Down to Waterloo tube station and then with fingers firmly crossed head over to the Hayward Gallery. Well, after being closed for a couple of years and spending several million pounds on a renovative refurb and revamp that barely altered the building in any discernable way, Andreas Gursky’s inaugural photo show was then all a bit of a damp squib disappointment. But, being a reasonable kind of a chap, I always believe in giving people and places a second chance, and nothing would please me more to be able to say that the director and his curatorial team, having got off to a rocky start, have now recovered their balance and redeemed themselves by putting on an innovatory, revelatory, blockbuster extravaganza that is going to be this season’s must-see show.
Alas, I have to report that my desperately supportive display of digital dexterity was all for naught since, on entering the Gallery, there’s no revealingly revisionistic retrospective reappraisal of some great overlooked British Modernist to be seen; nor the kind of wide-ranging thematic overview and theoretical investigation of some currently pertinent philosophical topic that can alternatively co-ordinate and juxtapose various otherwise disparate artistic artefacts; nor yet the illustrative presentation of any fresh theoretical thinking, analysis or interpretive revaluation of some previously misinterpreted or forgotten episode within the vast art historical tapestry of global cultural capital. All of which is a bit of a shame.
Very sadly, instead of trying to be radically unique and original by putting on a traditional, well-researched show which offers up rare and interesting stuff to look at and intelligent ideas to think about, the Hayward has decided to follow the current trend favoured by the larger establishment grant-funded institutions across the capital’s cultural compass from Camden Arts Centre in the north to Tate Modern in the south, and from the Serpentine in the west to the Whitechapel in the East. And so it is that, yet again, I’m confronted by another one-person exhibition by an overseas talent of whom I’ve never heard but that, apparently, I should have. And while, of course, I’m always interested in closing any lacunae I might have and being introduced to new artists and new ideas, such has been the homogenising influence of all the trends in technological and communicative globalisation over the past couple of decades that the mere act of introducing an artist from abroad is no guarantee of importing novelty or any other kind of other special exotic value.
So, while there’s nothing particularly annoying, irritating or egregious about the works of Lee Bul, neither is there anything particularly exciting, stunning or perspicacious. As far as I can see, all her output fits firmly within the general style of contemporary international art practice and where there are references specific to her South Korean origins I’m sure I won’t be the only person whose knowledge of that country’s history, politics and cultural underpinnings is so patchy that they will almost certainly be utterly missed or totally misinterpreted.
Anyway, a brief biography of Bul’s artistic development as outlined by this seemingly comprehensive retrospective suggests that she started out as a performance artist, then got interested in sci-fi designs that led to her creating installations, some of which are interactive. And so, amongst the attractions on offer here today are various archival videos (the one I watched showed her covering her clothes in paint and then stripping them off); a whole bunch of cyborg costumes and messy model architectural fantasies; and a small multi-mirrored maze that, as I stumblingly try to negotiate a speedy exit, keeps presenting me with unwelcome reflective reminders of a bald patch that usually remains unseen (by me at least). There’s also a very large silver inflatable zeppelin that hovers above the floor in one of the rooms and which is a bit of a spectacle – but perhaps not really quite spectacular enough.
I suppose Bul is generally trying to investigate and interrogate some kind of personal futuristic aesthetic. But it’s hard to believe that anyone familiar with Space Odyssey, Star Wars or even the early Christopher Reeve Superman films, let alone youngsters from a more recent generation brought up with the rapid evolutionary twists and turns of gaming technology graphics and modern CGI pyrotechnics, is going to be very impressed, inspired or informed by what must look like her comparatively quaint design creations.
Let’s hope the Hayward tries a bit harder with its next presentation. In the meantime, I take a short bus ride from Waterloo Bridge down to Lower Marsh. And then, following the suggestion of my mobile electronic map gizmo, I find myself walking along a long slightly creepy tunnel. But even in the midst of darkness sometimes comes enlightenment and this particular gloomy underpass has been rather attractively decorated with a sequence of small mosaics based on the poetry and illustrations of the mysterious mystic William Blake who, I believe, used to live in the area. The works are part of a collaborative community project co-ordinated by Southbank Mosaics, so well done them.
The reason for my taking this shortcut diversion is to get to the Newport Street Gallery, and the latest exhibition of works chosen by the gallery’s celebrity star owner, Damian Hirst. According to the welcoming young woman behind the desk, all the works in the current show are from Hirst’s own personal collection, as have been items from the half dozen previous shows held here so far. But while those earlier exhibitions featured works by rather well known artists, ranging from John Hoyland and Gavin Turk to Ashley Bickerton and Jeff Koons, the current trio of painters are much less familiar names. And, I have to confess, that before reading the accompanying Gallery leaflet, I sort of assumed that maybe Hirst had spotted these artists while prowling round some end-of-year student show and bulk bought their work at a cheap rate. After all, in opening up his own Gallery, Hirst is following in the exhibitionist path of his erstwhile collector, mentor and champion Charles Saatchi, so why mightn’t he also emulate his master’s other notorious wheeler-dealer collecting habits? Anyway, as it happens, Helen Beard, Boo Saville and Sadie Laska are all well past the age of majority and are, in fact, what might be reasonably called mid-career artists. That their large painterly works are all fresh, joyous and uninhibited is, therefore, unrelated to the actual factual condition of their creators’ temporality and evidently more closely aligned with some other alternative sense of their inner spiritual youthfulness.
At first sight Beard’s interlocking patches of bright vibrant colours look like simple crudely unsubtle abstracts but, after a second look, order quickly emerges from what had seemed to be a comparatively random assortment of curving tumescent bulges and the engorged enfoldments of ripe labial buds. At which point I think I’d better engage in a little scriptus interruptus and terminate my euphemistic waffle before I get nominated for one of those bad sex writing awards. For, yes, Beard’s gimmick is to proffer explicit close-up illustrations of genitalia engaged in acts of intimate congress, all prepared in a disingenuous, painting-by-numbers style of presentation.
By contrast, Saville’s paintings are somewhat more subtle preparations and fall into two very distinct artistic categories: first there are the series of large luminescent colour field abstracts; then the sequences of figurative monochromatic sketches of what look like mundane scrap book photographs. I suppose there are echoes here of the multi-stylistic permissiveness of Gerhard Richter which, I think, had something to do with his interest in trying to examine the fundamental properties of paint and visual imagery and…well, to be honest, I’ve never been exactly sure what he was trying to do. But since Hirst had such great success reworking Richter’s early series of colour chart paintings maybe Saville’s more generalised referencing of the mighty German theoretician and artist is not such a bad idea.
Finally, Laska also seems happy to draw upon both realist and non-figurative sources. So, intermingling with cartoon cut-outs of an electric guitar and the pink silhouette of a man with his hands held up, are various abstract riffs that recall both the electric circuitry doodles and plans of Peter Halley and some of the rough geometrical series work of Hirst’s old friend Hoyland. Frankly, if I had Hirst’s money I’m not sure that I would have bought works from any of these artists and certainly not in such depth as he has but, then again, he’s probably got a larger house than I have and more wall space to fill and is, consequently, perhaps just a little less choosy in his acquisitional policy.
