Cathy's Art Diary

Simple but effective installation at the Stephen Friedman Gallery by David Shrigley. The consisted of two rooms of neon tennis balls on narrow shelves and visitors are invited to bring an old tennis ball to swap with one of them so that over the course of the show the display will change plus people either have a new tennis ball or an art work depending how you view it. You also got a pin badge. I wish I’d realised this was interactive as I’d have taken a dog ball along. Reading the press release again now it says Shrigley was inspired by his dog chasing balls. He said her interest was “more about exchange than possession”. You can’t help but love contemporary art inspired by a dog! I was also amused by the poor gallery attendant who had put the balls back on the shelves after small children had knocked them off. We played spot the gap together for a few minutes. Closes 8 January 2022  

Nostalgic installation at the Goodman Gallery by Candice Breitz. The show consisted of a selection of 1,001 videotapes, encased in black acrylic and arranged on shallow shelves resembling the displays in video rental stores. Each box has one work, in the original font of the original cover, to imply what may be inside. It was fun walking round spotting the words and guessing the titles. I liked the fact they seemed to be displayed in genres like in a store. The fact there are 1.001 titles refers to The Arabian Nights where the 1,001 st wife of the sultan who avoided the fate of her predecessors of being beheaded by telling her husband stories every night for 1,001 nights. The power of narrative and storytelling. You are left with the mystery as to what was actually in the boxes. The pendant in me hopes it is the original tapes preserved as objects however I also fear the tapes may be in the wrong boxes as they were in many of our collections. I was amused that the press relea...

Intriguing exhibition at Saatchi Yates of new work by Danny Fox. These pieces were inspired by Fox’s return to St Ives from Los Angeles and refer to the people and folklore of the area. The works were mainly large, bold paintings alongside some ceramic work and the totem like work shown here which included small figures set into the wood.   I liked the paintings which included portraits of local people including a Bric a Brac merchant and “The Tinners”. Closes January 2022  

Colourful exhibition at Katrine Levin Galleries of new work by Levan Lagidze, from Georgia. These abstract works inspired by cityscapes and landscapes forming richly textured mosaic like compositions. As well as the main nine works there were also 15 from his “My Journey” series, smaller works designed to be shown together. I loved the bright colours in these works and the built-up layers of paint. I saw the grid plan of city streets in them. Closed 27 November 2021

Fun and insightful exhibition at David Zwirner of new work by Ebecho Muslimova. The show featured mainly drawings of Fatebe, a cartoon like character described in the press release as “a plump and exuberant personality”. This naked female figure manipulates her body and allows the artist to “explode the social expectations of the female body”. The pictures make you smile but also leave you with ideas and issues to think about. There were also two paintings which initially looked like crude cartoons but I loved the fine painting of some of the details such as this psychedelic skeleton. Closed 23 December 2021    

Interesting exhibition at David Zwirner of new work by American artist CT Gavin. These were large landscapes in bright colours and with textured surfaces. As these were done in lockdown they mainly show the area around the artists home in upstate New York. The press release said that they were also “conduits for larger themes” including race and memory which I must admit I didn’t get from them. The works initially look quite rough but the more you look the more detail you see such as a modernist house on the skyline of a forest. I loved the square seascape shown here which reminded me of Winslow Homer because I had recently done a talk on that artist’s seascapes which also had layers of meaning which you don’t get from an initial view. I also learnt from the press release that Gavin is sometimes playing with an optical phenomena called the Purkinje effect in which the eye favours blue tones in low light conditions and I am off to Google that now and find out more. Closed 23 No...

Extraordinary exhibition at Thaddaeus Ropac of work from the last 25 years by sculptor Ron Mueck. I have always been fascinated by Mueck’s hyper realistic figures, playing with detail and scale, since I saw them in various Royal Academy Summer Exhibitions and at the National Gallery after he was artist in residence there. They feel so real, part of our space but standing alone. It is hard to pick out works from the show as I loved them all but I think I have to mention “Woman with Shopping” a wonderful smaller scale woman with a baby tucked into her coat and looking exhausted with two heavy bags of shopping. You can feel the weight of the shopping and responsibility. It feels intrusive to walk up to her and study the incredible detail. Upstairs in a small unlit room was “Dark Place” which you viewed through the doorway, a giant, ghostly, angst-ridden face, which was hard to view for too long. My favourite, shown here, was a giant older couple on the beach. A study in tendernes...