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| All Images: Christopher Wool, Gagosian, Grovenor Hill, London December 2025 |
Over a number of years, New Year's celebrations tended to pass me by somewhat. I had developed the small personal tradition of seeing in the new year in reflective mood, ideally with a paintbrush and a glass of something in hand. Last year broke that trend, and it seems that this year, I will again be out and about in company as the calendar clicks over. So, instead of self-indulgently ruminating on my own 'progress' or aspirations, I'll make this last post of 2025 a celebration of my last exhibition experience of the year. As it transpires, Christopher Wool's recent show of works on paper and related sculptures turned out to be one of the most uplifting things I've seen in a long time.
I've long been a big fan of Wool's work, across the span of his career - from the early repeat patterns and painted texts, through the more painterly mid-period smears and stains, and into the ever-evolving tangles and movements towards 3D of his current 'grand old man' years. I find visual and intellectual nourishment in it all, to be honest, and consider him amongst the most engaging of those artists who prolong the relevance of centuries-old media, even as they are pushed back and forth through the reproduction and translation technologies of the mechanical/digital era. That productive tension between analogue and the technologically mediated realms, and between the improvisational 'in the moment' experience, and the fixed but infinitely tradable 'memory', continue to be key preoccupations in my own work.
However, beyond any of that (and above all), the show at Gagosian turned out to be a sheer sensory delight. Be it in the form of paper-based wall pieces, or mechanically-enlarged found wire tangles, Wool's language of scribbles, smears, stains, painterly gestures, printer's dots and occasional text fragments just went on mining limitless variation - often from the simplest of sources. Complexity out of minimal origins, calligraphic spontaneity, the tactility of fluid media, the chance effects of layering, the sheer delight of one thing partially glimpsed through the matrix of another, a determination to wring the maximum potential from the humblest or disregarded gifts the world can offer - all these things (and more) are in full effect in his work, it appears.
The show in London was actually a relatively modest variation on a larger exhibit, entitled 'See, Stop Run', which Wool installed in a disused and dilapidated New York office space in 2024. The remainder of this cycle of work has found a longer-term home in Marfa, Texas, apparently. As the stunning publication from the Manhattan show attests, the dialogue between work and context, and the material, visual and textural effects thereby generated, must have been endlessly stimulating. Urban resonances? - I should say so! That show immediately joins the list of 'things I wish I'd seen', but regrets will get us nowhere (and the prospect of a journey into the Trumpian hellscape doesn't really appeal, for obvious reasons). As it was, the stripped-down, pure-white cubicle version of Wool on offer in London, still provided an experience that continued to excite, even after a couple of hours of intensive immersion. It was only eye strain, aching legs and the need to find a publicly-accessible toilet (come on, Gagosian - surely that's not too much to ask!), that eventually dragged me away.
Incredibly, even this opportunity might have easily passed me by. Having already been down in London for some other exhibitions a few weeks previously, it was purely by chance that I'd retrospectively noticed Wool was on show just a few hundred metres from where I'd been that day. For all of Gagosian's status within the high-end international art world, its Grovenor Hill site just isn't a location you walk past by chance, it seems. Knowing that opportunities to see a collection of his work over here don't come around too often, I hastily cleared another Saturday in the diary, organised more coach tickets, and braved torrential rain (and a few other logistical complications) to make it there before the show ended, just prior to the descent into full-on Christmapalypse. Regrets? - I'm sure the eulogy above will tell you I have none.
It's gratifying to be able to end the year with a report of something genuinely uplifting, even as it sneaked-in under the wire of 2025. Indeed, this wasn't just a cultural high water mark of my year, but one of the most memorable of the last decade. It's just a shame I can't use this slightly-delayed post as a prompt for others to also visit, but perhaps my photos can offer some pale impression of what I enjoyed.
On that note: Happy New Year, one and all. Clearly, the good stuff's still out there, if we look hard enough.
Still composed [shamelessly] without A.I., in 2025.
