Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016

Ugly exhibition at the ICA showing casing the work of new and recent fine art graduates.

There was very little which was attractive about this show. There were a lot of strange badly produced paintings and installation/sculptures which looked more like piles of rubbish. In its defence a lot of the work was conceptual but the labels were minimal. Unless it’s obvious I think conceptual art needs some explanation to help the audience appreciate the thinking and process behind it. If a work is produced (and I’m making this up) by adding one empty tin can to a pile for every time the BBC mentioned Brexit then it has some meaning if you don’t know that it’s a pile of dirty old tin cans.

So rant about conceptual art over, there were some things I liked, but not many! I liked “The King” by Jamie Fitzpatrick, a large wax figure on a plinth of a fallen king. I’m not sure what all the extra heads were about but I loved the one on the back with a mechanic jaw which clicked away every few minutes. The best painting was “Aylesbury” by Michael Cox of a housing estate and brick wall. I also liked Ruth Spencer Jolly’s work of two screens one with a man and one a woman singing a version of the Beatles “We can work it out” in harmony. At first this was a slightly irritating distraction but as you walked round the gallery the harmony grew on you and was rather beautiful.

My favourite piece was a video of clouds shot from the same level as them by Janina Lange, which was shown with a 3D print of a cloud. This was a lovely relaxing piece which I could have watched over and over again.

Closes on 2 January 2017

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