MIKE NELSON - The Coral Reef

First exhibited in Matt's Gallery in London's East End in 2000 'The Coral Reef' is Nelson's seminal installation work which establishes many of the concerns in his practice. Ten years later Tate Britain exhibited the rebuilt work which perhaps indicates how much of a difference there is between East and West London.
      Nelson is more influenced by writers than by artists. Those central to his work are Jorge Luis Borges, HP Lovecraft, Joseph Conrad. He quotes the preface to Borges's A Universal History of Infamy: "I should define as baroque that style which deliberately exhausts (or tries to exhaust) all its possibilities and which borders on its own parody." Most of us are familiar with the baroque as an architectural style. Nelson thinks about it, as defined by Borges, as a kind of fiction in which stories have other stories concealed within them, or in which - an effect Nelson loves - a preface turns out to be the story.

HIRST=POPE

Is Damien Hirst the Pope of art? Are dots the new crosses? Are diamonds the new pills? Yes, yes and yes.

Damien is the king and none of us can quite stomach it, especially when it stinks of rotting meat and dead flies. He is a currency which can be traded globally but if the financial value is established, what are the cultural values under consideration?

Hirst is a child of Warhol certainly, but more a product of Post-Punk England. Somebody who understood Malcolm McLaren's admonishment that;

"Authenticity has been replaced by karaoke"

He just took it to it's logical conclusion in a market on fire, an astute player all the way to the museum retrospective in Tate Modern, which sells him to the mass audience of the London Olympics. This is art taken to the n'th degree of banality and nihilism and they can't get enough of it.

If you don't feel a bit sick then your not getting the point, as Johnny Rotten said;

"Ha Ha, ever get the feeling you've been cheated?"

Tate Modern presents the first major Damien Hirst exhibition in the UK. Until 9 September 2012

GILBERT & GEORGE

GILBERT & GEORGE - LONDON PICTURES

Great art is timeless and a good example of this is the latest offering from Gilbert and George, the dynamic duo of London's East End.

For six years G&G collected (by stealing) newspaper headline posters from local newsagents and this collection of 3700 posters forms the basis of this new series of works which have been installed in all three of the White Cube galleries in Bermondsey, Piccadilly and Hoxton.

Grouped together using recurring words in the headlines such as 'Yobs', or 'Death Plunge' the works make grim reading but the artists make the point that the Dickensian backdrop of London is alive and well in contemporary life where every day makes an unbelievable story, and even though the headline may be sensational it is inexorably linked to an inescapable reality.

This overwhelming banality is what G&G deal with, and the inflection point is where their performative selves look out from behind the text to challenge, cajole and provoke the viewer with a sneer, a grimace or benign gaze.

G&G are quintessential 'cheeky chappies'. They first become recognized on the London art scene when Charles Harrison was curating a survey exhibition at the ICA in 1969 entitled 'When Attitude becomes Form'. G&G were not selected, but undaunted they attended the private view dressed in full 'human sculpture' make-up, and stole the show. Gallerist Conrad Fisher was there and invited them to Dusseldorf for a show, they never looked back.

Now they are household names, and Gilbert obviously takes satisfaction from telling the story of the passing truck-driver who sticks his head out of the the window to shout across the street;

'Oi! My life's a fucking moment, your life's an eternity!'

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Gilbert and George - London Pictures is at all three White Cubes until 12th May 2012.

THE RELATIONAL AND THE PERSONAL

Deller and Shrigley at The Hayward, an interesting contrast of practices - Deller is all about the 'relational aesthetic' while Shrigley is all about the personal. Until 13 May, 2012.

http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co.uk/find/hayward-gallery-visual-arts

Frieze Art Fair 2011

Much less frenzied at the 2011 Frieze Fair but still lots to see.

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Photography © Fintan Friel - All Rights Reserved

HENRY THE MODERNIST Versus ACHILL THE POST-MODERN

Paul Henry is shorthand for a romantic vision of Ireland which he developed during his stay on Achill Island from 1910 to 1920. The lakeside cottages and billowing clouds are ideally rendered with a modern treatment and perhaps his legacy is a lasting example of how The West of Ireland is located within a critical dynamic which involves modernism, tradition and the post-modern world we inhabit today. The past comes in neatly-bound packages of cultural history, while the present appears messy and contradictory, deconstructing the myth is a continuous process and the difficulty is in forming a conclusion - hence today's 'ambiguous narrative'. Because Achill is a self-contained unit of context (an island) perhaps this makes it most suitable as a place which can be described as continuously living within these liquid cultural dynamics while still retaining it's unique identity.

So why did Henry choose Achill? Obviously the island has a rugged beauty, and easy access was permitted by the railway line which transported passengers directly from Dublin to the last stop of Achill Sound, which was opened in 1894. Henry was delivered to the island after it became part of the transport grid which ended it's distinct isolation - in a final twist the railway link was closed again in 1937 as the road network became more viable. Curiously, this coincided with Henry's work becoming the state-sanctioned aesthetic of the newly-formed Free-State Republic and The Irish Tourist Board began publishing posters advertising holidays in Ireland which featured Henry's paintings. The unique, the isolated and the mythic was now available for mass-market consumerism and by default Paul Henry tumbled into the post-modern era as his work became part of the spectacle of tourism.

What survives this relentless process of cultural manufacture is the site of Achill Island itself, the bucolic myth continues and now it comes complete with surfers, caravan parks and cappucchinos. The billowing clouds still do their work but the lakeside cottages have been traded up for an estate of empty holiday-homes which is probably very fitting as the cottages of Henry's imagination match this era's dream of a debt fueled boom turned bust.

Thanks to Heinrich Boll Residency Association for supporting my research.

TAKASHI MURAKAMI (Kawaii in Versailles)

Here comes Murakami, all the way from Tokyo to Versailles, a perfect Twenty First Century addition to the Baroque opulence of the Palace which was built in 1682. Traditionally Eastern (Chinese) porcelain was highly prized and collected in Europe and so this is just an updated version of the 'ancient industry of beauty'. Cuteness seems to be the latest installment in the story, and 'Kawaii' (literally, adorable, precious, lovable, or innocent) is everywhere in Japanese popular culture. This is an ultimate context for these works which become activated by the surrounding architecture of historical power, the Kawaii reference becomes transformed into something much less innocent or adorable, usually that ambiguity remains veiled in Murakami's work but here it's quite obvious that the latest cute thing can easily be the latest horror, depending on your point of view.

Takashi Murakami at The Palace of Versailles, France. (2010).