(installation view : iamb: Through the Limbo of Vanity @ Vilma Gold)
Daria Martin @ Maureen Paley
This exhibition consisted of Martin's most recently completed film "Harpstrings & Lava" and a series of related works on paper. The film focuses on the performances of the actress Nina Fog and the musician Zeena Parkins, both long term collaborators with Martin. Beautifully timed and thoughtful, the Super 8 projection follows the two separate performers, moving from light to dark and from order to chaos. Although I became fully engrossed with the film, the related drawings added no more insight to it and for me were totally unnecessary.
This exhibition consisted of Martin's most recently completed film "Harpstrings & Lava" and a series of related works on paper. The film focuses on the performances of the actress Nina Fog and the musician Zeena Parkins, both long term collaborators with Martin. Beautifully timed and thoughtful, the Super 8 projection follows the two separate performers, moving from light to dark and from order to chaos. Although I became fully engrossed with the film, the related drawings added no more insight to it and for me were totally unnecessary.
"Moravia" @ Cell Project Space
The work of note at this exhibition was Sam Plagerson's porcelain Sigmund Freud Toby Jugs. Exploring the drive and obsession of collection, his reproductions of Freud's bust changes but also reconsiders the authority of the subject matter. Coloured in soft tones, juxtaposed with glossy gold render the head into something grotesque and ugly, not something you would want in your display cabinet. "Plagerson's work explores and questions reproduction and the psyche of contemporary imaging in a post industrialised society"
R.H. Quaytman + Josef Strau "iamb: Through the Limbo of Vanity" @ Vilma Gold
Quaytman and Strau have both worked and developed their artistic practise through close collaboration with other artists and both have run non-traditional art spaces. Their concerns with textual qualities, curation and within this exhibition they challenge the historic practise of illustration and how it's status and function informs each of them in different ways. They are interested in how text can be objectified, bro-ken down and reconstructed to make new meanings. From this came the decision that the exhibition path would invite the viewer through a hybrid letter form based on their initials. In the 2nd gallery space a collection of new paintings are stacking on shelves, here the visitors can pull paintings from the shelves (white gloves provided) and hang or lean them on the wall. I think a major intention for the show was to make something different and unusual for a typical East End gallery and I think they definitely achieved their objective. It was really liberating and exciting to be in that environment, and to explore. V good.
Kate Street "Little Death" @ Nettie Horn
Strangley similar in theme to Lauders show at Fred, Kate Street's first UK solo show at Nettie Horn was an absolute delight. Using mythologies, proverbs and stories as a starting point, she makes incredible rich sculptures using the form of the funeral wreath. The assemblages contain jewels, flowers, taxidermy, biscuits, shells, bones and other found objects and are intended to subvert the viewers typical ideas of romance, and belief. The circles seem to explore the dual aspects of the work; the associations created by the objects and the title and her own search for meaning within communication.
Also on display were a number of bizarre anatomical drawings, creating new forms and concepts. They too reflect parallels between nature and art and compliment the larger sculptural forms.
Matthew Usmar Lauder "Fable" @ FRED
Appropriating images and stills from old East German television series, Lauder transforms images into dark, haunting canvases. By balancing photographic and painterly techniques some of the images look cracked and damaged, but from a distance they sometimes look hand-drawn and sensitive. Reading the information about the show I learnt much of the imagery was based on fairy tales and how often they can have a twisted narrative. Unfortunately I didn't see any of this in the work and I failed to engage with it.
