DAN FLAVIN - A SPACE BETWEEN FAITH AND FUSE.
colored fluorescent light - David Zwirner LONDON.
SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT: Interior space bathed in the fluorescent light of Dan Flavin at David Zwirner, London.
You can feel the works or ‘situations’ on display of the late artist Dan Flavin in the London gallery of David Zwirner before you actually see them - rooms bathed with the reflected light of the installations - which flood the spaces with silent torrents - light licks the door frames, pooling down the stairwell - even mirroring back via the steel elevator doors - like camp Rothko ghost discos - and the stillness is unnervingly tense.
The proportions of Flavin’s works feel bodily tall and statuesque - a vertical procession of sci-fi Giacomettis.
Dan Flavin untitled (fondly, to "Phip"), 1976. Pink, yellow, and blue fluorescent light 8 ft. (244 cm) high - Above image: Anna Arca. Courtesy David Zwimer.
The essence of a deserted city - architectural linear struts viewed in slow motion - a rhythm reduced to a single series of beats - slowed down to its very essence - and how that essence burns - Absinthe strong viewed through the blurry haze of the bottom of a glass with the muffled murmurings of ones self - alone in the bar at the end of the night before dawn breaks - like a Hopper painting - a depiction of the lone figure - the fallen heroic image of American ambition - bare, brave, brazen - the prowess of the Cadillac’s tale lights, the comfort of the illuminated refrigerator interior, the wonderment of Las Vegas.
Dan Flavin untitled, 1976. Pink, red, and blue fluorescent light 8ft.(244cm) wide Edition of 5. Above image: Anna Arca. Courtesy David Zwimer.
The glow of that fluorescent light - rich and full of life - sugar wet - gleaming off the walls - like the opaque lustre of dewy skinned youth - rooms blush with a sweet sinister knowing - the crude colours of a 1960s American Dream - colours that smile with perfect teeth and yet - somehow have no emotion - cherry red, bubblegum pink, sponge blue, spearmint green, lemon yellow and four shades of white described as ‘cool, daylight, warm and soft’ - all feel like the optimistic pre-packaged domestic stuffs found on mid-century supermarket shelves - created in response to a societies growing desire for ease, comfort and immediacy - for a low-fat, high taste holistic experience. Flavins’ work manages to trick you wonderfully into believing that - somehow we are not looking at ready-made - readily available lighting equipment bought wholesale for the needs to illuminate the domestic - rather his brilliance is in highlighting what we cannot see.
Dan Flavin - untitled (fondly, to "Phip"), 1976 - detail. *Flavin described his works as ‘situations’.
It is tempting to philosophically trace possible meanings within the works back to the artists’ faith and his training to become a Catholic Priest - choosing to devote his time to his ‘situations* as an artist instead of the cloth - how intrinsically linked light and faith are - the sacristy lamp - forever burning as a reminder to the faithful of hope in a sin-darkened world. The currency of electricity - giver and taker of life - silently powering our modern lives - unthanked and invisible.
Above image: Anna Arca. Courtesy David Zwimer.
Dan Flavin - colored fluorescent light - David Zwirner - 24 Grafton Street, LONDON - until 18 February.
Thank you Dr. Kyung Hwa Shon for the recommendation.
Special thanks: Shuyu Wen and Sara Chan at David Zwirner London.
LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE - A SPACE BETWEEN PAUSE AND PLAY.
‘Fly In League With The Night’ Tate Britain LONDON.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - ‘A Bounty Left Unpaid’ 2011.
The first image I ever saw made by the artist Lynette Yiadom-Boakye was of a striding figure, wearing the embodiment of elegance - a white shirt, tucked into lean black trousers and worn with what I imagined to be soft suede dance shoes - this picture has since I first saw it epitomised everything I love about portraiture - a sense of the subject - an image which proposes more questions than answers - Like Henry Raeburn’s ‘The Skating Minister’, who seems to share a silhouette with Yiadom-Boakyes striding figure, both step out into a landscape of what appears to be water and yet are moments frozen in a state of motion - permanent in paint - ephemeral in action.
Arriving at this exhibition - directly after seeing the Cézanne retrospective, the parallels between the work of both artists quickly felt pertinent. In media they share the use of oil paint on canvas of course, aesthetically both apply pigment thickly, with impulsive brushstrokes - tenderly capturing the soul of their subjects - and as colourists both share a love for dazzling and emotive combinations, with expanses of shades which draw breath.
Learning that Yiadom-Boakye’s preliminary process involves found images instead of painting directly from life - a self-made reality collaged - adds to the sense of enigma that this show presents. The paintings' titles are equally fascinating - like tracks of an album whose lyrics inspire philosophical unravelling and personal loyalties like anthems learnt during privately pivotal times of change. Music in fact was in the air and in the paintings - with a specific playlist of tracks chosen by the artist - heard at the show's conclusion - an amazing sense of sound caught up within the brush strokes seemed palpable and metaphysical, like grains of sand found in Monet sea scapes - so I imagine notes to be embedded within Yiadom-Boakye’s canvas.
The portraits of dancers further evidence a metamorphic state of rhythm. Life moments on record, like camcorder movies paused, waiting to be played by a viewer boiling water or answering the landline - so are the paintings by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - domestic moments mirrored in canvas - palpably poised - the intake and exhale of breath as tea is sipped and advice offered. A cross-reference is irresistible to Carrie Mae Weems 1990 ‘Kitchen table series’ - private and intimate frames with extraordinary confessional qualities.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - ‘Penny For Them’ 2014.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - ‘Few Reasons Left To Like You’ 2020.
As within television or classical portraiture, the use of the fourth wall - where the subject directly looks out into the audiences gaze is fascinating - particularly so within ‘few reasons left to like you’ - the reflected surface of the table which repeats the subjects folded arms and that stare, mysterious yet familiar seems somehow to offers a mirror to the viewer. Similarly, a direct stare is seen within the exhibition poster - a young child looking out from a background of green, with eyes which feel too young to be filled with such sadness or is that just the viewer's interpretation of their own reflected self?
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye - ‘A Passion Like No Other’ 2012.
Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Fly In The League With The Night - Tate Britain, London - Until 26 February 2023.
Special Thanks: Anna Overden
DANIEL OBASI - A SPACE BETWEEN DIGNITY AND DEFIANCE.
“BEAUTIFUL RESISTANCE” FASHION EYE LAGOS - the first book by Daniel Obasi - published by Louis Vuitton.
RED HOT - No.32 in the ‘FASHION EYE’ series published by Louis Vuitton. LAGOS by Daniel Obasi is edited by Patrick Rémy.
The concept for this brilliant series is exactly what the title implies - one location seen through the lens of one image maker published by Louis Vuitton - The Maison synonymous with voyages of discovery - and a beautiful document emerges - an offering for an audience hungry for images and nostalgic for adventure. And so a library of volumes grows like dots on an ever-expansive map. 32 to date including Peter Lindbergh’s Berlin, Harley Weir’s Iran, Saul Leiter’s New York - Sarah Moon even captures The Orient Express - proving the journey can be as memorable as the destination.
Each are presented in line with the Vuitton knowledge of excellence - silkscreen-printed, cloth bound, equal in size and format - rendered in a double shade colour mix - like a pleated case from an Haute Chocolatier. A delicate inlaid image in gloss on the cover - like a travel sticker souvenir - depicting a moment - within the silent movie of stills within.
Daniel Obasi, the Lagos wunderkind is an exciting choice as a visual tour guide and ambassador for the Nigerian city. Obasi is fast emerging as a powerful voice within fashion image, as a photographer, a stylist, and figurehead for New Nigeria. An excellent choice for the ‘fashion eye’ series - ‘Lagos’ is the first tome of the image maker’s work.
Obasi’s vision is pure haute couture in photographic form - there are outfits of grand and imposing proportions, the hair, the hats, and makeup to match - and locations which contrast and contradict to surreal effect, like Blumenfeld, Walker even a little LaChapelle, he likes to shoot fashion with a capital F. But then he catches you out with the vulnerability of that rare, absent friend of fashion - truth. A golden-being breaking through the opaque waves of a swimming pool, like an angel caught in flight - or a lone figure, naked and defiant - waving an enormous national flag looking down on a city below.
Obasi has an innate understanding and appreciation of silhouette and composition which set him apart - he has a holistic impaitent vision. His pictures actually have something to say rather than a mass of general tick boxes, which arguably so many of current fashion images follow. How good intentions can so often lead to visual confusion. Obasi, in contrast, seems defiant and clear with what he wants to bring to the table, and what he wants to discuss - he cares about being Nigerian and he cares about the state of his country and culture - and he is using his voice - which breaks through the passive noise of modern fashion editoral like a warning light - seen on the horizon.
‘My love and gratitude goes to my family, my friends, and to every young queer Nigerian who hasn’t forgotten how to dream. In memory of the #EndSARS protestors who were murdered on October 20, 2020. We will never forget’. Daniel Obasi
Special thanks: Clara Mrejen at Louis Vuitton Paris.
JOSEPH BEUYS - A SPACE BETWEEN MIND AND HAND.
40 YEARS OF DRAWING - THADDAEUS ROPAC GALLERY LONDON.
Joseph Beuys - from a collection of 100 drawings on display at Thaddaeus Ropac London.
How beautiful is this space? - Somewhere between the minimal strict of the medical, a Kubrick corridor and something of a dance hall - all parquet or paved monochrome marble.
100 drawings by Joseph Beuys - the Grandfather of conceptual art and thinking - are shown for the first time in the UK. Presented in humble wooden frames on white washed-walls poured over in natural winter light - a collection from the Beuys family archive.
‘What is drawing? When two surfaces touch - a pencil line unwinds across the paper - it offers only itself - a line executed more by blindness - than evidence of something in the world… but this contact between mind and hand is evidence, shred, calculating evidence of a moment, when time and action unite - with minimum interference, minimal expectation, other than pencil on paper doing their most basic of tasks - to touch each other’ - writes Phyllida Barlow.
Barlows’ poetic introduction to this intimate exhibit feels respectfully on point, sensual even - private. My immediate thought was just that, these many fragments of errant thoughts, taken from a mass of notebooks feel Margiela-esque in their voyeuristic desirability - mysterious as the creative process is - the assorted mid-century stationary which creates an almost invisible background to the tender drawings to which they testify. The many pages - whose delicate edges are perforated with traces of the spines of journals from which they have been taken - books carefully pulled apart and reorganised to exhibit - a new order formed - a subtle reminder that these works were in fact from a series - whose original flow we will never know.
Notes made for the eye of the maker alone, graphite searchings, I imagine were never intended for public consumption - like any posthumous display of process - I wonder what would the artist think now? As an educator he probably would welcome the vulnerability of showing your ‘workings out’, the primary research stages of ideas - which were to evolve into more resolved outcomes later in his career. And there are little saplings of ideas here - sketches of hares, stags, insects, sledges, bodies, and the symbolism of birth, life, and death - all themes which the artist famously explored.
A wall displaying a series of drawings of mountains - feel particularly pivotal to the exhibitions course - these sketches are symbolic possibly of the artists mysterious past as a pilot, where he allegedly cashed into the mountainous regions of Znamianka in 1944. The artist was rescued by Tatar tribesmen who wrapped his body in animal fat and felt to aid the natural healing process - materials he revisited and used within his work as an artist. Interestingly these accounts have been questioned by historians and yet the hazy sense of reality seems important to the drawings - rendered with urgency - their line quality feels deliberate and searching, as if drawn from life - specific and yet also feathery vague - like memories or imaginings - the bleached white of paper - dazzling like sun on snow.
Joseph Beuys - 40 Years of Drawing - until 22 March 2023
Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover Street London
PRADA SS23 - A SPACE BETWEEN ARMOUR AND AMOUR.
A SERIES OF RUNWAY PIECES IN LONDON.
Unlined coat in cotton gingham with a hand knitted mohair triangle - From a selection of pieces from the Spring Summer 2023 menswear collection by Prada.
I find it hard to resist Prada, the name alone makes my heart beat faster, a style that protects while also invites - I think of that precise combination of elements - a design formula decided upon with the instinct of one pair of eyes and complimented by another - a language enunciated by one person and yet has been learnt by so many, emulated even - impersonated like an accent - and yet when you wear those pieces - all created with the knowing complexity of that particular point of view - there really is no replication.
The Prada aesthetic seems more exotic from a far, and yet when I visit Milan I understand more - because in fact these elements are not so distant from the identity of a specific generation of the cities residents - who do not, in fact work within fashion - nor I imagine care about it - an age of citizen who dress for comfort while remaining loyal to a certain mid century democratic uniform of task specific and weather sensitive - with a certain nostalgia of youth.
The pleasure of Prada is immediate - ideas so well realised in specificity that they are calm to the touch. The eye glides over their cut and form while looking for the particular combination of elements which define this rare species - firstly the colour - always so specific - reminiscent of that pre mentioned era while never feeling retro - then the fabric - again so precise - a tremulous language of touch - and of course the cut and construction - oblique in finish and yet such thought has been invested - to achieve that invisible quality which is more feeling than physical - more so when worn - where a mirror is not needed to know.
A single breasted raincoat cut from what appeared to be a checked linen table cloth has an almost ready made quality of a printed paper napkin - the immediacy of that pattern - triggers thoughts of a picnic blanket or table cloth - from a time I do not know, where an impromptu sense of the alfresco is worn with a straight face. Fellow gingham characters swing adjacently - cut out into a precise offering of raincoats, blouson jackets and neat shirts - characteristics of a gentleman’s wardrobe prevail with discreet intelligence - roomy raglan sleeves, wide top-stitched seams, placket fronts and pale horn buttons slot precisely through generous key hole button holes - all offer clues of cultural origins while the whimsy of that joyous check feels deliciously perverse in a time heavy with gloom.
And that triangle, affixed between the shoulder blades - this time hand-knitted in charcoal mohair - feels nostalgic even tender - a little amour - in an armoured uniform of now.
Prada, 16-18, OId Bond Street, London
Special Thanks Massimo