INTERFACE

REVIEW

Affordable Art - Group Show

Whitecross Gallery, London
11 January - 23 February 2008

Reviewed by: Michel Boubon

The group show displays a selection of works by sixteen gallery's artists.

Paolo Giardi that was the subject of the gallery's inaugural show presents four hypnotic collages (Don't you feel somehow burried in history, 2007) exploring an aspect of consumerism through the accumulation of objects. Good craftsman trasforming magazine cut outs into surprising and contemporary compositions. You can also see the wonderful world of his "Art de Vivre" series, kept in a black box. In exploring the relationships between appropriation, found imagery and collage, this series turns the assertive visual language of modernist propaganda posters into an uncertain and intimate reflection, commenting on the unattainable desire for harmony between human existence and action in the world. A sharp series of collages.

Alberto Brusamolino shows "Come, come, come into my world, 2007-2008", an ongoing series of new works. While Brusamolino has always worked with collage in various forms, his previous works are predominantly photographic, whereas his recent experimentations with the cut up technique source material from magazines together with his own photographs which he integrates with his own invented imagery; transformations that inspire us to re-imagine the world we inhabit. By inserting photographs of body-builders into a mosque (Untitled, 2007) he makes an uncanny, faux, twenty-first-century visual tableau, criticising the explicit and latent ideologies and institutions that govern contemporary life. Another subject of his new work includes the ways in which appearance -based stereotypes obscure individual sexual identity. The resulting collage (Untitled Study, 2007) is a surrealistically morphed, often sexually ambiguous and unrecognizable being. Very, very elegant.

Gemma Anderson presents a nice, surreal photogram with funny name (Unidentified crocodile, drawing exposed under moonlight, 2007).

Thanks to Korean artist Kira Kim, a healthy injection of colour into the gallery's space in the form of an amazing installation (Coca Killer, 2007).

The gallery director and the curator create a uniquely stimulating "collection" where each work is allowed to speak for itself and have its own dialogue with the viewer. Avoiding any preconceptions of what an installation of all these works might look like, they present them sensitively and with very little fuss.

Writer detail:
artist, collector and freelance writer

Venue detail:
Whitecross Gallery
122 Whitecross Street London EC1Y 8PU

www.whitecrossgallery.com

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