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