Down to Oxford Circus tube station and emerging at ground level I find the torrents of rain that were cascading down from the heavens earlier this morning have subsided, leaving only big pools of water on the pavements for pedestrians to dodge past. There’s still a bit of what the TV meteorologists call light precipitation splashing downwards and soggifying my silvery gray locks and light summery suit but not enough to deter the determined art tracker from setting off once again to see what cultural delights the capital has to offer. Today is one of those days where I’ve no set itinerary to follow nor specific destination to aim towards but have decided instead just to head in a generally southerly direction and poke my nose into some of the stylish commercial galleries that inhabit this part of town, hoping, as ever, to come across stuff that’s new and pretty and interesting.
So, first stop is Dering Street and up the lift to get to the fourth floor and into Annely Juda Fine Art where I’m greeted by the glare of a shiny white gallery that contains…well, not really very much. Which, I suppose, is a bit of a sniffy way of saying that the exhibition of drawings, wall-pieces and small-scale sculptures by Werner Haypeter are at the super-subtle end of the abstract formalist artistic paradigm and, I confess, just a bit too hardcore minimalistic for my own, more plebeian personal tastes. Some of the works on paper here seem to consist of just two or three short parallel pencil lines, the appreciation and enjoyment of which, I feel requires a level of sophisticated sensibility of a far more delicately nuanced attenuation than that range of aesthetic frequencies my own humble faculties are able to discern. Ok, so the lumps of fuzzy plastic resin with their blurred blue inclusions are a bit more interesting but then I notice there’s a door off the gallery that links into the back office – it’s slightly ajar and I find my eyes are distracted away from the art display and towards the suite of shelves there that are full of neatly stacked lever arch files. And I can’t help thinking that when the stationery supplies appear to be more diverting than the actual art in the gallery it’s probably time to move on which, in this instance, means descending a floor to get to the other Annely Juda space.
And here this is filled with Sarah Oppenheimer’s matching pair of architectonic industrial engineering prototype project models which are undoubtedly all very neatly crafted and constructed but again perhaps just a little bit on the severe side of the spectrum, as confirmed by their titles which are, respectively, S-011110 and S-010100. A cursory scan of gallery notes says something about ‘moving glass planes’ and, since I think I can hear a light, background hum, as if there’s a hidden motor whirring away somewhere, I stand back watching and waiting for something to twist, turn, revolve, extend, shuffle, vibrate or otherwise wiggle about a bit. But, despite my very careful scrutiny, I don’t seem to be able to detect any actual signs of kinetic activity and so, eventually, ask the receptionist if I’m missing something and it turns out that it’s the viewer – ie me – who’s meant to do the work and shift the sculpture about. I have to admit that it’s a slightly odd sensation trying to overcome the usual gallery no-touch taboo and grab hold of one of these glass and metal structures, and I can’t help wondering whether this is all part of the overall artistic experience that their creator is trying to engineer. And as I fumble about, trying to figure out how the thing is hinged to its support structure, and which direction I’m meant to be pushing it, I start to worry that the whole thing is going to fall apart and come crashing to the ground, ushering the appearance of Jonathan Routh, Jeremy Beadle, Noel Edmonds or some other TV prankster with a false beard, aiming to have a laugh at my expense. Fortunately, my fears are misplaced and I do finally manage to rotate the metal beam a few degrees with the piece remaining intact, which then allows me to stand back and assess my intervention. And, frankly, I’m uncertain as to whether I’ve improved the aesthetic arrangement or not, so return everything to it’s the original position, feeling that I’ve underperformed my role. Next time I visit the gallery I think I’ll bring along some screwdrivers and some bolt cutters and see if I can do a better job. In the meantime, I comfort myself with the thought that I didn’t get to meet Noel Edmonds.
So, it’s back into the lift and down to the first floor where Osborne Samuel have recently relocated. And after all the previous rigorous Minimalism and hi-tech machine-end aesthetics upstairs, the inaugural exhibition here provides a rather refreshing antidote. The Romantic Impulse is a charming introductory overview of that particular strand of British art that emerged during the 1940s and ‘50s and tried to combine some of the abstracting elements of early European Modernism with a sort of homespun, semi-mystical rustic traditionalism. The results of this curious hybridisation process are, perhaps unsurprisingly, somewhat mixed and the pervading sense of nostalgia for a sort of lost chivalric arcadia can become a bit wearisome. Then again, I suppose it’s all just a matter of taste and while I tend to find the landscapes of John Piper a bit scrappy and those of John Minton a tad prissy, I’ve always quite liked the spiky organic forms of Graham Sutherland and the simplified impasto expressions of Keith Vaughan. Although I wouldn’t bother going to any great lengths to argue with anyone positing the obverse ranking. And, of course, all this mild-mannered, sensitive stuff never really had time to develop before the ‘60s came crashing along and the brash contemporaneity of Pop Art blew it all away, replacing the relatively quaint leitmotifs of love and the countryside with the new age’s rather more immediate tropes of sex and the city.
And with that thought in mind I head out and on to New Bond Street where my attention is caught by the signage on the window of the Fine Art Society announcing their current exhibition by John Byrne as The Lullaby or Braodway. Once inside, however, I discover that this isn’t some cleverly contrived piece of conceptualist wordplay but just an awkward typographical transposition that has inadvertently confused the location of the famous old show tune. Although, looking at the paintings here, I’m not sure anyway what the title has to do with the series of absurdly exaggerated self-portraits and crude caricature character studies of a series of cool black dudes. And, considering that each and every single person featured here seems to be very deliberately puffing away on a cigarette, maybe a more suitable theme song to accompany the display would have been Smeok Gets in Your , Eyes.
No matter, continuing in a southerly direction, the next port of call is Flowers where Julie Cockburn has been playing around with found images and, more specifically, reconfiguring various old portrait photographs. Cockburn’s various makeover techniques include adding in extra lines, sprinkling on patterns of little mini-discs of colour, and cutting and repasting skewed fragments of the original snaps. And since none of these interventions could in any way be said to improve the attractiveness or integrity of the original images, one might very reasonably ask what exactly is the point or purpose of carrying out these playful interactions. And as far as I can make out, from having skimmed through the gallery notes, if there is a rationale then it seems to be not much more than the same desire to avert boredom that gives some of us the irrepressible urge to doodle a moustache on any pictures of Theresa May and shave off some of Jeremy Corbyn’s stubble by applying a few strokes of tippex. All of which may be a sign of appalling political incorrectness gone mad but at least has the defebce of Duchampian precedence.
And so, on to the last stretch of today’s ramble for which I transverse the mighty Piccadilly river and make a return visit to the Bernard Jacobson Gallery for their show of paintings, drawings and sculptures by Henri Matisse. This very pretty little selection of works is a sort of complementary taster to the exhibition currently showing at the Royal Academy. And, as those who read last week’s blog will recall, the gimmick behind that show is to display some of Matisse’s actual studio props next to the paintings in which they appear. It means there’s an extra little frisson of sensory delight to be had now when looking at L’Artiste et le Modele Nu here, knowing that the actual chunky blue glass flower vase that Matisse included as part of the ornamentation for this painting is currently sitting in a display case just a few hundred yards away down the road. But what a shame that the Academy wasn’t able to track down the curious stripey pair of pyjamas that the Artiste was wearing when he was completing the painting or the peculiar green towel that the Nu seems to have plonked on her head to keep warm.
All in all, perhaps not the best day I’ve ever had wandering around town but a bit like the weather: too few glimmers of sunshine and too many puddles to dodge.