Raphael Hefti: Launching Rockets Never Gets Old

This review has been published by the Londonist

Verdict: Go see it

Where: Camden Arts Centre, Hampstead

When: 20 January - 18 March 2012

Swiss artist Raphael Hefti specialises in interfering with the formation of materials and presenting the outputs. In his first solo UK exhibition, he focuses on the formation of glass.

Large panes of reflective glass have been altered to only reflect certain blue and yellow wavelengths of light, but the alteration was made while the glass was forming so it doesn’t have the artificial feel that you would associate with a colour filter.

As you walk around the room surrounded by these ‘mirrors’ what you see is a mildly surreal reflection of yourself and everybody else in the room. This exhibit highlights the link between colour and emotions, as a yellow reflection of you seems brighter and more hopeful while the blue reflection creates a more sombre tone – this may not be the reason why the expression ‘feeling blue’ came about, but after seeing your reflection in Hefti’s work you’ll think it should be.

However, the highlight of the exhibition is on display outside the gallery — two photographs of the patterns created when Lycopodium spores are burnt over photosensitive paper (Lycopodium being a type of club moss). Burning spores should create random patterns but the seamless interaction of the intense colours provides the illusion that Hefti has precisely directed the spores to create the effect he was after.

Though the photographs were created by tiny spores, they seem like representations of an event on a much grander scale with one photograph resembling a tumultuous ocean filled with different coloured dyes and the other an exploding star.

London Art Fair

Verdict: Go see it

Where: Business Design Centre, Islington

When: 18-22 January 2012

The London Art Fair is an annual coming together of over 100 galleries that take over the Business Design Centre for an extended weekend.  These galleries cover both classical and contemporary art, and have something for everyone. 

There is plenty of variety to prevent you getting bored; it’s just a question of whether your feet can keep up as there is a lot of ground to cover.

This can’t be like a normal review as this is not an exhibition but a chance to check out what galleries have available.  I imagine most visitors are merely curious than serious art collectors as most pieces will set you back at least £10,000 and some ten times that amount.

Though there are works of notable artists like Damien Hirst, Bridget Riley, Chris Ofili and L.S. Lowry; it’s the lesser known artists that really shine here, so I’ve compiled a list of all those that stuck out for me.

This year there were many artists experimenting with photo collage, some notable examples include:

• Jane Ward takes photographs of her travel and layers them over each other on a computer before stripping away layers piece by piece to produce apocalyptic visions.  Last year her collages were more realistic but this years she’s produced some that are rather more tongue-in-cheek with inverted and swirling landscapes that look like they would be at home in the film Inception.

• Tom Leighton specialises in creating seamless cityscapes with disparate landmarks.  At first it will feel like you are looking at a picture of St. Mark’s square in Venice before you quickly realise that the Cathedrale Notre Dame should not be at the end of it, nor should St. Paul’s, the Burj Khalifah and Flatiron building be part of the same skyline.  If they were that would be one magnificent skyline.

• Yves Krief uses a very similar take to Leighton but focuses on America and a post-apocalyptic landscape littered with wild animals.  However, the colour palette used is much bolder than you would get with John Martin so there is a more light-hearted feel to it.

And the rest, in no specific order:

·         Tessa Farmer was back again with her miniature skeletal fairies (with the wings of houseflies) continuing their war against nature.  Farmer takes dead insects and the occasional mouse and creates miniature fairies and positions the two against each other in a macabre battle.

·         Annie Morris has created a wall of clothes pegs each with a self-portrait of herself drawn on it – one for every day.

·         John Stark’s paintings are similar to Krief’s works in that they also display apocalyptic visions with warm colours, however Stark’s work is much more darker as you’d be unlikely to see a blackened skeleton atop a pyre in Krief’s works.

·         Jenny Pockley has created paintings of the London Skyline at night that look photorealistic from a distance but are clearly paintings up close.

·         In contrast to Pockley, Alicia Dubnyckyj’s cityscapes are barely recognisable from up close but if you step back it becomes clear that it’s a view of London (pictured above) or Manhattan.

·         Jim Whitty has created a country river scene with such bright yellow it feels as if you’re looking at the direct reflection of the sun and not a painting of it.

·         Gigi Cifali photographs abandoned swimming pools so that they could easily be a setting for a horror movie.

·         John Monks paints desolate scenes – an abandoned house and a shipwreck – but infuses them with such colour that he almost resurrects them.

·         Peter Graham is another exponent of a bright palette but so much so that his café scenes are almost unrecognisable due to the glare given off by the painting.

·         Joseph Klibansky’s ‘New tension’ overlays a black and white New York with the bright colours from a South East Asian river scene, highlighting the superiority of nature over industrialisation.

·         Lisa Swerling is back again with her miniature sculptures of satirical scenes inside glass cabinets.

·         Marco Crivello creates spheres of swirling colour that looks like alien worlds or the earth when it was first forming into a ball of molten rock.

Nobody can walk away from the London Art Fair without seeing at least a few paintings that grab them and that they would like to purchase, if they could afford it.

Gesamtkunstwerk: New Art from Germany

Verdict:  Go see it

Where: Saatchi Gallery, Chelsea

When: 18 November 2011 – 30 April 2012

What is it?  The Saatchi gallery always clears out the entire gallery for a new show every six months or so, add this to the fact that it’s free to enter, in a great location and an excellent minimalist interior makes it one of my favourite galleries.  This exhibit is showcasing the latest contemporary artworks from Germany.

What did I think?  This is the exhibit I went to console myself with, as I had gone to the National Gallery to queue for the Da Vinci exhibit only to be told that I was too late and the existing queue already had the 1,000 on the day tickets allocated.  So this exhibit had a lot to achieve; and it does … in parts.

Richard Wilson’s 20:50 is the closest the Saatchi gallery has come to a permanent exhibit and it still brings a smile to my face every time I see someone new approach it.  The room has been filled with sump oil but it’s so dark and reflective that at first you don’t know what you’re looking at and can only smell it, until it finally dawns on you and only then can you appreciate the contrast of the oil with the white minimalist style of the room.  The Saatchi will always be a worth a visit as long as this remains on display.  But, on to the main event.

All the Saatchi gallery exhibits have a certain hit and miss aspect to them, after all we are populating 13 galleries, and ‘hit and miss’ and ‘contemporary art’ go hand in hand, but there are some terrific works on display

The unifying theme of this German art exhibit seems to be about scratching under the pleasant exterior surface to discover the darker aspects; some pieces do it subtly, others more vividly.  The two main styles used to get this message across are the use of bold colours and strong lines (a la Matisse), and the use of layered imagery. 

Matisse pioneered the use of bold colours and sparse detail, and it’s hard to go wrong by following in his footsteps.  However, this also makes it harder to build upon - some pieces use too much colour and become too jumbled to convey any message at all.  Markus Selg breaks free of this trap by mixing a bold palette in one part of a painting and a darker palette for a contrasting background, this works to great effect in conveying the sense of foreboding in ‘Dream of the Saracen’.   The dark intensity in colour of Andro Wekua’s ‘Sunset’ makes it seem as if the water is boiling and is almost akin to a John Martin piece.

The layered approach has been used to brilliant effect by another German artist not featured here – Friedrich Kunath.  Earlier this year he had an exhibit at the Hoxton White Cube Gallery and his paintings had mesmerising depth, ‘always summer’ is one to behold if you get the chance.

None of the works in this exhibit can reach ‘Kunath heights’ but there are some brilliant sculptures and paintings with a similar motif.   The four that stood out for me were:

• Isa Genzken’s ‘Bouquet’ for its imaginative mix of metal and flowers to create a multi-faceted interpretation of man vs. nature vs. man.
• Jutta Koether’s ‘Mede’ that only becomes realised once you get close to it and spot the wailing faces  beneath the bright and smiley exterior.
• Max Frisinger’s ‘Noah’s Ark’ for showing that an assortment of random objects can emit a feeling of togetherness once in a display case
• Corinne Wasmuht’s ‘is always today’s use of vivid colours creates a futuristic feel, which until now I thought was an oxymoron.

A mention must also be reserved for Jeppe Hein’s cheeky ‘Mirror Wall’ which vibrates quickly once you move close to it creating a distorted and disturbing self-reflection that makes you smile and slightly wary at the same time.

Sure not all the pieces will grab you, but some will definitely resonate with you - in one case literally.