'Somewhat Abstract' At Nottingham Contemporary 2

Nottingham Contemporary, April 2014

To avoid an essay of excessive proportions, I concentrated on paintings in my first post about the current exhibition at Nottingham Contemporary, ‘Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection’.  However, there was plenty of work in other media that also caught my eye in the show so, in the name of completeness and balance, I’ll run through some of it here.  As before, while some of these pieces are clearly abstract (or abstracted) in formal/visual terms, others represent curatorial attempts to include different strands of abstract thought and conceptual agendas within the show’s overall scope.

Foreground: Rachel Whiteread, 'Untitled (6 Speces)', Resin, 1994.  Background:  Work By
Prunella Clough (Left Hand Wall), & Karin Ruggaber (Right Hand Wall).

Rachel Whiteread, ‘Untitled (6 Spaces)’, Resin, 1994:  For me, Whiteread’s sculpture has a sophistication sometimes lacking amongst work by others of the YBA generation.  This may be because, whilst her casts of unremarkable negative spaces clearly sample specific sections of the actual world, they become resonant abstract forms in their own right through the simple inversion of positive/negative reality.  Here, she solidifies the spaces bounded by the legs of a series of seats.  Recognising the sources of her sculpture inevitably releases a whole raft of responses and associations, (most obvious in her concrete cast of an entire house’s interior), but always in the wake of its monumental presence within a given space.

Rachael Whiteread, 'Untitled (6 Spaces)', Resin, 1994

Art students past and present probably associate Whiteread’s M.O. with those drawing exercises depicting the spaces between objects, but I always found them to be a philosophical, as well as formal investigation.  Certainly, the simplest ideas are often the best, as is demonstrated here.  Although familiar, this row of casts still has the power to activate its surroundings and each acquires a gorgeous inner glow, itself implying a spatial dimension, through the use of transparent, amber-coloured resin.

John Latham, 'Shaun II', Mixed Media, 1958

John Latham, ‘Shaun II’, Mixed Media, 1958:  Although this wall-based piece involves canvas and black spray paint, it can’t really be categorised as a painting.  Collaging together Latham’s trademark charred books and sections of plumbing, it’s actually pretty characteristic of his highly conceptual assemblage work.

John Latham, 'Shaun II' (Detail), Mixed Media, 1958

It always feels like there’s more than a hint of post-Holocaust angst underlying Latham’s experimental, conceptual agenda.  His main concern may be to parody established knowledge systems, but is it too obvious or corny to see allusions to Nazi book burnings and industrialised genocide amongst these charred pages, pipes and taps?  Latham famously got into some bother for his routine destruction of books in different ways, although it appears to have been often for want of permission, more than on deeper philosophical grounds.

Amikam Toren, 'Received Wisdom', Plywood, Metal & Vinyl, 2006

Amikam Toren, ‘Received Wisdom’, Plywood, Metal & Vinyl, 2006:  Toren’s amusing piece also examines ideas about ‘official’ knowledge and the transmission of accepted ideas, although in a slightly less tortuous manner than Latham’s.  Here, he employs an adaptive, furniture-based approach to the Duchampian Readymade, (which isn’t so unusual these days), adapting a lecture theatre chair to make his point.  By laminating numerous layers of plywood onto the seat’s integral table surface, (abstracting it in the process), Toren extrudes a towering edifice of knowledge or a manifestation of accumulated study, (I suppose).  If not exactly the most complex idea in the world, it does result in an intriguing and amusing object that made me stop and think, at least  for a moment or two.

Yoko Ono, 'All White Chess Set', Painted Travel Chess Set, 1962-70

Yoko Ono: ‘All White Chess Set’, Painted Travel Chess Set, 1962-70:  Imagine there’s a chess set, in which all the pieces and squares are painted white, (I wonder if you can?).  Imagine Yoko Ono made it…

Is it too much to hope it’s not the only one?

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear', Steel, Brass, Enamel,
Muslin,  & Ribbon, (Date Unknown). 

Cathy De Monchaux, ‘Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear’, Steel, Brass, Enamel, Muslin, & Ribbon, and, ‘Ferment’, Lead, Steel & Velvet, 1988:  I first encountered De Monchaux’s work in 1997, at Prague’s Galerie Rudolfinum, in whose grand interiors, their alien-gothic aesthetic sat rather well.  Both these pieces are wall mounted and demonstrate, in different ways, her obsessive, erotically charged approach to sculpture.  Employing 3D CAD and the kind of filigree intricacy one might expect from a deranged jewelry designer, De Monchaux creates works of disturbing Freudian beauty.  Superficially, they remind me slightly of H.R. Geiger’s twisted SF designs, but more interestingly, appear to explore the relationship between (abstract) material qualities and psychosexual impulse at the heart of all fetishism.

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Ferment', Lead, Steel & Velvet, 1988

Cathy De Monchaux, 'Clearing The Tracks Before They Appear', Steel, Brass, Enamel, Muslin
& Ribbon,  (Date Unknown).

‘Clearing The Tracks…’ combines the delicacy of fabric and the repeated spikiness of metal hair combs in a torus-shaped mandala that is intrinsically feminine, but also suggests animal dentistry.  Meanwhile, the implications of the ’ tubular metal forms inserted into each other and peeling to expose puckered red velvet interiors, in ‘Ferment’, are unmistakable.  I guess it could all be just me but I really don’t think so.

Paul Graham, Photographs Of DHSS Benefits Claims Offices, C-Type Photographic Prints,
1985-85

Paul Graham, 'Man Filling In Form, Dole Office, Liverpool', C-Type Photographic Print, 1984.

Paul Graham, ‘DHSS Emergency Centre, Elephant & Castle, South London’, 1984; ‘Baby & Interview Cubicles, Brixton DHSS, South London’, 1984-85; ‘Man Filling In Form, Dole Office, Liverpool’, 1984; ‘Boy & Window Bars, Handsworth DHSS, Birmingham’, 1984-85.  All Photographic C-Type Prints:  There’s a distinct socio-political theme running through part of ‘Somewhat Abstract’, of which Graham’s four photographs would be an obvious example.  Whilst documenting the realities of the benefits system during the first term of Margaret Thatcher’s Tory government, Graham places as much emphasis on the tawdry atmospheres of DHSS offices, as on the claimants subsumed within them.  Wearing period fashions, they appear stranded amidst shabby décor and tired illumination that suggest a Kafkaesque situation of failed utopianism and shifting political priorities.  It may be difficult to see these photos as abstract until one recognises that their inhabitants are really caught between the abstract theories of competing ideologies.  It all feels like a time capsule from my own first few, fairly directionless,  post-college years.

Mark Lewis, 'Children's Games, Heygate Estate', 35mm Film Transferred To DVD, 2002

Mark Lewis, ‘Children’sGames, Heygate Estate’, 35mm Film Transferred To DVD, 2002:  A similar exploration of unfashionable social policy, based on essentially abstract ideas, underpins Mark Lewis’ excellent short film, (also, coincidentally, set in London’s Elephant & Castle district).  His steady-cam glides effortlessly around the ramps, elevated walkways and communal open spaces of the recently demolished Heygate Estate with an air of palpable artificiality.  Completed in 1974, and with a latter-day reputation for crime and social deprivation, The Heygate was, for many, symbolic of all that went wrong with the social/housing policies of Post-War Concensus.  However, many of the residents felt rather differently and, predictably, the current redevelopment plans feature only a fraction of the affordable housing that once occupied its Modernist blocks.

Mark Lewis, 'Children's Games, Heygate Estate', 35mm Film Transferred To DVD,  2002

Bathed in idyllic sunlight and populated by apparently carefree inhabitants at play, the film seems to capture something of the idealised world past planners may have envisioned, whilst questioning the very notion of ‘progress’, (and who exactly benefits from it).  Given my own fascination with urban environments and supposedly low status locations, and after my own fumbling attempts to shoot dynamic-view video, I was inevitably fascinated by this piece.

Karin Ruggaber, 'Slabs', Concrete, Plaster, Wood & Bark, 2004

Karin Ruggaber, ‘Slabs’, Concrete, Plaster, Wood & Bark, 2004:  Ruggaber is a new artist to me, but, (research suggests), one whose work chimes with some of my own interests.  This assemblage of small, wall-based cast reliefs clearly recalls degraded architectural surfaces, resembling collected small samples of rugged materiality.  They are formally abstract but instantly recognisable from the world around us, and actually felt like sections from the kind of photographs of urban surfaces and architectural details I’d taken minutes earlier.  None of this is particularly original, (indeed, I half-attempted something similar a while back).  However, a little research indicates that Ruggaber often introduces another dimension into her casts, by incorporating fabric, and that their careful arrangement across a gallery’s walls is an important part of her project.  It feels like a room full of them might be worth seeing.

Richard Smith, 'Livorno', Acrylic Paint,  Canvas, String & Wooden Dowel, 1972

Richard Smith, ‘Livorno’, Acrylic Paint, Canvas, String & Wooden Dowel, 1972:  Like John Hoyland, (also represented in the exhibition), Smith is a once-big name whose work now feels rather neglected by Art History.  He’s also an artist, like Prunella Clough, (likewise), whose work I often encounter in slightly dusty provincial collections.  He’s often associated with British Pop Art but appears to have engaged as much with the emblematic and physical properties of packaging as with commercial imagery per se.  In retrospect, the problem may be that, (like Hoyland’s), his work can seem like the end of something, rather than leading anywhere particularly new.  None of that is as important as the fact that I just like this piece as a thing.

Smith was primarily a painter, but one who was fascinated by the idea of the painting as a physical object.  Here, he moves into what could be better described as wall-based, abstract relief sculpture.  Paint is still involved, but merely as a way to self-colour the canvas of an object intended to recall a kite in its construction.  It explores the literal and expressive tension between fabric and the wooden poles and stress cords that lend it structure.  The pleasingly scalloped overall contour results from the internal tautness of the piece and speaks of Smith’s interest in his canvas as physical material, rather than as merely a support for pigment/imagery.

David Batchelor, 'Festival', Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes, Coloured
Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights, Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electrical Cable, 2006

David Batchelor, ‘Festival’, Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes, Coloured Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights, Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electrical Cable, 2006:  I’ve become very interested in David Batchelor’s work, but hadn’t seen any for real until my visit to the ‘Since 1843: In The Making’ show, (also in Nottingham), earlier this year.  This piece is exhibited separately from the main body of ‘Somewhat Abstract’, facing out from a window and, consequently, almost impossible to photograph on a bright day.  Nonetheless, it’s predictably enjoyable and represents Batchelor’s customary delight in the properties of colour, artificial light and synthetic/found materials.  Accompanying information explains it was part of a commission to create Christmas illuminations for London’s Hayward Gallery, which I now wish I had seen.

David Batchelor, 'Festival' (Detail), Wheeled Hopper Bin, Fluorescent Lighting Tubes,  Coloured
Polycarbonate, Decorative Rope Lights,  Plastic Bottles, Dexion & Electric Cable, 2006

Before leaving The Contemporary, I paused for a while in their study room.  I spent some time in there, browsing a book of David Batchelor’s found-in-the-street white ‘Monochromes’ [1.], an aspect of his oeuvre that link especially with my own interests.  An hour later, while waiting to meet a friend in Waterstone’s bookshop, I found and purchased a copy of Batchelor’s book, ‘The Luminous And The Grey’ [2.], which I’m looking forward to reading soon.  Whether through chance, or because one is always seeking connections subconsciously, it seems that things just join up.

‘Somewhat Abstract: Selections From The Arts Council Collection’, continues until 29 June 2014 at Nottingham Contemporary, Weekday Cross, Nottingham NG1 2GB.  I definitely recommend it.

[1.]:  Jonathan Ree, ‘David Batchelor Found Monochromes Vol.1’, Ridinghouse, London, 2010.

[2.]:  David Bachelor, ‘The Luminous And The Grey’, London, Reaktion Books, 2014.