Cathy's Art Diary

Moving exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of recent work by the late Georg Baselitz who died in April. I love Baselitz's work and the way he paints images upside down to concentrate the idea of looking so was moved to see these recent works. These were such ambitious, physical works for a man who was 88 when he died. I think my favourites were the black and gold works because of the contrast they set up and the nod back to icons and medieval pieces. These large works looked commanding in the vast white space. Closed 30 August 2026

Revelatory exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new works by WangShui. I say revelatory not for the art which was calming but for the fact the gallery has windows!! I’ve been going for years and never seen windows! The light was needed as the abstract works were painted on metal and changed as you walked round them and the light changed. Again I found the blurb impenetrable but liked the art. Closed 29 March 2026

Magical exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of installations by Klara Hosnedlova. The first you came across was a huge hanging made of hemp with a bone like insert. When you got closer you realised there was an image in the centre of the bone. I assumed it was an exquisite painting but later realised reading the press release that it and images in the next room were fine embroideries. The second room was an installation with rocks in the centre surrounded by raised platforms which you were invited to walk on. From underneath came a soundscape. At either side there were more bone like structures with more of the beautiful pictures which also featured on the platforms. I found the piece stunning but wasn’t too sure what it meant. The blurb was a bit impenetrable if lyrical! “Echo is not only an exhibition but an instance that already anticipates the next – seeding a refrain for the as-yet-unknown future.” Closed 29 March 2026

Repetitive exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey Street of work by the abstract artist, Howardena Pindell. As her work was mainly made up of dots either of paint or small coloured pieces of paper it suffered from the fact I’d done the exhibition of the work of the Aboriginal artist Emily Kam Kngwarray and this was a remarkably similar aesthetic even if it came from a very different place. I liked the idea of the work but found it decorative rather than artistic and when you’ve seen one dotty picture you’ve seen enough. Closed 18 January 2027

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of lead works by Antony Gormley. In just a few sculptures the show charts the artist’s experimentations with lead between the 1970s and 1990s. I had seen some of the pieces before over the years. Upstairs were the smaller works but the more striking pieces were the full sized body works shown in the basement which looked impressive in the large white space. I loved that you could walk among them but it was a shame this wonderful standing figure with a girder for a head had to be guarded by four attendants. Closed 8 June 2025 Review Guardian

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey showcasing the life and career of the sculptor Richard Hunt. I had not consciously come across Hunt’s work before which surprised me as he had been so prolific in America. The show started with an enlightening timeline of his life and I was impressed at how he broke down many barriers for a black artist. The worked looked good, if a bit sparse, in the large white space. I found it quite graphic in its style so it was interesting to see his drawings shown with the large sculptures. Closed 29 June 2025

Superb exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new projects by Theatser Gates. One piece in particular, a huge shelving unit full of vases, took my breath away and I’m not sure why. I have no idea what it meant but I am a sucker for ceramics and I loved the monumentality of it. I think a good summation of the show was that I didn’t really understand it but that didn’t stop me being moved by it. There was a link to the archive of late Japanese journalist Ei Nagata and his partner Haruhi Ishitan who were at the assignation of Malcolm X in 1965 and who went in the collect material on his final months and impact and to bring that to the Japanese people. Aesthetically the show brought together Japanese culture and the Black Liberation Movement. A strange mix but it worked! Closed 6 April 2025 Reviews Guardian  

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of new work by Danh Vo. Vo combines broken, ancient sculpture and modern objects in installations setting up interesting dialogues. I don’t think I understood all the connections but I was at the end of a long day of gallery visits so was feeling a bit jaded! The space was broken up in new ways with chipboard structures with sculptures hidden inside. I do like the way he uses historic artefacts in a sympathetic way. Closed 16 November 2024

Repetitive exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Tracey Emin. I try to like Emin’s work and do admire the free mark making but find them too introspective to be viewed on mass. Any individual one in show would make an interesting point but together I get a bit bored. I liked the inclusion of a big sculpture with the same title as the show which I thought I’d seen there before but checking I realise this is a new work. Closed 10 November 2024 Reviews Times Telegraph Evening Standard l

Delicate exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of new work by Donna Huddleston. These were lovely, pale figurative pieces which each felt like a short story. They set up intriguing narratives as well as being beautiful. She mainly sets figures against pale backgrounds but my favourite was this one set against mountains which almost looked stuck on. Closed 28 September 2024 Review Guardian  

Mind bending  exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Georg Baselitz. I love Baselitz’s upside down pictures and this was a stunning collection from the 86 year old. I’d love to think that at that age I could produce such large, vibrant work. New touches were the addition of collage pieces, mainly stockings, which I wasn’t that convinced by, and a series of pairs of upside-down animals and birds. I love the pale, bright blue he is using as a background. The really mind bending works were two of people the right way up! I found myself flipping them in my head after his usual topsy turvey work. Closed 16 June 2024 Review Times  

Serene exhibition at White Cube, Mason’s Yard, of new work by Darren Almond. Most of the pieces were of willow leaves and branches, painted sparsely on metallic backgrounds. In the upstairs room these hung all around the room at eye level in vertical pairs giving an installation like feel to the display. Downstairs there were four bigger works each in six panels again with willow on metal leaf backgrounds. My interest in the likes of Giotto and Duccio made me view then as secular altarpieces by the size and the gold. They also had a strong feeling of Japanese prints. They were hung with large panels showing numbers in an almost collages arrangement. These were not well explained in the commentary but worked well to break up the space and give contrast. Closed 4 May 2024  

Stunning exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Antony Gormley. It was only 12 January when I went and yet I suspect I might have found my show of the year! I love Gormley anyway so it was onto a winner but these works looked so good in the space that the whole show became an installation. I even sat and watched the video about how the pieces were made, which I often skip, and knowing more about the materials and techniques used just added more layers of meaning, although you don’t need that to respond emotionally to the work. From the grey, block figures lining the corridor with their little hollowed out mouths I was hooked. I loved “Bind”, one figure in a space made from the three strips of iron emerging from the walls, floor and ceiling. You found yourself ducking under the cross bars and trying to work out how it all fitted together. However my favourite had to be “Resting Place” a room full of figures, each in a different position and made up of 23 blocks of cl...

Baffling exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Julie Mehretu. These were large, apparently abstract paintings which, according to the commentary, draw on subject matter from current affairs such as the war in Ukraine. I must admit I did not get that from them. It consisted of three sets of paintings, each with nine pictures. I liked the street art effect in which some colours sung out from the canvas as well as the innovative hang of one set in the round on aluminium frames. However I wasn’t moved by them and was left feeling I might be missing something. Closed 5 November 2023  

Beautiful exhibition at White Cube Masons’ Yard of a new video and sculpture by Christian Marclay. Marclay is best known for his videos and this was another excellent one. It pieces together exerts from films of people opening, going through and closing doors. It swaps quickly between clips perfectly matching the placing of the door on screen so that one person enters and another appears. I’m not sure how long it is but I watched memorised for about 20 minutes. Upstairs the video was complimented by sculptures made of doors cut up and stuck back together in another way. I loved them and trying to work out how the door had been used. Closed 30 September 2023 Review Guardian  

Stunning exhibition/installation at White Cube Bermondsey by Anselm Kiefer. Inspired by the layers in the book Finnegan’s Wake, the work filled the space starting with the corridor of the gallery packed with shelves with an eclectic mix of objects which catch your eye. It had an atmospheric and claustrophobic feel. This opens onto four rooms. The first had an immense painting with you gradually realise has figures at your level walking towards you. This was shown with a great pile of sand with discarded shopping trolleys. Another room was arranged in a similar way to the corridor but was lighter with the shelves facing to the very high ceiling and objects looming over you from the top. My favourite room had a set of amazing landscapes packed with trees and with gold skies. They had a real sense of the sublime. The paint was thick and you could still smell it. I have no idea what it all meant but I loved it! Closed 20 August 2023        

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Mason’s Yard of work by American sculptor Isamu Noguchi who died in 1988. The work was in a variety of materials and came from throughout his career. They looked good in the space but I must admit they didn’t speak to me. However I was fascinated to learn that he had made more than 20 dance settings for the choreographer Martha Graham. There was a film running of her work “Dark Meadow” and the set pieces were in the show. They came to life when you realised how dancers were meant to interact with them. Closed 1 July 2023    

Calming exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Mimi Lauter. The title comes from a Hebrew word for spirit, wind or breath and the commentary said the work is inspired by the natural world and the cyclical rhythm of plants. These were large pictures, often arranged in groups which at first look felt like abstract landscapes but then I started to see animals and birds in them. I loved this large grouping which felt like an altarpiece to me in its gold colouring and arrangement of panels. However this was probably as much to do with me as a viewer!   You can take the girl out of the Renaissance etc! I also liked a pair in a lovely rich dark turquoise which felt a bit Klimt like. Closed 14 May 2023

Thoughtful exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Marguerite Humeau. The show seemed to be all about collaboration be it between artists or in the natural world. There first room had a series of tiled works. I didn’t understand what they were at the time but rather liked them. Reading the blurb it turns out in 1965 the Polish artist Adam Kossowski was invited to create a large mosaic for the Peckham Civic Centre, not far from the gallery called ‘The History of the Old Kent Road’. Humeau had rescued these from the building which is to be demolished and using an AI programme had invented a new city. I must admit I didn’t understand the technicalities but liked the co-operation between a living and a dead artist that had produced attractive works. There was a feel of William De Morgan on speed! The main room had large scale sculptures with some of them emitting sounds. They seemed to be based on repetitive, collaborative natural forms like beehives and mushrooms. Again ...

Interesting exhibition at White Cube Bermondsey of new work by Samuel Ross. I loved the way you entered the space through a reduced doorway and that the thickly painted abstracts and floor sculptures were shown with a soundscape and smell of incense. This really added to the atmosphere and it had an installation feel to it. I loved the object-ness of the thickly painted abstracts which I read as landscapes. They worked from a distance but I also liked getting up close to see the texture and depth of the paint and the cracks in it. The commentary said the work represented “collapsed landscapes and supine bodies to explore the subject of Black experience” which I’m not sure I got from it or understood. A bit more explanation would have been good or just leave me to like the work. Closed 14 May 2023