around galleries in October

'Mathematical Nature Painting Nested' (2008) by Keith Tyson (img via guardian.co.uk)

Keith Tyson at Parasol Unit (until 11 November)

Eduardo Paolozzi at Raven Row (until 1 November)

John Baldessari at Tate Modern (until 11 January 2010)

Miroslaw Balka at Tate Modern

‘How It Is’ by Miroslaw Balka, Tate Modern

‘How It Is’ by Miroslaw Balka, Tate Modern

‘How It Is’ by Miroslaw Balka, Tate Modern

‘How It Is’ by Miroslaw Balka, Tate Modern

Simple, terrifying, cold, and beautiful. Miroslaw Balka’s work ‘How It Is’ at Tate Modern hits hard without being overtly provocative. More of this kind of art, please.

upcoming exhibitions [September]

A massive wave of interesting art exhibitions is about to hit London. The Rothko show at Tate Modern will definitely be a blockbuster (from 26 September), and Francis Bacon at Tate Britain (from 11 September) will attract flocks of visitors too (this year’s Turner Prize contenders are on show as well). Moving from Southbank to Kensington, the Serpentine will open an exhibition of new works by German master Gerhard Richeter on 23 September, and in North London the Estorick Collection will host Cut&Paste: Photomontage 1920-50 from September 24 (the Estorick is worth a trip to Highbury, it’s such a nice space, and the shows are usually pretty good). It’s enough to make me giddy, but the list goes on: Dryden Goodwin at the Photographer’s Gallery (26 September-16 November); Wallace Berman at Camden Arts Centre (26 September-23 November); Robin Rhode at the Hayward (23 September-7 December); Design Cities at the Design Museum (5 September-4 January 2009).

3 exhibitions and 1/2

One and two: both at the Hayward Gallery (possibly my favorite gallery in London), the retrospective on Russian photographer Alexander Rodchenko and the group exhibition Laughing in a foreign language are diametrically (and dramatically) different. But this is good. The only downside (for the ones that wish to visit just one of the two) is that there is a cumulative ticket, so you’ll have to see the contemporary show even if you intended to see only Rodchenko. Personally, I was glad to visit both, and did laugh going through the ground and first floor galleries. Before heading to the Hayward I read some pretty harsh reviews on Laughing in a different…, but I thought 80% of the works were quite good. The display includes works by Nedko Solakov (best in the show), David Shrigley (a whole wall dedicated to his drawings!), Barthélémy Toguo, Doug Fishbone and Ugo Rondinone. It would be interesting to make a survey on how people react to certain pieces on show, if being foreign (in Britain) influences their perception. Apart from a couple of pieces I couldn’t see anything that would justify the shocked reactions of journalists from Time Out and Daily Telegraph. The Rodchenko display is very traditional, but interesting all the same and definitely worth seeing. Although I’m not an expert, some photographs (modern re-prints) seemed a bit poor quality. What I liked best was a wall of magazine covers designed around Rodchenko’s pictures.

[imgs via southbankcentre.co.uk]

Three: Peter Doig at Tate Britain. I liked it immensely. No, I’m not writing anything new, Doig is one of the best artists around. He could be a Russian expressionist (early Kandinsky) or a French post-impressionist (Gauguin, and not only because of his recent move to Trinidad). Anyway a must-see.

[imgs via tate.org.uk]

1/2: Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art at Barbican. The mission of this exhibition is ‘to interpret and understand contemporary art’, but I’m not so sure about the outcome. It’s a bit of everything thrown in together, definitely not helpful if one wants to understand contemporary art. I really liked the work Cultural Ties (1979) by American artist Jeffrey Vallance. That’s about it.

[different] points of view

Two balconies, two hotel signs installed on a white wall. I’m entering the Juan Muñoz retrospective at Tate Modern and I’m already feeling anxious. There is something about the Spanish artist’s work that upsets me, a feeling of deep melancholy that I can’t shake off. As I go through the rooms inhabited by disquieting dummies, vitrines and wax figures the feeling grows. Will I ever be able to understand Muñoz? By the end of the display I fear it will never happen. A week later – and after reading most of the exhibition catalogue – I go back to the Southbank. This time I seem more permeable to the works, knowing details and background helps me to understand what’s behind Muñoz’s art, or, at least, it helps me appreciate the meaning.

It all boils down to different perspectives on art, and on what art should be. I’ve always thought that visual art should stimulate thoughts, opinions (positive or negative, either way it’s good), questions. Sadly there are many contemporary artists that use the shield of “conceptual” art to present all kinds of silly works. Conceptual yes, but there must be a concept at the base of it, otherwise it’s just presumptuous “stuff”.

[imgs by smog]