I thought going on a school trip was something in the distant past decisions of what bus food you needed, who will I sit next to and who was going to mess about at the back...
Fortunately we were all too mature and sensible for too much 'shenanigans'
noun INFORMAL secret or dishonest activity or manoeuvring. "the chairman was accused of financial shenanigans" silly or high-spirited behaviour; mischief.
This was a trip to visit a bunch (collective noun) of galleries based in the East London. The coach, after a long and much delayed journey, dropped us as close as it could to the Whitechapel Chapel. This we (Ryan, Catherine and Maisie) decided was to be our start point.
Whitechapel Gallery. Zadie Xa.
The first exhibition we visited was Zadie Xa: House Gods, Animal Guides and Five Ways 2 Forgiveness. (https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/zadie-xa-house-gods-animal-guides-and-five-ways-2-forgiveness/) As the supporting documentation state 'Xa creates an ambitious installation where sculptures, textiles and paintings act as ‘tricksters’ and ‘shapeshifters’ in and amongst a large-scale fabric structure that is inspired by a traditional Korean home known as a hanok.' Although this was the centrepiece which created this temple like tent that was not only fascinating from the outside but even more so when you looked inside. It also had a slightly sacred feeling and you didn't feel that you should enter the inside but view from the margins. The colours of the fabric and decoration were rich, rich in colour, content and meaning. Around the construction and the show were placed a variety of 'deities or spirits' these all looking out from the centrepiece or looking into the room, guarding, watching, protecting. Xa is Korean-Canadian and this work explores history, folklore and cultural from her heritage and how recent history has affected many long held beliefs. It is like entering a different world and the more you immerse yourself into the visual and audio surroundings the more you see, question and understand. This really was a multi-dimensional show on many different levels, it questioned the past, beliefs, cultural identity, the location of the show and how we view many of these issues.
'It also references the belief that in acknowledging those that have passed away and by paying respects to one’s familial ancestors, deities or spirits may then forgive past wrongdoings and bring good fortune onto households. This pursuit of forgiveness is critical to the artist’s own journey when thinking through how the diaspora are disjointed from their cultural communities and the ways in which reconciliation can be sought through acknowledging those that came before us.' - Mark Westall - 24 June 2022 (https://fadmagazine.com/2022/06/24/zadie-xa-to-present-her-largest-solo-exhibition-in-london-at-whitechapel-gallery/).
Whitechapel Gallery. Tracing Absence.
This show was curated by the MA Curating Art and Public Programmes from the London South Bank University. (https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/tracing-absence/) Absence is everywhere and there are many different ways it can be shown, read and felt by the those creating and viewing. In the supporting publication the students invited their tutors to reflect on absence, one which struck a chord with me personally was this:
'THREE THINGS THAT NEVER WERE
A truth without a claimant,
a debt without a payment,
and silence in a moment.
THREE THINGS THAT WILL NEVER BE
A past when all is known,
a now where all is shown,
and a future when all is gone.'
- Tanya Harrod
I felt this said so much in so few words. Especially the second verse, just those three lines explained the void that was, is and will be.
MIKKEL MCALINDEN - LANDEK MINE LAST SHIFT AUGUST 21, 1991 (2015) (https://csk.art/en/landek-mine-last-shift-august-21-1991)
Of the images on show this one stood out and created the most discussion. The clear absence of the clothes was one thing but the hanging clothes had so much of a bodily feeling to them in the way they had been left and indeed the angle they had been photographed at. There was a feeling of loss, abandonment and finality. Without the caption to explain where the image was from you could have imagined all sorts of scenarios where clothes would be abandoned. My immediate thoughts were those of the holocaust with the piles of clothes and shoes of those ushered to their death. More absence.
Whitechapel Gallery. Donna Huanca.
Throughout our visit to the Whitechapel Gallery there was a certain smell, something slightly scented but also slightly burnt... we never found out what it was or where it came from, nothing was obvious and it's only on researching after the event that it was part of Donna Huanca's space. 'Drawing on her Bolivian heritage, Huanca has created an earthy and smoky olfactory diffusion and a recording of the artist’s father teaching her mother his native language from the silver mining regions of Bolivia.' (https://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/christen-sveaas-art-foundation-4/). On viewing the connection between the silver, paintings, sculpture, setting and audio pieces seemed disjointed. The only thing connecting them was being in the space and with the flowing curtains around the wall enclosing the room. The spoons you see on entry but then they are hidden as you enter the room, they do reflect everything which brings the viewer into the work but as soon as you enter the main area they are in past, behind a large blue wall. The paintings were rich, large, expressive but I was struggling to connect.
After looking at some of the other work on show in the Whitechapel Gallery we decided to head off to other galleries on our map. The next place we went to was the Kate McGarry Gallery on Old Nichol Street. This took some finding as it is just on the street with no window to say it is a gallery, just a small note by the door, which was opened remotely after viewing us from a CCTV... no reception, no welcome, no interaction.
The work currently on show was by Chou Yu-Cheng from Taipei, Taiwan (https://www.katemacgarry.com/artists/181-chou-yu-cheng/). Beautifully crafted and coloured pieces that on close examination you could see the artists hand and how they had been constructed. On reading about the work the abstraction from the influence and why the artist has created them in this way does give an idea of how they came about but also an insight into how something so natural and three dimensional as flowing water can be represented in this way. Ironically a storm passed overhead while we viewing this work and it was not only accompanied by the thundering sound of the rain on the glass roof but also the sight of it pouring off the glass.
Next stop was the Standpoint Gallery, Hoxton. This was showing David King: The World Must Change. (https://www.standpointlondon.co.uk/gallery/2022/david-king/index.php).
The scariest part of this show was how many of the works on show I could remember from the 1970's. Posters about the National Union of Journalists NUJ (which I had to be a member of as a very young Graphic Designer at the time), this was when papers were looking to move away from their traditional home and method of production from hot metal to journalists inputting directly and the move from Fleet Street to Wapping.
There was also posters on display about the Anti- Nazi League and the Anti-Apartheid Movement, again mostly from the 1970's which I could remember. King used a distinctive typographical style in his work alongside a simple image or collaged image printed with a course half tone screen and on usually on coloured paper, giving the images a rich and powerful stand out appeal. Which is, after all, what a poster needs to do. It needs to grab your attention, get the message over quickly, directly and unapologetically.
The other part of this exhibition that interested me was how these posters would ave been created and produced. This was pre-digital time and all the artwork would have been made up as 'camera ready artwork', something I know only too well from my early Graphic Designing days. Letraset typography where you can see how the headlines blown up have softened and lost their sharpness in places. The course half-tone screen and images of great contrast, lots of read and black, these are highly effective visually but they are also practical and would have been easier to print. Lots of block type, bands of colours and angled headlines. The influence of Soviet Propaganda Posters, from 1917 onwards, is clear and the effectiveness in getting over a message just as direct.
More information about David King can be found the website dedicated to his work: https://davidkingdesigner.com/
Our next gallery was 'Modern Art', Helmet Row, EC1. (https://modernart.net/) another hard to find one, with entry through a CCTV opened door, no reception and nobody to speak to. Just a white cube gallery with eight pieces of work on show by Peter Halley.
The work was striking, blinding almost. Constructed canvasses of gridded shapes created non-conformist areas of canvas and painted in Day-Glo paint. All very precise, all highly finished, some with textured areas within the painting and only painted on the front face of the canvas. On reading about Halley's practice from the handout the artist references 'not only the societal structures of the urban grid and the expansions of its underlying network of information and technologies, but also the legacies of minimalist painting with which Halley grew up.'
I struggled to engage with the work; the arrangement of the canvasses, the brightness of the colours and the applied 'Roll-a-Tex' in places. It was all very striking, contrasting, unbalanced in shape and colour. I t was however something I have never seen before, even though it was a very simplistic, minimalist approach. It actually hurt the eyes to look at it, the colours were so bright. The divisions and 'bars' depicted Halley describes as 'cells, prisons' or 'conduits'. These divisions were clear to be seen and yet can be interpreted in so many ways. Actual cells or prisons or the cells we call home, apartments or workspaces. They all contain and constrict, they are all surrounded, encased. Even if they offer the opportunity of a view the freedom is one to see rather than experience, making the restriction even tighter.
Our last gallery to that we had time to visit , just, was The Barbican Centre. This meant a little trip under the entrance and meant going past a Banksy on the way, one protected by an acrylic sheet.
Researching this piece it is in relation to an exhibition that took place in 2017 by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. It is believed the work is in response to the artist 'who was one of the first famous black American artists, would be treated if he was working today, given how black people are still much more likely to be targeted for stop and search than white.'
Soheila Sokhanvari - Rebel Rebel (https://www.barbican.org.uk/whats-on/2022/event/soheila-sokhanvari-rebel-rebel)
We were very short for time for the exhibition and it had to be a whistle stop viewing. Although this was a shame not to fully get immersed in the work and take the time it deserved to look, reflect and form opinions, it did however, leave a lasting impression and needed further researching on returning back home.
It seemed very poignant, considering the current issues surrounding women in Iran, that an artist who had put together an exhibition featuring iconic women from Iran dating from 1925 - 1979 is currently on show. The stories of those featured is apparent as you view the paintings, these you need to download the information for. They stand alone, they are given plenty of space to each be viewed and even the viewing of these women is something most of the world hasn't been able to do. These are images of the past but could they also be a prediction of the future where more freedom is allowed? Even if they seem forward looking by not being covered and indeed being more at ease with their image and pose the documentation supporting the images tells another story where the female figure, body and person was still manipulated by the photographer. The paintings are 'a collection of 31 portraits in tempera on vellum in the tradition of Persian miniature painting' - https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/oct/07/soheila-sokhanvari-rebel-rebel-review-barbican-london).
The setting for the exhibition is on a gradual curving wide corridor, the floor and walls decorated with the mosaic patterns associated with Islamic designs, often seen in Mosques and Architecture from the Middle East, all in a dark green and cream. The paintings are regularly spaced as you travel down the corridor and along the opposite wall are a number of alcoves that have a object that has an image within (see above), this features images of those depicted in the paintings, they have a peephole feel about them, the viewer needs to stoop and peer.
Right at the end of the corridor hanging like a huge multi-faceted star is an object that is not only lit from several angles but also encases two screens showing films featuring some of the those painted, audio is also playing bringing to life the freedom that has been denied since 1979 and the beginning of the Ayatollah Khomeini regime. Cushions are scattered around to allow viewers to relax and take in the spectacle. It feels very unworldly, as if it is from another world, it is very welcoming and embracing. The total opposite to the impression we are currently experiencing through the stories coming out of Iran.
