Tuesday, June 16, 2009 - Galleries Gallore

Galleries Galore

today would be a day to break records for the history of the harlow trip. Gerard has taken groups to see a max of 6 separate shows in one day. his goal for this day would be to take us to 7 different galleries and their shows in the one day. a hefty goal to achieve, but with our wits and strength, we ought to get somewhere.

First off, we checked out the Raven Row Gallery, which unfortunately was closed. even without the visit, it’s important to note that this as one of the foundation galleries for YBA artists during their rise and growth in the area. 

Next up, we checked out the Flowers Gallery. Their show was about Bernard Cohen, entitled Work of Six Decades.

 The work ties together art made by Cohen from the 1950’s until the current day. what struck me most about the work as it’s effective use of color and abstraction to completely lift you away from your current surroundings. I’m sure many style-hunters could look to this sort of work for inspirational fodder. Gerard also gave me a great tip on how to effectively paint with straight lines by using painters tape and a bit of matte medium. thanks, G-rawd! i’ll be trying that out when i get back to studios.

after this, we checked out the White Cube Gallery, the 1st location out of the two. This gallery featured Raqib Shaw’s show “Absence of God”. This exhibition consisted of Shaw’s work with enamel paints, acrylic, glitter and gold gels to create very fantastical, vibrant imagery of another oddly-run world of tiger headed warriors and monkey headed    fighters. The work must have obviously been worked on by a league of assistants, with its construction and appeal resembling that of stained-glass windows and mosaics. In it’s upper level was a very detailed sculpture called “Adam”. i’ll try my best to include a photo here, because to describe it would be terrible, no matter who you are. 

Photo courtesy of Laura Stoodley

Shortly after this, we visited the KK gallery not too far down the street. Here, a selection of notes and messages from roommate and shared living quarters were complied together to make a show that ended up being quite personable and actually hilarious.

 from what i recall, the show was about more complaints from roommate to roommate, this being something we all have to face as we live on our own, but are still charing spaces with one another, be it friends, family or even strangers. i have this photo posted below of what was, by a majority in agreement, the funniest note of them all. 

next up, we went to the Victoria Miro Gallery. The layout of this space was quite interesting, as from the outside, it looks like two separate institutions, but it actually is the one gallery occupying both buildings. Half of us went in one way while the other went the other way (you know..?). The place featured alot of creative work, with an emphasis on Tal R and his installation called “armes de chine”. This work supposedly made reference to a manual about weapons from ancient china and how it’s completely useless today. instead, the work came across as a very child-like domain of playful engaging in sexual innuendo and domineering spite. too much tack in a show like this, so i disapprove of it for it’s lack of effectiveness.

The rest of the gallery held it’s permanent collections and featured artists. Some notable works came from Annette Messager (my 4th time seeing her work  on this trip, she is the Norm Foster of the exhibiting artists), William Kentridge, and Hiraki Sawa. What also surprised me was the access to their back garden, which featured works by Amy o’Niel and Yayoi Kusama (the silver orbs floating in the stream). too bad i was told not to touch them after messing around with them in the water for so long :\  it was fun.

After this stop, we then visited the Welcome Collection for both of their shows, them being the MEDICINE NOW show and the Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings. The MEDICINE NOW show featured alot of extreme facts and events of medical history, as well as some fascinating medical feats and some artists interpretation of homeostatic ideas and representations of the body through art. 

Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings was a decade’s worth of watercolor drawings made during the terrific and enduring struggle against Bobby’s personality disorder. During this time, baker had weaved in a and out of employment, performed shows, displayed her diary of artwork and also performed in major stage plays and acted in major public events for the awareness of her disorder and depression in general. She gets a standing ovation form me, because depression is not a fun game at all and for he to have all these things in balance with all this torment on her is just tremendously amazing. To read the whole show, beginning to end, is a great thing and i suggest anyone in the london area to see this show if you can. 

our last “gallery” was the outside of the New St. Pancreas Church in London. Gerard claimed the place had artwork, but was closed because we missed it while in it’s operating hours. For the sake of it, we declared the record being broke by the 2009 Harlow Group (that’s right - gerard, when are we gonna get a plaque for all of the ones we’ve broken so far, huh? haha).

After that, most had head back to the maltings. Class tomorrow to recollect our thoughts on what we saw today.