Cathy's Art Diary

Poignant installation at Tate Britain by Mike Nelson which turns the great central gallery into a junk yard. This show used old industrial machinery to make large sculptural pieces but the machinery kept it’s integrity and is probably recognisable to anyone who had used it. The entrances were blocked by old industrial and hospital doors so you had to break into the space. A few of the doors were topped with large intertwined G and E’s for King George and Queen Elizabeth. The overall effect was a mix of a junk yard and an industrial museum. I loved the fact that in certain areas you could smell the material, creosote in one place and a musty dampness in another. The works set up wonderful vistas trough the gallery. I would love the have known where all the pieces came from. I found it poignant and the pieces felt dignified but spoke of industries which are long gone. Although they are a sign of mechanism those industries have been mechanised even more and cut out the pe...

Innovative exhibition/installation at the Whitechapel Gallery of figurative sculpture from the V-A-C Collection from Moscow curated by installation artist Mike Nelson. This consisted of a large platform on the floor with an interesting collection of sculptures arranged on it. There was a nice Giacometti woman in the middle, a William de Kooning torso sitting on the edge and a Marino Maroni head and shoulders. The way the items were displayed made you look at them in relation to cone another and objects in their own right. Putting them all on one level seemed to make who the artist was less important and the work speak for itself. I loved the largest work “Camp Fire” by Althamer Ognisko which consisted of four pieces two of which were a sort of broken vehicle of some sort but the other two were wonderful life sized figures with realistic faces but almost skeletal bodies covered in badges, They had an odd mummy like feeling and yet I found them strangely endearing.