JASON MARTIN – INFINITIVE

Posted on 2012-06-04

In a daring new work, Martin has dramatically transcended the two-dimensional. On arriving at the gallery, the visitor is confronted by the monumental, matt black, cubed block, Behemoth, measuring 3m x 3m at its base and over 2.6m high. Comprising layer upon layer of stacked virgin cork coated in pure black pigment, the squatting sculpture dominates its setting. The work is impossible to understand in a single perspective and the spectator is forced to negotiate its sides and edges, unable to access its top.
Simultaneously awe inspiring and intimidating, elusive and alluring, Behemoth accesses a shared primal memory: the Kaaba of Mecca, a mausoleum to a long dead dignitary, an
inviolable alchemist’s box. Initially solid and impenetrable, closer inspection reveals the
gnarled, pitted unruly surface of the untreated, pigment-blackened cork, sourced from the area around Martin’s Portuguese studio. Its natural undulations and inconsistencies echo the raw, worked, sculptural surfaces of Martin’s pigments. The form of Behemoth, and its physical presence in the gallery space, echo the theatrical preoccupations of Minimalist
sculpture but the ancient and organic nature of the material conversely alludes to an inherent human narrative that belies these conceptual concerns.

Opposite – Behemoth, 2012

Exhibition runs through to June 23rd, 2012

Lisson Gallery
52-54 Bell Street
London
NW1 5DA

www.lissongallery.com

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STEPHEN WILLATS – SURFING WITH THE ATTRACTOR

Posted on 2012-06-04

London-based artist Stephen Willats is a pioneer of conceptual art and has made work examining the function and meaning of art in society since the late 1950s. His first South London Gallery exhibition in 1998, entitled Changing Everything, brought together a body of work made in partnership with local residents over a two-year period. Aiming to create a cultural model of how art might relate to society, the work invited visitors to make their own contributions to it, shifting the way the art institution relates to the world around it.For his latest show, Surfing with the Attractor, Willats re-presents material from Changing Everything alongside a new installation featuring a huge ‘data stream’ spanning 15 metres and made in collaboration with 14 London-based artists. Comprising hundreds of carefully ordered images in various media, the data stream documents two contrasting streets of London: Rye Lane in Peckham and Regent Street in the West End.

Exhibition runs through to July 15th, 2012

South London Gallery
65-67 Peckham Road
London
SE5 8UH1

www.southlondongallery.org

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WILL COTTON

Posted on 2012-06-04

Conjuring his signature land of plentiful sweets, for the touchstone of this group of new works the Artist depicts Katy Perry (Cotton served as Artistic Director for her 2010 California Gurls music video) as the reluctant queen of an imagined Utopia. In Crown, she stands before a palisade of pastel cakes, holding the headpiece as if wary of its obligations and consequences, realizing that a reign of opulence and profusion will inevitably conclude in decline and decay.

Cotton evokes the memory of a time before this awareness in Candy Forest, an idyllic landscape that merits bright color but is instead painted in the monochromatic palette of an old sepia photograph. Yet even in that distant past this Utopia harbored an underside – a truth underscored in the paintings Landfill and Trash Pile. Here, doughnuts, pastry, and tarts are nothing but layers in a garbage heap, their allure diminished in a realm of infinite riches.

Opposite – Crown, 2012

Exhibition runs through to June 30th, 2012

Mary Boone Gallery
745 Fifth Avenue
New York
NY
10151

www.maryboonegallery.com

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