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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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
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| 'Historical' pictures |
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