Oil Change: Revisiting Richard Wilson's '20:50'

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel, (Site Specific Installation), 1987

I accompanied some GCSE students from the school I work at on a trip to the Saatchi Gallery in London the other day.  Whatever one may think of its patron, (and his influence over the art market), The Saatchi has become a significant feature in the contemporary art landscape, and it was the first time I had visited its current home in the Duke of York’s old HQ on King’s Road.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

I won’t pretend I was particularly captivated by the main exhibition on display, (a mixed show entitled ‘Paper’), although I hope the students got more from it than I did.  However, it was interesting to see the extensive, well-lit galleries and especially pleasing to see Richard Wilson’s famous site-specific installation '20:50’ in its current home in the basement.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

For anyone who doesn’t already know, '20:50’ is created by tanking the entirety of whichever space it occupies with sheet steel, and flooding it with used, sump oil.  The illusion is of a deep lake of oil, although I understand the actual tank is elevated and much shallower than one is led to assume.  A steel walkway extends partially into the room placing the oily surface at about waist level, (and reinforcing the illusion of depth), although access to this is restricted.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1987

Far stiller than water could ever be, the viscous, black oil creates a vast, impassive mirror that creates a genuine sense of perceptual ambiguity.  It’s a completely alien situation unlike any other one might witness, with its strangeness further enhanced by the heavy aroma emanating from the oil.  I was intrigued by it in its previous, interim incarnation at County Hall but it works much better in the new gallery.  Surrounded by off-white walls and dynamically accented by vertical supporting pillars, it is beautifully illuminated by a mix of ceiling light panels and daylight emitting windows to create a minimal environment suffused with shimmering atmosphere.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel (Site Specific Installation), 1887

’20:50’ is one of those grand artistic statements that might mean anything or nothing to the viewer.  It might evoke thoughts and feelings about eternity, infinity, impassivity, reflectivity, unknowable depth, ‘the void’, spatial ambiguity, immersion or pretty much whatever profound associations one wants it to.  It might equally speak of materiality and there’s also something vaguely disquieting about the idea of so much essentially toxic fluid gathered together in one place.  Such large-scale open-endedness can result in spectacular empty gestures, (something Anish Kapoor’s work often suffers from these days), but I think ‘20:50’ avoids that somehow.  First exhibited in 1987, Wilson’s oil appears to have found its true level in Chelsea and to have outlived its initial impact to become a work of lasting resonance.

Richard Wilson, '20:50', Sump Oil & Stainless Steel
(Site Specific Installation), 1987

‘Paper’ continues at Saatchi Gallery, Duke of York’s HQ, King’s Road, London, SW3 4RY until 5 November 2013.  ’20:50’ is there for the foreseeable future, (I imagine).