Richard Serra at the Gagosian Gallery

Down south for Christmas, I went to London on Saturday, specifically to see the Richard Serra exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery. I had intended to go yesterday, Monday, and I am very glad I bothered to check whether the gallery would be open on a Monday; because it wouldn’t have been, the exhibition closing for good on Saturday. So I was lucky enough to be able to get to London for the day, just in time to catch the last day of the show.

It was very busy, lots of people walking around trying to work out what to think.

Most of Serra’s sculptures are created out of industrial steel on a massive scale; they are literally awesome. The steel is left out, exposed to the weather, and allowed to weather: sometimes it rusts, sometimes it creates patterns: the accidental is beautiful. The rust makes the sculptures very tactile: despite signs telling people not to touch, there were a lot of finger marks where people had brushed the rust. I had a conversation with a gallery attendant who was wandering around spraying water onto the rust: I asked him why he was doing that, and it was to remove the handprints from the steel. He was clearly pleased to talk about the sculptures: he explained how they were made, he pointed out his favourite bits of the patterns in the rust (some streaking by the rain), and told me with glee how heavy one of the sculptures, Fernando Pessoa was: a flat piece of steel, nine yards long, nine feet tall and eight inches thick, he said it weighed forty five tons (possibly tonnes?) – “if that fell on you, it would liquefy you!” he said with relish.

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Richard Serra at the Gagosian Gallery

Down south for Christmas, I went to London on Saturday, specifically to see the Richard Serra exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery. I had intended to go yesterday, Monday, and I am very glad I bothered to check whether the gallery would be open on a Monday; because it wouldn’t have been, the exhibition closing for good on Saturday. So I was lucky enough to be able to get to London for the day, just in time to catch the last day of the show.

It was very busy, lots of people walking around trying to work out what to think.

Most of Serra’s sculptures are created out of industrial steel on a massive scale; they are literally awesome. The steel is left out, exposed to the weather, and allowed to weather: sometimes it rusts, sometimes it creates patterns: the accidental is beautiful. The rust makes the sculptures very tactile: despite signs telling people not to touch, there were a lot of finger marks where people had brushed the rust. I had a conversation with a gallery attendant who was wandering around spraying water onto the rust: I asked him why he was doing that, and it was to remove the handprints from the steel. He was clearly pleased to talk about the sculptures: he explained how they were made, he pointed out his favourite bits of the patterns in the rust (some streaking by the rain), and told me with glee how heavy one of the sculptures, Fernando Pessoa was: a flat piece of steel, nine yards long, nine feet tall and eight inches thick, he said it weighed forty five tons (possibly tonnes?) – “if that fell on you, it would liquefy you!” he said with relish.

( Read more... )

All that glistens isn't gold.

I went from the Gagosian to the British Museum. Mostly to look for presents in the shop, but I had a look around, of course. Prompted by delilly I wanted to see the Rosetta stone, which I must have seen many times before.

I also looked at a dispersed exhibition called Statuephilia, featuring works by Antony Gormley, Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst, Ron Muerk and Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

The work by Quinn is a gold sculpture of Kate Moss, called Siren. I like some of Quinn’s work – I loved his statue of Alison Lipper which stood on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square - but I didn’t like this piece at all. Why Moss? Because she was famous? Why gold? Did it matter? To me, no – but it was the only statue in a room of priceless Greek statues that was sealed away, presumably at the request of the museum’s insurers.

Frankly, it seemed a bit tacky to me: like showing off in gold.

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All that glistens isn't gold.

I went from the Gagosian to the British Museum. Mostly to look for presents in the shop, but I had a look around, of course. Prompted by delilly I wanted to see the Rosetta stone, which I must have seen many times before.

I also looked at a dispersed exhibition called Statuephilia, featuring works by Antony Gormley, Marc Quinn, Damien Hirst, Ron Muerk and Tim Noble and Sue Webster.

The work by Quinn is a gold sculpture of Kate Moss, called Siren. I like some of Quinn’s work – I loved his statue of Alison Lipper which stood on the empty plinth in Trafalgar Square - but I didn’t like this piece at all. Why Moss? Because she was famous? Why gold? Did it matter? To me, no – but it was the only statue in a room of priceless Greek statues that was sealed away, presumably at the request of the museum’s insurers.

Frankly, it seemed a bit tacky to me: like showing off in gold.

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Dennis Severs' House

Yesterday, I met up with coughingbear and hano and we went to Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St. in Spitalfields. It is a curious part of London: a mixture of city steel-and-glass skyscrapers and Georgian brick houses. I used to work nearby, twenty years ago, and had had to visit for work much more recently; it is strange revisiting old haunts. I was prompted to go to Severs’ house by tubewhore, who had been very taken by it.

It is a strange building; I found it intriguing and fascinating, but also irritating. The irritation stemmed from a certain kind of preciousness – I described it as po-faced yesterday: a desire to play games – that it wasn’t a museum but instead and installation.

It is a multilayered experience. Severs lived in the house from the late sixties until he died in 1999. He recreated the house, each room taking a different historical style; and the conceit is that the occupants have just left.

It is crammed full of interesting objects – letters, paintings, drapery, everything; but people.

But Severs lived in the house like this: no electric lights (candle only), no heating, no plumbing. Part of the interest stems from the conceit, then; but part also from thinking about Severs’ life – at both high (why?!) and low (how?!!!) levels. No loo or bath, for instance – I mean, really, how? How could it be cleaned? Was it cleaned – were the spiders’ webs real or fake? How did they stop the candles setting fire to the drapes?

(I was reminded of when I was first househunting in Edinburgh; I saw a Georgian flat that had been lovingly restored. It was beautiful: amazing floors and fireplaces. But of course, no central heating. Which I would have wanted to put in. I didn’t buy the flat…)

This felt a bit the same, except that it was stuffed to the gunwales with objects and furniture.

Some of the rooms needed a lot of attention (that may have been deliberate – the crumbling walls may have been period detail rather than signs of collapse); the plaster falling away, exposing the wall behind.

But it was also very interesting. The detail was engrossing. I liked the kitchen best – the food looked very edible. The cat was cute, too (as hano pointed out, they must need to keep the mice down one way or another). There wre Christmas decorations all over – and several references to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

I don’t know if it was an installation, and interactive artwork, or a museum. I feel pretty certain that had the same pieces been displayed in glass cases, I wouldn’t have felt curious or intrigued. But the installations of a similar nature – the Dark Pool by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, for instance – grabbed me more; I went back once more to look at the Dark Pool today in Oxford, out of curiosity to see how it stood up after the grand design of Severs’ art, and it was more interesting – because you could really interact: in Severs’ house there were notices telling you not to touch the objects.

Still, it was a wonderful experience: a slice of history – well, several slices – a look at life; and a chance to wonder; and thank God – or Faraday, at least – for electricity…

Dennis Severs' House

Yesterday, I met up with coughingbear and hano and we went to Dennis Severs’ House in Folgate St. in Spitalfields. It is a curious part of London: a mixture of city steel-and-glass skyscrapers and Georgian brick houses. I used to work nearby, twenty years ago, and had had to visit for work much more recently; it is strange revisiting old haunts. I was prompted to go to Severs’ house by tubewhore, who had been very taken by it.

It is a strange building; I found it intriguing and fascinating, but also irritating. The irritation stemmed from a certain kind of preciousness – I described it as po-faced yesterday: a desire to play games – that it wasn’t a museum but instead and installation.

It is a multilayered experience. Severs lived in the house from the late sixties until he died in 1999. He recreated the house, each room taking a different historical style; and the conceit is that the occupants have just left.

It is crammed full of interesting objects – letters, paintings, drapery, everything; but people.

But Severs lived in the house like this: no electric lights (candle only), no heating, no plumbing. Part of the interest stems from the conceit, then; but part also from thinking about Severs’ life – at both high (why?!) and low (how?!!!) levels. No loo or bath, for instance – I mean, really, how? How could it be cleaned? Was it cleaned – were the spiders’ webs real or fake? How did they stop the candles setting fire to the drapes?

(I was reminded of when I was first househunting in Edinburgh; I saw a Georgian flat that had been lovingly restored. It was beautiful: amazing floors and fireplaces. But of course, no central heating. Which I would have wanted to put in. I didn’t buy the flat…)

This felt a bit the same, except that it was stuffed to the gunwales with objects and furniture.

Some of the rooms needed a lot of attention (that may have been deliberate – the crumbling walls may have been period detail rather than signs of collapse); the plaster falling away, exposing the wall behind.

But it was also very interesting. The detail was engrossing. I liked the kitchen best – the food looked very edible. The cat was cute, too (as hano pointed out, they must need to keep the mice down one way or another). There wre Christmas decorations all over – and several references to Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

I don’t know if it was an installation, and interactive artwork, or a museum. I feel pretty certain that had the same pieces been displayed in glass cases, I wouldn’t have felt curious or intrigued. But the installations of a similar nature – the Dark Pool by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, for instance – grabbed me more; I went back once more to look at the Dark Pool today in Oxford, out of curiosity to see how it stood up after the grand design of Severs’ art, and it was more interesting – because you could really interact: in Severs’ house there were notices telling you not to touch the objects.

Still, it was a wonderful experience: a slice of history – well, several slices – a look at life; and a chance to wonder; and thank God – or Faraday, at least – for electricity…