INTERFACE
Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
REVIEW
Baroque my world
Transition Gallery, London
8 April – 7 May
Reviewed by:
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Heather Phillipson
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This, the first show at Transition Gallery’s new premises, centres on the theme of the Baroque, hence its rather pointed title ‘Baroque My World’. Already, this pun hints at the kind of humour within which the exhibition seeks to place itself, unfortunately not entirely successfully. With its implications of aesthetic decadence and sensual opulence the Baroque may in itself provide an interesting and fertile premise, particularly in relation to our exuberantly image- and consumer-driven culture, but in general these qualities are not manifest in the works displayed here.
Opening with a quote from Jorge Luis Borges, the promotional information posits the show as being an exploration of “that style which deliberately exhausts (or tries to exhaust) all its possibilities and which borders on its own parody...”. However, rather than take this as a conceptual impetus, a lot of the works here merely adopt the ‘style’ of the Baroque and reconfigure it in ways that fall short of the cleverness or the humour for which they apparently aim. They are too much, but without the sharpness or insight that effective parody requires.
Ironically, what this show suffers from most is overkill. This, in large part, is due to the sheer volume of work in proportion to the size of the gallery – thirteen artists (some of whom are exhibiting several works) are simply too much for such a small space. Perhaps such quantity is intended to reflect the extravagance of the show’s Baroque theme, but its result is that the works constantly compete with one another, ultimately to their detriment. The stifling proximity of the works in the show (several of which seem to have been made specifically for this context and would be unlikely to stand up outside of it) almost inevitably does a disservice to the few thought-provoking and well-executed pieces that there are.
One such work is Petros Chrisostomou’s large digital print, Bigwig, in which two apparently enormous glasses rest upon the floor of a stately interior with a wig draped over them. In this literally inflated image of a miniature environment, scale becomes uncertain as these over-adorned drinking vessels almost fill the space in which they stand. This is a work in which the complex, excessive and melodramatic characteristics through which the Baroque defines itself are played out in more subtle ways, and consequently the piece works on several levels to construct and deconstruct the viewer’s relationship to taste, objects and to space itself.
Another notable work is Florencia Durante’s series of photographic prints (Handball Maeve, Cloud, and Lula Handball 1) in which, through the use of long exposures, light appears as a yellow splatter across the surface of the image, obscuring the darkened scene beyond. Given such visible physicality, light is here materialised as a medium with which to paint over an image rather than to illuminate or to arrest it, calling into question the role of light in the photographic process and suggesting alternative possibilities for its mark-making potential. Again, the artist alludes to the energy and vigour of the Baroque as opposed to relying on the more superficial tenets of the theme, and consequently the work is stronger for it.
What the strength of these two pieces highlight, along with a couple of others, is the potential of both the theme and the gallery to initiate and to promote interesting works. That Transition Gallery – an artist-run space – is keen to show and to support emerging and established contemporary artists, is both commendable and valuable. However, as this show demonstrates, a more definitive selection procedure would be a great service to all of those involved.
Writer detail:
Heather Phillipson
heatherphillipson1@yahoo.co.uk |
Venue detail:
Transition Gallery
Unit 25a Regent Studios, 8 Andrews Road, London E8 4QN
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