Peter Halley - Waddington Custot

Peter Halley, Rectify, 2013

Peter Halley: Paintings 2012-2013 is at Waddington Custot Galleries until 3 May.
I fell in love with Peter Halley's Day-Glo, Roll-a-Texted, hard edge, 'Neo-Geo' paintings back in the late 80s. I even rather enjoyed the slightly ridiculous critical narratives that the iconography of 'cells' and 'conduits' attracted. From the gallery guide accompanying the NY Art Now exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in 1986:

Peter Halley believes that culture and the art system 'have become too circular to be subverted'. Appropriately, his abstract paintings are stark diagrams of prison cells and computer conduits. Graphically, Halley's main theme is the similarity among social, architectural, and 'informational' space, a similarity that he renders in circuitous Day-Glo patterns against a monochromatic background. The paintings, he says, 'are addressing the validity of truths about science and architecture, and maybe even the rational underpinnings of the social order as a whole'.

Well, those were the days of heroic Baudrillardian discourse. They don't write stuff like that any more. Actually, they do. Whatever, I am thrilled that Halley is still making such gorgeous paintings.
I gather that Waldemar Januszczak has written an enthusiastic review in the Sunday Times - but I haven't read it because it is hidden behind their paywall.

Peter Halley, Bang Goes the Theory, 2013

Peter Halley, Scandal, 2013

Peter Halley, Built, 2013

Peter Halley, Revenge, 2012/13?

Peter Halley, Camp, 2012/13?

William Scott - Tate St Ives

William Scott, Emerald, 1971

William Scott is at Tate St Ives until 6 May 2013.
Scott's paintings of pans, fish and pears, and his still life abstractions, are simple, beautiful, tough and sensual. Scott (1913-1989) was a major figure in British painting in the nineteen fifties, forging an individual bridge between European and American Modernism and abstraction - he met Pollock, de Kooning and Rothko and exhibited regularly in New York. He fell out of fashion and, as noted in the catalogue for a 1998 retrospective at the Irish Museum of Modern Art, was "one of the most significant omissions from the Royal Academy's 1987 exhibition 'British Art in the Twentieth Century'". This exhibition at Tate St Ives, as well as a forthcoming exhibition, William Scott: Divided Figure at Jerwood Gallery, Hastings (from 27 April) offers an opportunity for reassessment.
Read an article by Paul Laity.

William Scott, Still Life with Candlestick, 1949-50

William Scott, Bottle and Fish Slice, 1949-50

William Scott, Mackerel on a Plate, 1951-2

William Scott, The Harbour, 1952

William Scott, Ochre Still Life, 1958

William Scott, Still Lfe with Orange Note, 1970

William Scott, Pears, 1979

William Scott, Single Blue Oear, 1986

FORMAT 13: International Photography Festival - "Factory"

FORMAT 13 International Photography Festival is at various venues in Derby until 7 April. The theme is 'Factory'. There are 2 threads to the festival - 'Focus', curated by Louise Clements, and 'Exposure' which is work selected from open submission.

Edward Burtynsky, Deda Chicken Processing Plant, 2005

Details of the extensive exhibition and events programme are available from the festival website. Below is a selection of featured work. Read a review by Sean O'Hagan.

Ian Teh, from Dark Clouds

Newshah Tavakolian

Tanya Habjouqa, Women of Gaza

Thomas Sauvin, from Beijing Silvermine

Butlinland, Skegness - postcard by John Hinde

Found photographs, curated by Erik Kessels

Pierre Bessard, Chinese workers

Sea, shells, sand and Andre - my day out in Margate

My (early) birthday treat was a day trip to Margate to see the Carl Andre exhibition, Mass and Matter, at the Turner Contemporary.
This was my first visit to Margate, let alone the Turner Contemporary. First impressions, on stepping out of the station, were the high visual impact of  the nineteen-storey tower block (Russell Diplock Associates, 1964) "with jazzily zigzagging sides" (John Newman (1976) The Buildings of England: North East and East Kent, p384) and the amplified, bluebottle-buzz of, what turned out to be, the 'Monarch of Margate Beach Cross' championship for motor bikes and quad bikes. A discreet sign welcomed us to Dreamland.

We made our way along the sea front to the harbour where the rectilinear boxes of the Turner Contemporary (David Chipperfield, 2008-11) loom behind the Regency, Droit House, sitting at the end of the Harbour Arm.

Entering the gallery I was thrilled to be greeted by Michael Craig-Martin's neon piece, Turning Pages.

Michal Craig-Martin, Turning Pages, 1975-2011

This is a new work, but a remake of his 1975 Arts Council commission for Margate Library: as Richard Cork tells it,

'[The commission] was intended by Margate as a commemorative gesture to the retiring librarian', [Craig-Martin] recalled, 'and they were looking for something like a bronze anchor'. But Craig-Martin decided instead to work with white neon on the brick wall above the building's entrance. He produced a simple outline image of an open book, its pages continually turning... The incoming librarian at Margate showed such scant respect for perpetuating his predecessor's memory that Turning Pages was allowed rapidly to slip into disrepair. Cork, Richard (2006) Michael Craig-Martin, London: Thames & Hudson, p39 (See, also, Craig-Martin talking about the piece here)

The Carl Andre exhibition is excellent and comprises eight three-dimensional works plus a selection of pages of concrete poetry. What I love about Andre's sculpture is its absolute simplicity, directness and materiality. On the wall of the gallery Andre is quoted as saying, "My ambition as an artist is to be the 'Turner of matter'". Elsewhere he declared:

My work is atheistic, materialistic and communistic. It's atheistic because it's without transcendent form, without spiritual or intellectual quality. Materialistic because it's made out of its own materials without pretension to other materials. And communistic because the form is equally accessible to all men. David Bourdon (1966) "The Razed Sites of Carl Andre", in Gregory Battcock ed. (1968) Minimal Art: A Critical Anthology, London: Studio Vista, p107

Carl Andre, Timber Piece (Well), 1964/70 (Photo from gallery website)

Carl Andre, Weathering Piece, 1970 (Photo from gallery website)

A slight disappointment was that, evidently at the insistence of the lenders, visitors were not allowed to walk on 2 of the 3 floor pieces; as the Tate's website notes in relation to their "144 Magnesium Square" (1969):

Andre's metal floor sculptures are intended to be walked on… Moving over the square brings an awareness of the texture of the magnesium plates. Andre accepted that the surface of the work would be altered by visitors' footsteps, observing that it 'becomes its own record of everything that's happened to it'.

It was a particular pleasure to see examples of Andre's concrete poetry. In these days of word processing the visual impact of these typewritten pages is almost like looking at old master drawings! The example below was not in the exhibition but is an 'illustration' of this work.

Carl Andre, Essay on Sculpture for E.C. Goossen (1964) and Conquest Display (1965); from Phaidon)

It was disappointing that there was no catalogue for the exhibition - not even a postcard; not even a list of exhibits! - and I was prohibited from taking my own photographs. I would have liked to  have come away with some visual record of my visit and would happily have spent money in the shop to do so.
The gallery is a splendid exhibition space with a terrific sea view; the concurrent exhibition, Rosa Barba: Subject to Constant Change, an investigation into the material properties of film was also very engaging.

Rosa Barba, Space-Length Thought, 2012  (Photo from gallery website)

Lunch at the slightly eccentric Lifeboat pub (excellent local beer), a visit to the, also eccentric, Shell Grotto, and some spectating of the motor bike race on the beach, completed the day.

Shell Grotto, Margate

Huh? Wow!

Good art should elicit a response of 'Huh? Wow!' as opposed to 'Wow! Huh?'  

 Edward Ruscha. 

I came across this quote in an article by Jerry Saltz, while checking out stuff on the late Richard Artschwager (see below). I like it so much (that's aesthetics sorted) that I thought I would give it an entry to itself. 
On reflection, Light Show (see below) was, to a great extent Wow! Huh?
(But, I still want a reference - don't you just hate it when people attribute quotes without referencing a source?)

Richard Artschwager, 1923 - 2013

Richard Artschwager, Piano, 1965

Richard Artschwager died on 9 February 2013.
Artschwager's signature works are his pieces of furniture: minimalist wooden forms with formica veneers which visually represent specific objects - tables, chairs, pianos, and so on. They seem dumb, a bit odd and  slightly irritating - but in a good way! They tease by eluding perceptual grasp, being neither quite image nor object.
Artschwager's other 'lines' included paintings, typically made in black acrylic on Celotex board, and  'Blps' (pronounced 'blips') - lozenge shaped interventions into public spaces, sometimes in the form of exclamation marks!
Read obituaries in Los Angeles Times and The New York Times. 

Richard Artschwager, Table with Pink Tablecloth, 1964

Richard Artschwager, Table and Chair, 1963-4

Richard Artschwager, Mirror/Mirror - Table/Table, 1964

Richard Artschwager, Door/Door II, 1984-5

Richard Artschwager, Trent, 2003

Richard Artschwager, Blp, installed in Whitney Museum, 2012

Light Show - Hayward Gallery

Hayward Gallery

Light Show is at the Hayward Gallery until 28 April 2013.
I was tremendously excited by the prospect of this exhibition - but confess that I was a little bit disappointed. The pieces I most enjoyed were the simpler and (relatively) low key works, notably by Dan Flavin, David Batchelor and Bill Culbert; the first two simply beautiful and the latter wittily intriguing. Too much of the show felt like a procession from one fair ground spectacle to the next. Nevertheless, many of the pieces are genuinely spectacular, notably Carlos Crus-Diez's Chromosaturation, Cerith Wyn Evans, S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E and Olafur Eliasson's Model for a Timeless Garden: the latter, a series of fountains 'frozen' by strobe lights is beautiful, but painful on the eyes! 
I have, in the past, seen some wonderful James Turrell installations - but, though I put in the time for this one, the hoped for optical magic didn't happen for me.
A show well worth seeing but not quite the aesthetic sensation it might have been.
Read reviews by Adrian Searle and Laura Cumming.

Dan Flavin, untitled (to the "innovator" of Wheeling Peachblow), 1968

David Batchelor, Magic Hour, 2004-7

Bill Culbert, Bulb Box Reflection II, 1975

Carlos Cruz-Diez, Chromosaturation, 1985-2008

Cerith Wyn, S=U=P=E=R=S=T=R=U=C=T=U=R=E (‘Trace me back to some loud, shallow, chill, underlying motive’s overspill…’), 2010 (Francois Morellet, Lamentable, 2006 - in background.)

Olafur Eliasson,  Model for a Timeless Garden, 2010 (detail)