Art reviews in lockdown

I danced the dance of art shows in lockdown. In other words, I stubbed my toe a few times. But as the pandemic improved in London, I’ve been able to see some of the most exciting exhibitions in a long time. These are my reviews of art in lockdown. 

A skid mark to be proud of

Full disclosure - these tapped ruminations are from a painter’s p.o.v. - relevant because Tala Madani’s work is not just satire, not just transgressive gesture, but (and most importantly for me) great painting. 

It’s Gallery Weekend in London and I went with two other artist friends to basically cram as much painting in as the time/space continuum would allow. The Madani show, titled Skid Mark, was the penultimate on the list (I won’t mention the last show as that was a pale shade of beige) and, for me, it’s the one that’s lingered the most in my mind.

The install was a bit like a new-age salon hang. There were awkwardly shaped canvases painted with drippy ceiling fans. Her trademark paint-with-shit (not shit, just umber, but reads as shit) was on show in paintings of a grim-looking dining table, hosing off shit from a wallpapered wall (quite cute, that one) and some mission-brown remains near a shower drain. It all reads quite grim, doesn’t it? But the remarkable thing is the paintings stand up, they arrest you, they quirk a smile out of you. 

Madani treats painting as cartoons - it’s quick, it’s skilful, it’s downright funny. I never thought I’d be so into a painting of a ceiling fan, but there you go.

Tala Madani
Skid Mark
Pilar Corrias Gallery
4 June - 10 July

Katherine Bradford’s Legs and Stripes

I feel like solo exhibitions are like Tinder or Hinge for an artist. There’s so much art to see, so much to keep stored for inspo in your head, and not enough space. Every time I go to a show, I think - is this artist’s oeuvre worth dating long-term, worth marrying into the family of your influences? 

I’d only heard of Katherine Bradford in dispatches - knew the name, not the work - and when I went to her solo presentation, Legs and Stripes, at Campoli Presti, I fell hard and fast. The paintings are luminescent with transparent colour, replete with abstracted figures and passages of pigment. The compositions are engaging, if a little cumbersome (we painters like to make the work difficult for the viewer). It’s a nice change when you see unapologetic, colourful painting that isn’t over-leaden with theory and context.

It’s a swipe right from me.

Katherine Bradford
Legs and Stripes
Campoli Presti
3-20 June 2021

Big painting

Right, I’m going to do my best not to be too effusive about Urs Fischer’s latest show at Sadie Coles’s Kingly St space. In fairly recent times I’ve managed to catch Fischer at Gagosian in New York, Frieze and now here in a triumphant display of painting. Wry as ever, Fischer has thrown the paint about, but it’s nowhere to be seen in the gallery. This is because he’s photoshopped the paint onto a photo, blown it up, and re-presented it as an artwork in a gallery. Duchamp tips his hat to you. 

Now, my art school self would be rolling his eyes at my enthusiasm and excitement fort this latest presentation because, for all intents and purposes, there is no evidence of paint in the image - no texture, no smell, just a hi-res simulacrum. Interestingly, for me, this didn’t lessen the experience for me in any way. Despite the flatness of the photograph, I still believed in the painted forms, the speed, the gesture, the colours. 

The works fill the white walls of Sadie Coles HQ, which has a kind of industrial chapel quality, and each work lives singularly and also harmonises beautifully with its brethren. Ok, gushing over. 

Go see it. 

Urs Fischer
The intelligence of nature
Sadie Coles HQ
4 June - 31 July 2021

BASELITZ

Baselitz is your German, macho, Pollock type. Blokey. Prone to inflammatory statements. I’ve mentioned earlier that these snapshot reviews are from a painter’s p.o.v., and so I’m going to separate the paintings from the painter and regale you with my take on this mini-survey at Michael Werner Gallery. 

First thing to be aware of with Baselitz. He paints upside-down. Not actually upside-down, but his subject matter he paints upside-down. If he’s painting a bird, he’ll paint it inverted on the canvas and sign it down the bottom. We’re supposed to be looking at it upside down. You with me? 

Second thing is: Baselitz explores and repeats motifs. In the last ten years he’s revisited a bunch of figures he made in the 70s and 80s. Some might say it’s an easy grab at making some cash. The latter work I think is a bit hit-and-miss (the layers, complexity, colours aren’t there). In this survey show, works from the 60s-90s are on show, explosive, wild, ugly, expansively large.

It’s the kind of painting that shows the artist’s frenzied movements—you can see his hand in every inch of the canvas. I’d say this is painting for painters, as a civilian would probably not get as excited by a mass of muddy colours as the art school locals. 

Like his compatriots Richter and Kiefer, Baselitz wrestles, excavates and purges German history. In one painting, a mushy pile of human lies crumpled on a battlefield against a background the colour of mustard gas. That one was from 1965. This work is his early style - a more fully-formed rendering of figure/background. Fast-forward just ten years and his picture-plane is dissolving into gestures of colour and shape, as in a massive work of birch trees from 1974. Another ten years and you’ll see a portrait of ‘Veronika’, an upside-down nude 2.5m tall and 2m wide. Black, hatching marks seethe over the wildly-coloured background and offer a hint at the psychology of the subject. 
An absolute must for the initiated. Not sure you’ll love it if you’re not au fait with die-hard painter’s painting.

Baselitz 
I was born into a destroyed order
Michael Werner
11 September - 5 December 2020

Howard Hodgkin – Colour me COVID

In the sliver of freedom between the death-cry of summer and the mantle of winter dark, I was able to wander into Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert (Hazlitt’s to those who know) and immerse myself in a mini-survey of Howard Hodgkin’s paintings. 

Titled Memories, the works range from 1978-1999, the time when Hodgkin reached his stylistic maturity. What’s more, he was notoriously tight-lipped about any context of the works. Don’t ask him, either, for Christ’s sake, or you’ll be torn a new one. So I was pretty keen to see this selection of nineteen paintings that covered a range of subject matter - from a visit with David Hockney to a room with a Venetian view.

A painter of breathtaking dexterity, Hodgkin commands expansively on an intimate scale. Great swathes of colour riot over wooden panels the size of an A4 sheet. Frames are powdered, pummelled, glanced over with lavender or ultramarine or pyrrole. 

I admit I’m a late-comer to the altar of Hodgkin. It’s only been my recent transition to abstraction that I has inspired an examination of his paintings (never pictures). His work is representational, but not based on appearances, which to me makes perfect sense, but to you, dear scroller, it may not. 

How can an image of brushstrokes with no semblance of perspective or figurative element be representational? Because in the act of making these works, Hodgkin relives his memory of an experience. This was my first show since Alex Katz’s opening at Timothy Taylor in February. A time before covid (is there such a thing?). And it brought me nothing but joy as I soaked in the colour, the passages of paint, the ornate frames. Do go if you can, before another lockdown looms.

Howard Hodgkin
Memories
Hazlitt Holland-Hibbert
1 October - 11 December 2020

Frieze! Put your deats up!

Lock up your fragile egos, it’s art fair season. Lock up your fragile egos, it’s art fair season. For the uninitiated, art fairs are a pop-up exhibition space for the world’s most exciting and heavy-hitting galleries and artists. Up until the last ten years, it was mainly Art Basel - and it was a fairly closed-off situation, not too appealing to civilians. Since then, though, there has been an explosion of art fairs and satellite shows in every major city in the world. And now the fairs have cross-pollinated with Hollywood and the music world, wooing a cache of glamour collectors and adding valuable social cred to the whole performance. 

In London, the most important art fair is Frieze, which this year has manifested as a fuck-off tent in The Regent’s Park, taking up as much real estate as a Bunnings. 

I find art fairs a lot like fashion shows, or the races. It’s a microcosm of preening and exhibitionism. What do you wear, where do you go, who do you go with? What do you pretend to like? What do you pretend to buy? Do you go to the BMW lounge or the pop-up Ruinart bar? 

What’s more, the tickets are staggered, so the V-VIP day is Thursday, then there’s the ordinary VIPs on Friday, then the general rabble of art admirers are deigned to browse on the Saturday. Obviously Thursday is the best day for people-watching. More than a handful of celebrities, and more interesting to me, art world movers and shakers. You’ve never seen a better bunch of seventy-year-olds, either - not Gazman trouser or Coogee jumper in sight.  

So if you’d actually like to go to Frieze to buy a work of art, you won’t get very far. Even on V-VIP day, the artworks have already been emailed to the discrete contact lists of collectors. And only your V-VIPs have the clout to wrestle a bargain or add more to their cart. 

On regular VIP day, I overheard a dude in a suit (I reckoned an ad man or a banker) ask about the Sterling Ruby at the Gagosian stall (b.t.w. the Ruby show was my pick of the whole fair, and it took up the greatest amount of real estate as you entered the pavilion). Mr Ad Man was politely (coldly?) rebuffed. Unfortunately this is unavailable, sir. 

Hang on, you ask, even if you went to an art fair to buy, you wouldn’t be able to? Welcome to the art world, my friends. The last bastion of unregulated assets, the realm of smoke and Yayoi Kusama infinity mirrors. You’ll have to be an established collector with an established rapport with the gallery to even get a look in at a Sterling Ruby. Not to mention the waiting list. You’d have better luck in the emerging galleries section, but even then it’s pretty tough. 

So what’s the point of an art fair then, if you can’t buy? It’s a chance to see a vast expression of art forms - from museum-quality to subversive and exciting work from emerging galleries. You’re guaranteed to see a Freud or a Picasso, but you’ll more than likely see presentations of mid-career artists progressing their practice. 

And with a glass of champagne? See you at the Ruinart Bar.

Frieze is on 3 - 10 October 2020