White Cube Bermondsey, the largest of the White Cube sites, hosts two concurrent exhibitions. Theaster Gates’ Freedom of Assembly discusses the assembly of autonomous objects and individual freedom. His work continually attempts to bridge the gap between art and life. In this exhibition he uses items such as brick, tar and wood to transform these materials into abstract paintings and sculptures. His themes are political, social and personal and his work explores the senses including an underlying heady scent of tar.
Knock Off x5 Theaster Gates
The large works suit the scale of the White Cube site. However, the lack of organisation with regards to labelling the work makes it difficult to comfortably navigate around and seek out individual pieces. The South Gallery II room has a numerous and varied selection of work, including sculptures dotted around, with no number system. I wanted to concentrate on the work not spend my time hunting down which piece I’m looking at. Sometimes I want to see the title of a piece and what materials were used but I found it frustrating to try to count clockwise around the room and down a paper list which I was holding, in which the text was all the same size and in identical font. I know it’s not rocket science but I want to be absorbed in the art not feeling like I’m on an unexpected treasure hunt. Unfortunately, it ruined my experience of Gates’ exhibition.
I much preferred Michael Armitage’s smaller show. One room hosting ten paintings made it more accessible. Plus, I found his figurative, semi-abstract, paintings about his native Kenya intriguing. His works deals with his own memories, media news and legends, while his technique of applying paint in layers then scraping back and possibly repainting echoes his merging of blurred memories and myths. His work is flat, delicately painted in layered washes of light, pastel tones which sometimes clash to become sickly. He includes animals, people and vegetation which represent daily Kenyan life but one can see these are exposing relevant issues of wealth, equality and an overall reminder of the political problems. We are even presented with an old discussion in art of voyeurism and the male gaze as a woman reclines in the classical nude pose.
#mydresschoice Michael Armitage
Both exhibitions have deeper and darker political points to make yet both also have interesting yet differing aesthetics. On visiting one has to work harder viewing Gates’ exhibition but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, just a small irritation on my part. Anyway, The White Cube Bermondsey is free to visit and both these exhibitions run until 5th July 2015. Opening times are Tues – Sat 10am – 6pm and Sun 12 – 6pm
By Helen Shewry
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