Today

52 December/January April/May 2011 2015/16 Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today www.KCWToday.co.uk 020 7738 2348
December/January 2015/16
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
53
Arts & Culture Arts & Culture online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Michael
Craig-Martin:
Transience
Simon Denny:
Products for
Organising
Serpentine Gallery and
Serpentine Sackler Gallery
Until 14 February 2016
serpentinegalleries.org
The Serpentine has staged two
exhibitions that, at first glance,
could not be more divergent
or diverse. Although, on reflection,
there is a commonality of ‘product’
that overlaps. Craig-Martin is mildly
obsessed with everyday objects, mostly
obsolete technology, all rendered in
intense flat colour with a thin black
outline around each, whether it be a
laptop, games console, watch, computer,
cassette or incandescent light bulb.
When he painted them, the objects were
cutting edge, and he thought they had a
permanence that would last for years, but
the technology was advancing at such a
rate, objects such as VHS and audiotape
cassettes became redundant, along with
the players, so that there was no means
to access the data in them. Even the
humble light bulb would be outlawed by
the EU and replaced with energy-saving
ones.
Craig-Martin has a meticulous way
of working; firstly, he scans an object,
pulls it through Photoshop, and reduces
it to a basic isometric shape, which he
then projects onto the canvas, which, in
many cases, is painted black. So those
thin black lines are not all that they
seem; through masking and painting
the large expanses of vibrant colour
with four-inch rollers to achieve the
flat effect, they are what is left. Two
of the black and white drawings were
‘painted’ directly onto the walls, using
a projected image and electrical tape,
which can be bent to go round corners.
It is the precision of the works that
is so appealing, and the background
colours he uses, not just on the canvas,
but on the walls of the gallery, as he
did so startlingly at the Royal Academy
Summer Show this year. There is
nothing Farrow and Ball about Mr
Craig-Martin’s colour swatch, shocking
pink, an equally shocking turquoise,
viridian green and deep blue, and in
the first two rooms, he had lined the
walls with his own wallpaper, speciallydesigned
for the show, featuring more
outlines of obsolete objects, this time in
grey on a white background. Only two
of his subjects are non-techy; a running
shoe on a pillarbox-red background and
a carton of McDonald’s-style chips, but
painted in toxic green. He has reduced a
credit card to a minimal purple rectangle
with a black strip and a white signature
box, but still recognisable. The star of
the show is Eye of the Storm, a whirling
maelstrom of out-of-scale objects,
including a garden fork, a safety pin, a
cassette, a knife, a bucket, a pair of pliers,
a metronome, and a light bulb. If there
is a hidden meaning, then it passed me
by, but it is the sheer energy and vibrant
colours that assault and excite the senses.
His most recent works feature a
current lap-top, but these, too, will
doubtless become redundant and
superseded by something thinner,
smaller, and smarter, along with all the
other objects he has rendered.
Hack, either as a noun
or a verb, has a number
of meanings - a humble
horse, a literary drudge or
second-rate journalist, a
rack for feeding animals, a
piece of advice, a walk, an
irritating cough, the act of
chopping, or a kick in the
shins.
Since the 1980s, hacking has
taken on a whole new meaning,
that of unauthorized remote
computer break-ins using
communication networks
such as the Internet. These
criminals are often termed
Black Hats, but there are
those that try to debug and
fix security problems, referred
to as White Hats. Simon
Denny: Products for Organising
is a hi-tech exhibition that
traces the history of hacking,
from its origins in a student
organisation formed at MIT
in 1946, to the present-day
commercial tech companies
like Apple, and Government
Communications Headquarters
in Cheltenham (GCHQ), the
British intelligence and security
organisation and the largest
information-gathering and
listening-post in the world.
Most of the language,
jargon, and terms used by the
designer Simon Denny at
the press view, were virtually
impenetrable, flippantly using
words like Holacracy and
Agile, radical management
practices, tension processing,
branded managerial
techniques, business process
re-engineering, computer
bulletin-board systems
(BBSes), and ARPANET.
My head began to hurt, as,
not only did I not understand
what Mr Denny was telling
us, I didn’t really care. There
was no real explanation as to
exactly how a hacker breaks
into a network, or even why?
There were plenty of vitrines
with computers, flashing lights,
scrawled graphics, plush toys,
books, LED strips, T-shirts,
and hardcore graffiti spray
cans, alongside architectural
models of GCHQ, the Apple
Campus, Zappos and Agile/
Holacracy Workspaces,
covered in graphics, which
were mounted on their ends, so
that the visitor had a bird’seye
perspective on the circular
buildings, but they did not
really bring anything new to
the party.
Don Grant
Photographs © Don Grant
Gillray’s Ghost
Cartoon Museum
35 Little Russell Street,
WC1A 2HH
Until 17 July 2016
Admission £7
The Plumb-Pudding in Danger. James Gilroy. 1805
The Baked Bean in Danger. © Steve Bell. 2015
The great political satirist and
caricaturist James Gillray died
exactly 200 years ago, but his
drawings still resonate and rattle down
through the years. Although revered in
Georgian times, his biting humour and
uncompromising views on politics and
the royals did not go down so well with
the Victorian gentility, and he evaporated
into the ether, only to be ‘re-discovered’
by such artists as Ronald Searle, Ralph
Steadman, and ‘Vicky’. The idea behind
this exhibition is to celebrate the
artist’s work by showing it alongside
other cartoonists’ work which has been
inspired by it, and amongst them are
Leslie Illingworth, Nicholas Garland,
Peter Brookes, Steve Bell, Peter Shrank,
Dave Brown, Martin Rowson, Chris
Duggan, and Morten Morland. The only
problem in doing this is that none are as
good as the original, and a parody of a
truly original and innovative comment
from two centuries away will always be
seen as a poor relation.
Fourteen years ago Tate Britain put
on a Gillray show, with over 220 works
on display, mostly on loan from the
British Museum, which showed the
astonishing range of his subject matter,
techniques, and draughtsmanship. This
exhibition can only scratch at the surface
of his brilliant wit and dazzling skills,
with such well-known gems as The
Plumb-Pudding in Danger, which has
been pastiched by half a dozen artists,
including Steve Bell, who portrayed
David Cameron and Nicola Sturgeon
carving up a giant baked bean. It seems
as though Bell’s
depiction of
Cameron has
almost morphed
into Martin
Rowson’s smooth
red saveloy, except
Bell has upped
the smoothness
by pulling a
condom over
his head. Other
proponents
depicted carving
up the ‘political
football’ have
been Blair and
Helmut Kohl
slicing through
John Major’s head
by Richard Cole;
Tony Blair again,
this time with
Jacques Chirac by
Jensen; Nicholas
Garland’s Mrs
Thatcher and
David Steel
carving up
Denis Healey’s
head; and Dave
Brown’s The
Scotch Pudding in
Nae Danger, with
Blair serving up
Gordon Brown
as a haggis to George Dubya. Not one
of these comes even close to Gillray’s
original etching for shear brilliance.
There is a thin, etched line between
homage and rip-off, and Nicholas
Garland’s take on the MPs’ expenses
scandal has merely lifted Gillroy’s
original Fashionable Contrasts, and put
nothing else into the drawing except a
couple of labels, one saying “MP” and
the other,“Taxpayers”, which smacks of
laziness. Another of his great cartoons
is A Voluptuary under the Horrors of
Digestion, depicting a debauched and
bloated Prince of Wales slumped in a
seat picking his teeth with a fork. Even
his coat of arms is parodied as a crossed
knife and fork, and there are a couple
of little jars behind him on a table, one
labelled “Drops for stinking breath”, and
the other “For the Piles”. Chris Duggan
has updated this as A Select Committee
Absentee under the Delights of an Expense
Account, which makes an excellent
lampoon, but what this exhibition does is
underline the notion that nobody really
comes anywhere near the standard of this
father of political cartooning.
Don Grant
High Spirits
The Comic Art
of Thomas Rowlandson
The Queen’s Gallery,
Buckingham Palace
Until 14 February 2016
Admission £10
In conjunction with another exhibition,
Masters of the Everyday: Dutch Artists in
the Age of Vermeer, High Spirits covers
some of the same ground, although, at
first, it is hard to make the connection.
The common thread running through
both is in the observation of everyday
life, with the Dutch paintings of the
Royal Collection. The subject matter
could be what has since been described
as genre painting, such as a merrymaking
in a tavern scene, with people playing
cards and flirting, or a market, an
interior, or simply a portrait. Rowlandson
has the same witty depictions of the
absurdities of fashion, political and
royal intrigue, and love. Most of this
collection of drawings and etchings were
amassed by George III, George IV and,
surprisingly, Queen Victoria and Prince
Albert. Rowlandson is not only known
as a biting satirist, but also as a fine and
prolific erotic artist. When questioned as
to why there was none of this work on
display, Kate Heard, Senior Curator of
Prints and Drawings, said that Victoria
had destroyed all the Rowlandson
pornography that George IV had
previously collected. I pointed out the
thin distinction between eroticism and
pornography - with eroticism one uses
a feather; with pornography, the whole
chicken. Ms Heard said that Rowlandson
certainly used the whole chicken.
Satirical printmaking was an
established tradition in Georgian Britain,
with its long history of freedom of
speech, and the fashionable elite queued
up to collect them as soon as they were
published, from other artists
such as James Gillray, James
Sayers, and the Cruikshank
family. Gillray and Rowlandson
were contemporaries and would
have coffee together whilst
discussing the latest royal
affair or scandal, such as the
resignation of the Commanderin-Chief
of the British Army,
George III’s second son, The
Duke of York, after his mistress
Mary Anne Clarke was accused
of accepting money in return
for obtaining promotions in
the army. Although George
IV was an avid collector, he
also attempted to suppress
those that showed him and
the royal family in a bad light,
particularly when dealing with
his debts or affairs. Debauchery
was another subject in which he
was particularly interested, as
there was plenty of it about at the end of
the nineteenth century, and Rowlandson
himself drank and gambled away his
inheritance from a wealthy aunt, which
initially made it possible for him to study
at the Royal Academy Schools.
He was a fine artist, with a
distinctive flowing style and a healthy
sense of the absurd, who was able to
capture a likeness with an economy
of line rarely bettered. He introduces
us to the lecherous squires; dashing,
young dandies; busty serving wenches;
ruddy-faced politicians; bawdy tarts;
and the dissolute Prince of Wales with
his cronies. It is also a very good way
to learn about British history in the
time of the Regency, with manifold
machinations going on behind the
scenes, particularly with William Pitt
the Younger, Charles James Fox, and
the Duchess of Devonshire, who is
portrayed in one cartoon canvassing
Fox’s candidacy by kissing voters.
Current affairs, particularly the
ongoing war between Britain and
France, was another target for his
sharp eye, as was the theatre, where he
had many friends, and he turned his
attention to the audience, showing their
reaction to the play, whether comedy
or tragedy. In another hand-coloured
etching entitled The Prospect Before Us,
the view is from the back of the stage of
the Pantheon looking out and depicts
two ballet dancers in the foreground, but
it is the orchestra and rows upon rows of
audience that demand attention. Boxes
at the sides contain the fashionably
dressed beau monde of London, who
were as much the focus of attention for
the audience as were the performers,
and there are literally hundreds of
tiny figures, each one differently
drawn. Fashion was another target
for Rowlandson, and he relentlessly
ridiculed it at every level, with some
biting caricatures, like A Little Tighter
and A Little Bigger.
Don Grant
Doctor Convex and Lady Concave