The Fourth Plinth: Heather Phillipson

The Forth Plinth in Trafalgar Square was originally intended to hold an equestrian statue of William IV, however insufficient funds led to it remaining bare for over 150 years until the late 1990’s. The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce conceived an initial project for the plinth in 1999 which lasted until 2001 featuring works by Mark Wallinger, Bill Woodrow and Rachel Whiteread. Following this projects’ instant success, The Fourth Plinth Commissioning Group was established and subsequent works have included Nelson’s ship (HMS Victory) in a bottle with sails made from printed African fabric by Yinka Shonibare, a bronze boy on a rocking horse by Elmgreen & Dragset, a 4.72 metre high blue cockerel by Katharina Fritsch, a bronze human thumbs-up gesture by David Shrigley, and a recreation of a winged deity from 700BC Ninevah destroyed by Isis by Michael Rakowitz amongst others. Preamble over, and onto the current installation by Heather Phillipson entitled ‘The End’. It is the tallest work to grace the plinth at 9.4 metres high, and is an oversized dollop of whipped cream with various toppings; some traditional (a cherry and a fly) and some less typical (a drone, which transmits a live feed of Trafalgar Square and the works’ audience). As well as it’s obvious questioning of state and surveillance, the work was originally intended to comment on global uncertainly post-Brexit and in the wake of the 2016 Unites States elections, as the whipped cream suggests instability as well as being something excessive but nutritionally poor. However, coronavirus meant that its’ installation was postponed by four months, and the public’s perceptions will have inevitably changed during 2020, and the work will now be viewed in a different sociological context. As uncertainty prevails and we live in time of increasing political, social, and economic upheaval where Trafalgar Square will undoubtedly be host to numerous protests, celebrations, and activity – what an interesting time to capture this all via an innocent looking dollop of cream!

Cerith Wyn Evans – White Cube

White Cube made a positive step towards returning to post lockdown normality by responsibly re-opening both London gallery spaces in mid June with reduced opening hours and pre-booked timed visiting slots to enable social distancing and avoid queues. The Bermondsey space is host to Cerith Wyn Evans’ ‘No realm of thought… No field of vision’ featuring light and glass installations, sculpture and painting. Two neon works produced in Krypton gas greet you in the corridor – one shaped like a cube and the other a bow-tie – immediately suggestive of Evans’ interest in mechanics, shape, form and perspective that are the backbone of this exhibition. As you peel away from the corridor, a gallery to the right houses multiple hanging mobiles constructed from cracked vehicle window screens that revolve subtly, refracting light as it hits them. A gallery to the left displays two tress rotating on turntables so slowly it is barely perceptible with spotlights creating kinetic shadows on the walls, accompanied by four new paintings of simple black brushstrokes across each canvas. Striking as these installations are, your attention is stolen by the next space housing a mesmerising neon sculpture suspended from the ceiling, inspired by drawings of the first helicopter designed in 1907 as well as the artists own inaugural neon commission. The prodigious gallery at the end of the corridor continues to impress with an oversized neon screen of Japanese kanji characters; a translation of a passage from ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ written in 1921-22 by Marcel Proust, describing the movement of water through an 18^th century fountain. This is flanked by numerous other neon and sound works, including ‘Composition of Flutes’ and ‘Pli S=E=L=O=N Pli’ which suspend from the ceiling or emit out of sync piano compositions or pulsating tones; the perfect soundtrack to these beautifully tangled works.

Antony Gormley: Royal Academy of Arts

The traditional Georgian architecture of Burlington House isn’t an immediately obvious setting for Antony Gormley’s large-scale robust metal sculptures and installations, but it certainly works. The dark wood flooring, panelling and high ceilings act as the perfect backdrop to the works on display throughout the main galleries. It is an exhibition that builds momentum, has pace and conversely moments of calm. The first space you enter contains fourteen horizontal and vertical cubic sculptures – “slabworks” – very typical of Gormley and his abstract exploration of the human form and its relationship with the space around it, but dare I say it… nothing spectacular. As you turn the next corner a lower-ceilinged room is filled with arguably the worlds biggest doodle, a sculpture which dominates the space and is almost bursting its way through the floors, ceilings and connecting doorways. It is quite an experience walking around the 8 kilometres of coiled aluminium tube, taking it all in. Another oversized gallery space houses “Matrix III” created from steel mesh ordinarily used to reinforce concrete, but this time formed into a three dimensional structure which suspends from the ceiling. Despite its weight, it somehow looks light as it floats above visitors who are able to walk below and around it. The adjoining gallery spaces contain sketches and preliminary drawings of these two monumental works alongside other works on paper, and having just viewed them I welcomed understanding the process and mechanics behind them. A room filled with metal human forms either standing, floating horizontally from various walls or hanging upside down from the ceiling, oversized metal fruits suspended from a vaulted ceiling in another space, a monolithic sculpture fills another, and finally a reflective space where the gallery floor is filled with seawater make up the rest of the show. The exhibition is as ambitious as you would hope for from Gormley, and certainly put a spring in my autumnal step!

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Trio of female artists: White Cube Bermondsey

A trio of female artists have taken over White Cube Bermondsey for the current exhibitions; Palestinian born and London based Mona Hatoum is shown alongside American artist and activist Harmony Hammond, and Hungarian creative Dora Maurer whose work has spanned five decades. All three women work with different materials and use different mediums in their practice, but complement each other in that all of the works are more complex than they initially seem. Hatoum’s sculptures have a sense of fragility and the impression that they might collapse at any moment, echoing the current political sentiments of many countries. Despite several being constructed from robust materials including steel, concrete, bricks and iron filings – they dangle precariously from the ceiling or are positioned to look like pieces could clash into each other and shatter. Others have more obvious weaknesses including the charred remains of a kitchen, barley held together with chicken wire as the brittle ash could fracture at any moment, or are made from her own hair and nails. Hammond’s works mostly comprise large scale warm-white canvases. These have all been recently produced, but there is also a nod to her earlier feminist works evident in the display of ‘Bag IV’ created in 1971 and made from rags donated by female friends whilst living in New York and taking the form of a handbag which Hammond describes as three-dimensional brush strokes. This sculptural element continues in her newer canvases, which far from being flat surfaces include frayed edges, grommets, pin holes, and evidence of straps all thickly covered in paint. Maura’s paintings in contrast are bold and structured, and play with symmetry and graphics. Far from being simple however, this collection of rectangular and square canvases set at angles are cleverly transformed into seemingly three-dimensional floating forms through the simple use of colour.

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Elmgreen & Dragset: Whitechapel Gallery

I was an Elmgreen & Dragset neophyte until last autumn, then on a work trip to Paris I stumbled across the artistic duo’s 1,000 Starfish installation at Place Vendome. Once back in London I learnt that Whitechapel Gallery was hosting an exhibition dedicated to the Scandinavian pairs’ work, entitled ‘This is How We Bite our Tongue’… and with only a week left until it closes on 13 January, I was given the new year impetus I needed to go and view it! The entire ground floor gallery houses a new commission The Ghost of Whitechapel pool, which depicts a fictional empty swimming pool and using this now abandoned civic space the piece questions local government decisions to cut funding and close these shared spaces. The edges of the pool also play host to numerous other sculptures; a classical inspired male torso toppled over and lying on its side, bronze casts of a Mercedes car seat and cooling boxes, an aluminium meteor on a trampoline, and two urinals connected by interlinked twisted drainpipes. Moving upstairs a series of exhibition wall labels painted directly onto white canvas or carved in white marble pay tribute to artists who have inspired them, and are accompanied by an installation encouraging the public to sit at a desk, have a glass of whiskey and read through the artists’ diary. In the final room of the exhibition, each work features a somewhat anonymous figure, ranging from sculptures of a little boy staring at a rifle, to a pregnant house-maid and a little boy cowering in a fireplace, all finished in matte white with minimal features, to a judicial wig hung on the wall minus a wearer, the outlines of two portraits which were once hung on the wall, and two white pillows cast in bronze with the impressions of the heads previous sleeping there still imprinted into them.

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Dream Works: Kate MacGarry

On a humid London afternoon, the cold concrete space at Kate MacGarry offered some welcome refreshment… albeit with a sweating watermelon and various other surreal sculptures, installations and paintings which litter the gallery! The current ‘Dream Works’ exhibition is dedicated to four artists; two from the UK, one American and one Dutch who all explore ideas around surrealism, shape and form, and irrationality through a variety of mediums. The first of three concrete sculptures of oversized cucurbtia (google informs me this is a root vegetable akin to a squash!) is displayed on the floor as you enter, and a series of acrylic paintings by Luke Rudolf unified by their use of similar repetitive shapes in different colour palettes line the wall. As the corridor opens out into the gallery proper, a floor to ceiling wallpaper of a sweating watermelon and installation entitled ‘Bolobo Lamp’ both by British artist Jonathan Trayte dominate the space. These are joined by two prints of original watercolours by Dutch painter Madelon Vriesendorp and an oil on canvas work by American artist Jordan Kasey. Vriesdendorp’s piece ‘Flagrant Delit’ comes from an animation film made for French television and tells the story of the Statue of Liberty’s visit as a tourist to New York city, and her second work similarly offers an unusual take on city-scapes entitled ‘The City of the Captive Globe Revisited’. Jordan Kasey’s painting echoes the greys of the concrete sculptures and detail in both Rudolf and Vriesdendorp pieces, and zooms in on a small section of a staircase, making something mundane appear far more surreal. There is something overtly fun, arguably silly, and quietly challenging about all these works and I left the gallery smiling to myself as I re-emerged into the clammy city-scape of my own.

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Mark Dion: Whitechapel Gallery

Eccentric, fun, and an organised-hoarder are what spring to mind to describe American artist Mark Dion, having visited his retrospective at Whitechapel Gallery. Opening with ‘The Library for the Birds of London’, a new commission featuring live (yes live!) birds in an aviary with a tree at its centre and books littered across the floor and branches. This is surrounded by a variety of hunting lodges; each very different and filled with furnishings and belongings of their fictional inhabitants ranging from a librarian to a dandy. Several are off limits and you can merely peep in through the windows, whereas others allow you to climb the ladders and explore the miniature abode. Upstairs the idiosyncrasy continues with a recreation of a naturalists study complete with photographs, drawings, and prints as well as a unicorns’ horn half unpacked in a crate! The next gallery houses the ‘Bureau for the Centre of the Study for Surrealism’ mocking a museum curators office brimming with artefacts, archival material and ephemera which you catch snapshots of through office windows or the glass in the door. This is followed by a modern-day cabinet of curiosities where a set of wooden drawers is filled with neatly ordered bottle tops, discarded credit cards, broken plastic toys, bits of shoe, and other debris washed up by the Thames and collected by Dion and his team. As you push through heavy felt curtains to enter the last gallery, the dark space cleverly draws attention to the three glowing installations under UV light, each one filed with 3D sculptures of living and extinct animals, shells, bones and inanimate objects. After viewing a show which deliberately tries to classify animals, people and objects it would be interesting to hear how Dion views himself – as an artist, anthropologist, archaeologist, explorer, or a hybrid of all of those things. See what you think before the 13th May when the exhibition closes.

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Lydia Ourahmane: Chisenhale Gallery

On a cold, wet and miserable Saturday afternoon I decided to seek shelter from February’s weather at Lydia Ourahmane’s first solo exhibition in London. As a regular visitor to Chisenhale Gallery, I immediately noticed the difference to the main doors and entrance of the gallery space which are typically wooden but currently have a dark-mirrored effect achieved by covering silver doors in black sulphur (which over the course of the exhibition will revert back to silver as visitors and staff entering and exiting the space rub the black sulphur off). Another peculiarity is a wooden floor running throughout the space, which again is specific to this exhibition and embeds ‘Paradis’, a sound installation of audio recordings made by the artist in her native Oran, Algeria. Once these differences were noted, it became apparent that there is very little actually on display, and all three exhibits are concentrated in the right hand corner of the room, furthest from the door. These comprise a narrow display cabinet showcasing documents referencing the artists grandfathers’ resistance to military service under the French occupation of Algeria by extracting his own teeth, an x-ray of her own mouth showing a missing tooth, and a single gold tooth pinned to the gallery wall. As you read more of Ourahmane’s story and learn that she purchased a gold necklace from a market seller in Oran believing it had belonged to her mother, melted it down and cast two gold teeth from it, inserting one into her own mouth to replace a missing tooth and putting the other on display as part of this project, the exhibits resonate with each other and come full circle. Artistic soundscapes are often lost on me, and this was no exception, but despite not having a strong visual impact, Ourahmane cleverly manages to create a meaningful narrative using very few words, and raises pertinent questions about displacement, absence, family and place.

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Hannah Black: Chisenhale Gallery

The smell of paper, and more specifically warm paper going through a shredding machine is the first thing that hits you as you enter the doors of Chisenhale Gallery. Situated by the canal in east London, it’s not the typical scent of a cavernous warehouse, but a surprisingly welcome one at that! The introductory text on the first wall helps explains the smell, as the current exhibition is a new commission titled ‘Some Context’ by Manchester born – but now New York based – artist Hannah Black featuring a pile of 20,000 copies of a book and multiple shredders. Inside each of the copies of the book (entitled ‘The Situation’) is a different interpretation of a conversation between the artist and her friends about ‘the situation’ which will all be shredded at the end of the exhibition. The floor of the gallery is littered with a carpet of already shredded copies of ‘The Situation’, eight shredding machines, various small sculptures created out of modelling clay, and several “transitional objects” which look like cuddly toys. Through reading the accompanying exhibition notes, I learnt that the toys are also going to be shredded at the close of the exhibition – however I still failed to grasp their relevance beyond that. Black argues that the show “gestures towards the various potential uses of art’s uselessness” and so perhaps I (somewhat ironically) picked up on that in my view of the ‘useless’ cuddly toys. On a more positive note, a programme of events including a series of conversations where the public can come together to discuss a situation of their choice will also be taking place throughout the duration of the exhibition, complementing the commission nicely. On display until the 10^th December I’d certainly suggest poking your head into this interesting commission, and seeing if you appreciate the inclusion of the cuddly toys any more than I did!

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Evans, Janssens and Ortega: White Cube, Bermondsey

Three exhibitions for the price of one! In fact three exhibitions for the price of none if you head over to White Cube Bermondsey who offer free admission and are currently host to three different artists across their north, south and 9x9x9 gallery spaces. The first space you enter off the main corridor contains Cerith Wyn Evans’ huge neon installation ‘Neon Forms (After Noh IV) which is suspended from the ceiling and almost reaches the floor, combining single lines of light amidst chaotic overlapping assemblages. The north gallery space compliments the first show, as Ann Veronica Janssens’ sculptural works similarly play with light and perception; including halogen lamps, venetian blinds covered in gold leaf, reflective and mirrored surfaces and a spillage of glitter across the floor. The final (and largest) south gallery space is dedicated to Damian Ortega which again includes large-scale sculptures and installations alongside two-dimensional pieces. Orange infographics are pinned to the white walls, and although the imagery relates to a camera manual, the workings of a gun, or the planets within the solar system, closer inspection reveals that the labels are philosophical and comment on the impact technology has had on people’s faith and belief. Within these two-dimensional works are a series of industrial and mechanical sculptures such as the coliseum created from concrete blocks in concentric circles, and the clever ‘Deconstructing time’ sculptures which comprise the inner workings of a watch enlarged to an enormous scale and separated across the floor or stacked in free standing towers. The weather may be turning grey and miserable as autumn sets in, but the change in season also initiates the opening of several inspiring exhibitions to keep you indoors and happily distracted from the weather outside – and White Cube’s current offering certainly falls into that category!

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