Magnus Plessen: The Skin of Volume

Interesting exhibition at White Cube, Mason’s Yard of new work by Magnus Plessen.

The works have the appearance of collage but are in fact painted. The press release says he has taken inspiration from a 1924 anti-war book showing the impact of automatic weapons on the human body. However he has taken this idea and made the images quite tender particularly those downstairs of himself and his pregnant wife. They are still quite visceral but show a real relationship between the figures.
 
I liked the way the works were set against a wooden floor and that Plessen often turns them round in the painting process to work on them in two directions, both of which gives them a sense of precarious unbalance.

Closes on 14 January 2017

 

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