Becks Futures.
A trip to the Mall and I arrive at the ICA who are showing 'Beck's Futures : Tomorrows art Today.' an exhibition that could be considered as an alternative to the Turner Prize, for a younger generation of up and coming artists. After a quick glance around I immediately had a favourite and least likeable and could feel annoyance that it wouldn't surprise me that the work I didn't really like that much would become the winning work - (which of course it did!)
I'm immediately seduced by the visual adventure portrait in the paintings of Dan Perfect, whose use of space becomes vast and open with dream like characters and semi- abstract doodles that play above a blurred horizon of m are believe. You can read parallel languages held within the imagery that can be defined in relation to film and video games. Music is another important influence that visually echoes sound and movement, suggesting a change in tempo, accent or chord change. Perfect chooses names that read like stories: 'You are greeted by a Warrior who is flying in from the right.' and 'Shimmy over to the White Dragon, but don't get too close to the lava.' Sometimes the title connects with the image and sometimes they don't, instead they provoke the thought that lies beneath your conscious mind.
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| Following the trail on the sea floor to a sunken ship: Dan Perfect |
Other interesting works are by Kirsten Glass and Neil Rumming whose chosen medium mixes painting with collage.
Kirsten Glass takes images of models taken from fashion magazines, controlling them, manipulating their bodies, cutting them up as bait. Their beauty is still there, beneath a surface that has become dark and sinister by horror show make up, specks of fake blood and heavy thick black paint that drips and glistens.
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| Deep Tissue : Kirsten Glass |
Neil Rumming directs a familiar ready-made form that takes an iconic logo or motif and then adds his own imagery within it. This becomes obvious in his work, 'Stallion' that uses the Ferrari horse and 'Bunny' that uses the Playboy emblem. The visual information becomes a visual contradiction as techno pattern, pop and heavy duty abstraction merge with fiery waves of block colour highlighted in fluorescents that mix with photographic details of teeth, bone, muscle and tissue. At a distance the images allows you to recognise a cross-section of a form that can reveal skeletons made of diamonds or multiple gatherings of flowers. Somehow the effect becomes both vulgar and beautiful, enticing the viewer with interest.
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| Stallion: Neil Rumming |
It's hardly worth mentioning (my least favourite) Toby Paterson, whose work speaks for itself, (or not) in 'We fall in pattern's too quickly.' A piece that has a couple of square and oblong shaped panels of MDF that have been painted in different tones of grey and off-white. On the floor below there is a pile that seems to be part of the same piece that has slipped off the wall into a pile on the floor. It looks closer to a pile of rubbish left from a builder than a piece of art in a gallery. Sorry, I did forget to mention that there are bands of colour, orange, blue or yellow that highlight the edge to a piece of fallen debris and he also makes architectural models and sketches.
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| We fall in pattern's too quickly: Toby Patterson / Image from Telegraph |
Sam Taylor Johnson Retrospective
Circumstatial Behavior
The Sam Taylor Johnson Retrospective searches human behaviour in relation to their circumstances, while echoing the mutterings that lie within the individual's subconscious. Her works are of 360 degree photographs in series: 'Five Revolutionary Seconds' captures sequences of moments that have been shared within a certain space of time. These private moments of intimacy, alone deep in thought or close with another, unravel the experiences of the mundane, held within an every day occurrence of life. The separate events are frozen together, coexisting within different frames of time. Similarly the photographical series 'Soliloquies' shows a main photograph with a panoramic relief that puts the individual into context, revealing their true being. I love these photographs, so full of emotion and I love how the the room becomes fragmented so that we can catch glimpses of moments all around us all simultaneously.
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| Five Revolutionary Seconds: Sam Taylor Johnson |
The 'Third Party' is a film where we are the voyeurs, invited to speculate, guessing a possible outcome or result. There are six cameras that hold the same view point which roll film continuously, while a further camera is hand held moving around in the available space. The effect of this technique makes you feel that you are actually in between the characters as you follow their gaze and thoughts as the react with one another.There are two young people who are attracted to each other, flirting in the corner of the room. A man is watching, irritated and annoyed, after a time he approaches the woman and tells her to leave, she then replies: 'five minutes'.
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| Still from 'Third Party: Sam Taylor Johnson. |
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