Michelle Stuart: The Nature of Time
Alison Jacques Gallery
23rd June 2018
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| Installation view featuring Wind Book (1978), #6 Kingston (1973). and San Jan Ermita de Chiquimula (1978) |
I still remember the first time I saw Michelle Stuart’s work. I was standing in a Mayfair gallery and, as is often the case, I found myself lingering in the reference section, flicking through the publications on the shelves long after I had meant to leave. The clock was ticking and I had somewhere to be, but I kept thinking to myself ‘I’ll just look at one more… this one looks so interesting.’ It’s the sickness of the book-obsessed. I’m forever powerless before the lure of a well stocked library.
This time, the book that was calling to me was unassuming. It was paperback and thin and had Michelle Stuart’s name printed in white against a grey background. Underneath were two simple words: trace memory. I picked it up on a whim, expecting to flick through it quickly before returning it to its place. As this loving introduction betrays, of course, I left with it.
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| Sacred Solstice Alignment (1981) |
Her work captivated me instantly. The pages were filled with large grids of black and white photography, each grouping accompanied with a short poetic introduction to the work in addition to the cataloguing. They asked questions. They were full of complex and beautiful statements. They were full of the simple and the profound.
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| Chatham Boat (Pink Flag) (2017) |
I was kept glued to it all during my tube ride home, and once I was back in the little bedroom of my shared flat. I immediately set upon learning everything I could about her practice. There was, I quickly discovered, a lot to learn. Although she’s never found a huge amount of public recognition, her career has spanned nearly fifty years, and she’s experimented in a vast assortment of forms, from drawing to land art to painting to installation to photography. Her output as a whole has concentrated on the Earth, on humanity’s relationship to our environment, and to time. It has a cosmic scale but is always rooted in the specific— in place and time and culture. That night, I resolved to make her work a central element of my Master’s thesis and began collecting every book about her I could.
Still, while the obsession has continued ever since, I’ve never managed to see any of her work in person. She was highlighted in last year’s Venice Biennale but circumstances prevented me from making the trip to Italy. Her other recent exhibitions have all been in America, and I’ve been tragically separated by the Atlantic.
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| "The Nature of Time" installation view |
When I read that she would be having a solo exhibition at the Alison Jacques Gallery in London this summer, I simply couldn’t have been more excited. I was even more excited when I discovered that the the show would be spanning the full breadth of her career. Finally, the chance to see examples of all of the elements of her practice that I loved so much.
“The Nature of Time” begins with a small sculpture dating from just last year: a wooden boat set upon a white plinth. Like much of her work, the piece feels connected to some unknown, ancient ritual. In the same instant, it calls towards an unknown journey, urging forward and leading us to explore.
And explore I did, to my delight. Stepping into the main gallery space, I was delighted to discover some of the early pieces I had read so much about. Against one wall was ‘Moon,’ a 1969 drawing of the lunar surface inspired by recently released Apollo photographs. There were a few Earth Rubbings from the 1970s, large scrolls of paper that Stuart had painstakingly covered with dirt from specific sites. There were examples of the Rock Books she created around the same time, works that take the appearance of bound journals. Here, the pages are likewise made from rubbed earth. Without language, the earth of the site becomes the only content. The layers are like strata of rock. Landscape is read, and deep, geological time is presented as a story we can’t fully access.
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| Installation view featuring three seed paintings |
In all of the work in the space, nature is handled carefully and taken seriously. It feels precious, something to be treated with reverence and elevated to a place of grandeur. The three seed paintings grouped against one of the walls are a prefect example of this. They’re small canvas whose surfaces have been covered in wax and pale pigment, each holding a grid of seeds at their centre. Arranged in these careful rows, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the organised rows of a field. In their small scale mimicking, the seeds here feel like a promise. They’re held isolated and frozen in the wax, their growth held in a permanent state of potential.
Esca (1997) and Earth (Sayreville) (1997)
Seeds are featured in her installations as well. In several instances, large chestnut and hickory seeds are placed in bronze cradles, the vessel a reminder that we should be holding these precious objects in reverence. The containers here echo the dirt filled bowls found in other installations, and these works all read to me like types of altars. They feel ancient and mysterious and powerful. They’re reminders of all we don’t know, all that we take for granted. They’re reminders of the simple wonder of growing things, of the peace and power of all things wild, of the impossible miracle that we have somewhere to stand at all.
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| In the Beginning: Time and Dark Matter (Detail. 2016) |
Upstairs, there is an example of her recent photographic grids— the work that I first came across in my little paperback book. They’re now her primary way of working, and they’re a brilliant example of how she’s adapted and grown her practice along with her changing circumstances. The Earth Rubbings, after all, are very labour intensive and not a very practical format for an artist in her 80’s. Titled ‘In the Beginning: Time and Dark Matter,’ the grid is a mix of cosmic and microscopic imagery. Like all of her grids, it’s a mixture of sourced and original photography. It’s a compilation that’s about the long time of the universe and about all we cannot know. Like the little boat at the start of the exhibition, it urges you onwards. It urges you to explore and discover.
For me, I was thrilled to have the chance to explore Stuart’s work a little more, and I hope that more people in London will be discovering her remarkable body of work.
It’s on until the end of July, so don’t miss your chance.
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