 |
| EXHIBITION POSTCARDS - Pauline Woolley 2015 |
An overdue trip to London resulted in a visit to The Media Space to see Revelations: Experiments in Photography and then over to Tate Modern to see the Agnes Martin show.
Early on in the year I was given the accompanying book to the Revelations exhibition for my birthday and so I was very eager to see the work in the flesh. The show transported the viewer from the early salt prints of Fox Talbot's diatoms and insect wings to the contemporary explorations of other artists such as Sharon Harper's moon images and Idris Khan's collapsed images of Eadweard Muybridge.
Overall, the exhibition balanced well the early pioneers with their now contemporary counterparts, and successfully made the strong link between the factual and aesthetics of scientifically influenced photography. With this being a big theme in my own work, I left feeling that I may have to go and revisit this show when it travels to Bradford later on in the year.
From photography to painting, the Agnes Martin exhibition could not have been more different. I have been interested in the concept of the grids for a long time especially in the realms of maps and cartography. I also have a curiosity for artists who are able to maintain and develop a motif over a long time span. In some instances a life time. Being able to continue that momentum and keep a desire to rework and rework something I find very compelling.
Martin's painting have a quiet hum to them. Grids can be seen as containers, confinement and entrapment, but these works breathed space and expansion. Room 5 featured a selection of Martin's 72 inch by 72 inch graphite and coloured pencil paintings. This work had a different but parallel effect to how I feel when sitting in the Rothko room. Rothko's room has a heavy energy that draws me in and out. To me it feels like the act of deep breathing. Agnes Martin's grids were similar in that it commanded the space but had more out breaths and lightness. Almost an infinite expansion with endless possibilities.
I am an artist and not a critic, but I did find the gallery spaces the works were in distracting. Others would have loved the juxtaposition of repeating rectangular windows, floorboards with inset ventilation grids, but on this occasion I wanted the work in a white cube with a neutral floor. You could see the public smiling whilst pointing out and enjoying the similarities between the works on the walls on the fixtures and fittings of the building. Maybe on another day I would have felt the same. I think my brain was starting to fade with exhibition/London fatigue.
A good visit and two exhibitions well worth visiting.
