review

toady we are at the rocket gallery for their show "private view: 40 years on".
the rocket gallery is situated in shoreditch's tea building, this puts it in the heart of the east end's vibrant gallery culture, which in a sense is apt as previous to this the rocket gallery used to be in the centre of the west end's commercial art district (a horrid americanism i know...)

the show has been assembled to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the publication of "private view", this book by bryan robertson, john russel and lord snowdown looked at how the london of the 60s had become one of the three capitals of art (paris and new york being the other two). the final chapter was devoted to the new generation of creation, the original yba if you will. so in order to look at this the gallery has brought together some classic and fresh works of some of the artists featured in the book.
the artists featured are: anthony caro, robyn denny, anthony donaldson, john holyland, paul huxley, tess jaray, philip king, richard smith, william tucker and marc vaux. all of them are still working, all of them work with the abstract art genre (and for those of you who don't know what that might be (and for those of you who do not care) here is a sort of defintion "an art expression in which the artistic values reside in the forms in colors rather than in the reproduction or presentation of subject matter." go here or here for more "definitions. aside from caro all the artists were born between 1930 and 1940.

as mentioned before the works on display are a mix of classic work and fresh work, there are paints and there are sculptures. there is a timelessness about the works works from the 60s look as interesting as works from the 2000s. in some the materials that are used does help date the piece. larry and the boys of changing rooms never quite used mdf in this way....

i confess while i am a big fan of art and that while i go to art galleries on a regular basis i am still very much part of the i-don't-know-much-about-art-but-i-know-what-i-like school of thought.
(but never one to shy away from things here is pat's definition of art (and it is a two parter):
art must have intention on the part of the artist, the means the artist must know that they are creating art, and that the art they are creating has a meaning to them and that they are attempting to convey that meaning to the viewer. this means that the works of chimps and children do not count.
art must mean something to the viewer, the viewer of art must be able to have a dialogue with the work that they are looking at, (i know it does sound poncey) even if that dialogue is no more than oooh that colour looks nice with that shape.
this of course means that the viewer may consider something to be art, although it is not art with a capital a (such as the doodlings of chimps). while artists may create art with a capital a and the viewer may think it is no more than the work of a hyped on crackfilled cola cubes deranged school kid. )

anyway that is how i view art (and i have been caught out on many occasions).

so back to the show.
because with abstract art you are not really contemplating the meaning of the work as such, you are more concerned with the forms and patterns that are on offer it is sometimes very hard to engage with the work. much of what was available to see in the show appeared to be sterile, as if it had been constructed by ikea rather than created by an inspired artist.
i found myself admiring pieces in the show, rather than being bowled over, i found i was working out the construction of the work rather than appreciating the art. i often have this problem with abstract work, but then there are times when i see a piece that just works and i can spend hours just looking at it.

the stand out pieces in the show were vaux's e3/11 and cc2 - both are constructions that include coloured mdf laid in patterns, the geometry of the colours is what makes the pieces work. they are smaller in scale than say the work of donald judd but equally effective.
john hoyland's 30.11.68 (1968) is the only piece in the show that appears to be a manual painting in that you can see a non mechanical finish to the work. his fields and bars of colour are similiar to rothko and the effect is the same, it draws you in and relaxes you. you compare and contrast the colour and the shape and in doing so you find a sense of peace.
the pieces by jaray work in the same way but they are more mechanical in construction. a 100 moments dark (dark) and many moments are both grid like in their constrcution, the viewer sees the points of the grids intersection and not the grid itself. they are like a starmap, but everything is in an exact place and in a precise relationship to everything else. almost cyberpunk in a definition of order. in a different way this encourages contemplation and relaxation.

of the rest they are ok, but nothing to write home about.