POLEMICALLY
SMALL
Curated by Edward
Lucie-Smith
Brandon Ballengée, Felipe
Cardena, Genia Chef, Billy Childish, Roni Feldman, Luke Jackson, Sam Jackson,
Michael Leonard, Robert Luzar, Alex Gene Morrison, Gavin Nolan, Claire
Pestaille, Tom Phillips, Benjamin Senior, Dominic Shepherd, John Stark, Oleg
Tolstoy, Gavin Tremlett, Covadonga Valdes, Cedric Wentworth, Alexander
Zackharov
Private View | First
Thursday
Thursday October 7th
[UTF-8?]6.30pmâ8.30pm
Exhibition
Dates
Friday October 8th [UTF-8?]â Saturday October 30th
2010
Gallery Hours
[UTF-8?]WednesdayâSaturday [UTF-8?]11amâ6pm
or by
appointment
Address
336 Old St, London, EC1V
9DR
Contact
+44 (0)20 7739 4055
direct@charliesmithlondon.com
www.charliesmithlondon.com
Whatâs the
polemic? Why small? This exhibition, of small, sometimes very small, works of
contemporary art is essentially a rant about the outmoded rhetoric of size that
is still embraced by what likes to call itself the avant-garde. New cutting-edge
artists have been painting small now for some time. [UTF-8?]Itâs happening
here in London; [UTF-8?]itâs happening in Germany, still the real centre for
avant-garde activity in Europe; it is happening among a certain number of
Italian artists. It may be happening elsewhere as well. The interest in
small-scale art is inevitably starting to spread to other genres [UTF-8?]â
sculpture, photography and
video.
Huge art, in Modernist
terms, was essentially an invention of America in the 1940s. Very big Abstract
Expressionist paintings were the [UTF-8?]âbarbaric [UTF-8?]yawpâ (to quote
Walt Whitman) that proclaimed the new cultural dominance of the United States.
Before that the important Modernist painters had only occasionally painted on a
very big scale, to suit a special occasion. [UTF-8?]Picassoâs Guernica is a
good
example.
Big abstract paintings made
themselves at home in the lofts of South-of-Houston-Street New York, then being
colonized by artists. These originally industrial spaces seemed to offer plenty
of wall. Love it, live with it, if necessary trash it. New art, though big, was
still cheap. Later, with the multiplication of new museums in America and
elsewhere, big paintings seemed to have a logical purpose. Admiring critics
wrote pieces about the way in which these overweening canvases offered a new
experience in wraparound vision. Inevitably, however, the space available soon
started to run out. How many Pollocks, de Koonings and Rothkos does it take to
fill a vast gallery space to the point of bursting? Too many painters were
producing big canvases, with the result that a lot of contemporary art, even art
safely in the possession of museums, now spends most of its time in store. Where
ambitious private collectors are concerned, we have become used to the term
[UTF-8?]âwarehouse [UTF-8?]artâ. The proud possessors are known to own it.
[UTF-8?]Itâs also known that they [UTF-8?]donât live with most of it. In a
real sense, art that [UTF-8?]isnât being looked at [UTF-8?]doesnât exist.
Warehouse art is non-art. An awful lot of ambitious but misguided artists are
still producing
it.
If we look at the art of the
past, art earlier than Modernism, we find a mixture of big art and small art.
The big art was almost invariably produced for absolutely specific purposes
[UTF-8?]â never on spec. It adorned churches and palaces. It offered a focal
point to a public square. Small scale art was sometimes produced without a
patron in mind, simply for the market, as most art is produced today. Many of
the great masterpieces of the past are disconcertingly small. Portraits by Van
Eyck and Memling. Religious paintings by Antonello da Messina. Some, though not
all, of [UTF-8?]Rembrandtâs self-portraits. Samuel [UTF-8?]Palmerâs
landscapes of the Shoreham period. Even the Mona Lisa. They need to be looked at
in a different way from wraparound art [UTF-8?]â slower, more contemplative
[UTF-8?]â dare one say it? [UTF-8?]â more loving.
Today many young artists are
forced, through economic necessity, to work in very small spaces. Collectors,
even when prosperous, [UTF-8?]donât have unlimited wall space. How many
wraparound canvases can you house in a two-bedroom flat? There is an obvious
disjuncture between what is being made and its supposed destination. An art
market that produces solely for museums and warehouses surely [UTF-8?]isnât in
a healthy
condition.
This exhibition is meant to
do two rather ambitious things within a physically small space. First, to
suggest that contemporary art is changing, and changing rather faster than
usual. An important part of this change is the rebellion against huge size.
Artists are making small work not because they are forced to (though in some
cases that is increasingly true), but because they actually want to [UTF-8?]â
because small art, in current conditions, is actually cutting edge, and delivers
a new and dissident message. [UTF-8?]âLook at me in a different
[UTF-8?]way,â it says. Secondly, linked to this, the show invites visitors to
explore, on their own terms, how this different way of looking functions, and
what it may possibly
deliver.
Edward
Lucie-Smith