ADRIANO COSTA
2014-08-25In line with previous installations, Costa’s found objects – readymade yet reformulated – continue to express their original functions and resonances; earlier assemblages have for example recycled items of clothing from his childhood. He has made a series of wall compositions using cut-out sections of free London newspapers, and these bear witness to the news stories that dominated the headlines over the summer (or indeed those that passed by without note), from the wars in the Middle East to the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in the Ukraine. Reflected in these works, Costa proposes, is a sense of the “crazy and intense summer” that has just passed, with “some works speaking of tragedies, others of funnier things. It’s always important for me to talk about where I’ve been working – perhaps in an attempt to understand.”
Assimilating a diverse range of forms and colours – whether of copper or concrete, steel or cloth – Costa also oscillates freely between miniature and monumental scales, suspended and earthbound formats, or flat and volumetric structures. His works harbour precise references to artists he admires – allusions “packaged in plastic” – while also affectionately subverting the models they invoke. A grid of metal tiles, reminiscent of a Carl Andre floor sculpture, has for instance been riddled with circular holes. Elsewhere Costa has deployed coloured polythene bags (rubbish and recycling sacks from different London boroughs) to create geometrical wall pieces akin to Constructivist paintings; while in a series of small-scale paintings, he combines the methods and motifs of embroidery, collage and cartoons
Exhibition runs through to September 27th, 2014
Sadie Coles HQ
62 Kingly Street
London
W1B 5QN
