SUMMER CATCH UP
Royal Academy and Modern Art Oxford
July & August 2017
The Oxfordshire countryside is whizzing past my window as I write, the sky overhead grey with rain, threatening to let go at any second. It’s a veritable English ideal— lush green grass and rolling hills and winding creeks and fields of standing cows. It’s early and in different weather, I know I’d be able to see the sun low in the sky, still struggling to rise.
What’s that you say? I’m getting a little bit overly poetic about my new commute? No doubt you’re right and in six months, I’m sure that the sheen will have worn off. Still, I’m going to appreciate these still mornings as long as I can. Forgive me.
Especially as this rather long winded introduction is really just a way to apologise for the fact that it’s been more than a few weeks since you’ve last heard from me…. As you might have gathered, I started a new job! I’m working in London now, using my degree and everything. I’ve also moved into a new flat in Oxford since I last wrote, and I’m still writing reviews for this is tomorrow. Between all that and frantically trying to read the Booker Longlist before the shortlist is announced in September (an annual goal of mine that I never manage to complete), I haven’t had too much time for writing.
Fear not though! While I haven’t had too much time for writing, I always have time for art. Just the other weekend, I popped into the Royal Academy just in time to catch the Summer Exhibition. These types of showcases can be so difficult to review— with so much material and without any clear themes, it’s hard to know where to begin. My review of Masterpiece 2017, sitting half-completed in a folder of abandoned posts, is testament to that fact.
It’s huge and exhausting and frankly, a real mixed bag. Thank god they have a bar. Of course, the rooms are filled with the beautiful and inspiring, but at the same time, there’s more than a few pieces and rooms that just fall completely flat. The blending of medium and taste and theme is all part of the joy, though. You never know what you’re going to find, and it’s always a pleasure to discover new artists and to be surprised by the big names you thought you already knew well.
I always really enjoy the room devoted to architectural drawings, as they’re not something you often see in gallery spaces. Other highlights for me included Mathilde ter Heijne’s Woman to Go, a rack of postcards that each have a photograph and a biography of a woman from history. Situated right by the entry, it was a delightful and inspired opening. I also really enjoyed getting to see Ann Christopher’s work again. I went to her small exhibition at the RA the other year, but I had never seen her sculptural pieces before. I actually found myself really drawn to the sculpture in the show in general. While the paintings were often either a bit bland or lost in the hang, the sculpture consistently stood out.
I was able to see the exhibition upstairs, “Matisse in the Studio,” while I was there as well, and that was a real treat too. It was small and I can’t say that I really came away with a greater understand of Matisse as a painter, but it was fun to see some of the objects he was dawn to. If nothing else, it made me want to bring colour and pattern and texture into my life in new ways. And of course, it’s always a delight to see Matisse.
Before I go (and before my train pulls into Marylebone), I want to quickly talk the two exhibitions currently on at Modern Art Oxford. Before I started my new job, I was volunteering with them regularly, so I’ve been able to see both exhibitions several times, and I can say for sure that they’re worth travelling to Oxford for. The smaller exhibition, occupying the Piper Gallery, is a chapter in Aleksandra Mir’s ongoing project “Space Tapestry.” Through three monumental wall drawings and a series of smaller works on paper, Mir explores the current state of satellite technology and space flight. With influences as wide reaching as the Bayeux Tapestry and 1960s comic books, it’s a a stunning look at how we balance our objectives, our ideals and our technological realities. With the combination of science and art, it’s completely up my alley, and I’ve been slowly making my way through the reading list that Mir put together to accompany the show.
The major exhibition on at Modern Art Oxford right now though, occupying the majority of the exhibition space, is a posthumous show of the British artist Rose Finn-Kelcey’s work. I had never heard of her before I was introduced to her at MAO, but I can say without a doubt that her work deserves a bigger audience.
Born in 1945, Finn-Kelcey’s practice is placed curiously in the timeline of art history— while she came to be known as a member of the YBAs, she got her start in the 1970s and 1980s creating site specific installations and performances pieces. The exhibition at Modern Art Oxford covers this whole period, from the early 1970s up until her death in 2014, and incorporates work of a dizzying array of mediums— photograph, collage, performance documentation, sketches, installations. Grouped by theme rather than by time period, the exhibition creates strong through-lines, highlighting connections between these seemingly disparate periods of her work.
Often playing with the idea of public space and using notions of the everyday, Finn-Kelcey compellingly explores power, doubt, spirituality, and ideas of the self. For me, the most captivating piece in the show is the brilliant Bureau de Change. Situated just as you walk into the gallery, it’s a complex installation. Thousands of coins are laid onto a raised wooden platform, pattered to resemble Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. A guard stands nearby. A CCTV camera watches over the image, projecting an arial image onto a small television screen. A wooden platform is placed in front of the image and you’re invited to step up and view the piece from above yourself.
Inspired by the 1987 sale of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at Christie’s which fetched a then record breaking sum, Bureau de Change plays brilliantly with our ideas of authority and value. Like all of Finn-Kelcey’s work, however, it isn’t a straight criticism. The coins, after all, are small, mostly coppers. While this still gives it a literal value, it’s far less than a Van Gogh would fetch at auction. Instead, they’re the coins that populate our lives, perpetually sitting at the bottoms of our handbags or getting fished out of the washing machine. Indeed, that’s exactly where they’ll go when the exhibition concludes and the coins— the material of the art— are deposited back at the bank and returned to circulation.
It asks questions but doesn’t answer them. Where do we derive value? What gives something authority? How does an external structure cause change? How can art be accessible? What is the place of art in everyday life? The rest of the pieces in the exhibition are just as brilliant, and even if you can’t get out to Oxford, I highly recommend looking into her practice. If you, like me, hadn’t heard of her before now, you’re in for a treat.
People around me are starting to shuffle in their seats and pack away their laptops, so I think I better sign off there for today! I can’t say that I’ll be able to keep up a weekly schedule like I was doing before I started the new job, but I can promise that it won’t be radio silence from me.
You’ll be hearing from me.
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