an artist but it seems to me that more and more this ‘stuff’ has followed me anyway. Time after time I go out to see ‘art’ and find a trendy decorated showroom instead, and it's worth questioning why this might be the case.

I’m in Shoreditch tonight at Eighy One with this in mind, looking at some brand new Nike sneakers presented as formalist adornment to an exclusively black and white themed conglomeration of purchased objects. 

Detail of Matthew Darbyshire work

I was about to write ready-made objects, and thus contextualise it within some history of conceptual art, but it’s really not that at all. Ready-mades originally shocked and offended (think Duchamp and his fountain) and made the viewer really question the status of the art object, but everything here is seemless and tastefully matched. And against the rough concrete floors, it all looks just great.

There is very little questioning here, and to be fair the show blurb just says that the artists will ‘explore the attraction of homogeneous design and the fetishism of commercial aesthetics’, but i think words more akin to ‘regurgitate, reformat and reproduce’ seem more honest.

In a strange way there’s something quite sincere about the work in this show. There exists, you can tell, a real deep love for the material, a sentiment that the world needs to be a more aesthetically balanced and put together place. And maybe it says something about where this generation finds itself today: too busy at work in their low-paying (multiple) jobs, crushed under austerity, and with precious little energy to protest - it’s no wonder that they’re just looking for the pleasant comforts of a balanced and equilibrious home.  

Work by Marianne Spurr

Sculpture by Jack Lavender

Looking at Simon Mathers' painting

Framed posters by Myles Painter

Object by Anthea Hamilton & Julie Verhoeven

Work by Matthew Darbyshire

Another object by Anthea Hamilton & Julie Verhoeven

Rotating sculptures by Matthew Darbyshire

Fluorescent installation by Joe Crowdy 

Textured (styrofoam?) surfaces by Nicolas Deshayes

Advert with additions by Matthew Darbyshire

Video work by Myles Painter

Sculptures by Jesse Wine

Matthew Darbyshire conglomeration

Work by Oliver Osborne

Hung plastic work by Marianne Spurr