Art and Design

GUISEPPE CAVALLI - Master of Light at The Estorick Gallery

Reviewed by Harriet Salisbury 15/5/12

In the 1930s, Cavalli reacted against the bombastic images of Italys Fascist regime by taking simple pictures of beaches, men at work and everyday objects, The repeated forms of beach huts, boats pulled up for the winter, a simple jug or metal padlock, are illuminated by a glowing light – bleached further by time to a pale, honeyed gold – which gives a meditative quality.

This compact exhibition devotes the first room to dozens of Cavallis pictures taken in his small home town on the Adriatic. Titles are occasionally humourous or allusive – Desire for Wider Space is a fence partly blocking a sea view; Strike is a working mans torso with muscular, folded arms.
Adriatic Shores: The Carpenters shows two men working, a small boy fishing and a dog staring off to one side – like a still from a film.

In the second room you find photographers from his group La Bossola, who aimed to be poets of the lens. They include Mario Giacomelli, whose starkly contrasted landscapes focus on shape and texture; Piergiorgio Branzi, who used his lens to probe the impoverished People of the South and Pietro Donzelli, who found repeated patterns in shadows on windows and tablecloths. The most famous, Luigi Veronesi, is represented by some of his stark, black-and-white, closely cropped, semi-abstract images.

Cavallis influence is seen in these developing styles of photography, but his feel for light gives his work a luminous quality that shines out. This exhibition from a private archive is a rare chance to discover this important photographic pioneer.

ANOMALY ISLAND at Campbell Works

ends 11th December 2011

Reviewed by Clara Cowan 

Anomaly Island, Harriet Murray's mixed-media solo show acts as a powerful challenge to our perception of the way we live and the current state of British society.

A British flag made from bubble wrap and gaffa tape, sadly drooping, confronts the viewer on entering. A devalued symbol of national pride and grandeur, dramatically contextualised by this summer's riots and the increasing protest movements.

It is the entire man-made world and its anti-relationship to the beauty of the natural world that Murray examines so well, through scavenged or recovered everyday items.

The spectre of society's wastage hangs over several pieces. A child-like den made from vegetable boxes hordes a life-time of memorabilia, inviting us to think about the vast amount of objects and symbols that engulf and shape our lives.

An installation of an eerie black raft and projected film showing a twinkling sea inside a frame, incites a feeling of slight unease and nostalgia for a time when things were simpler. 

The show is incredibly powerful in reflecting the social and political changes and feeling of anxiety in current British society and asks the viewer to reflect on their position within this climate of change. 

A film and discussion evening will take place on 7 December 2011 to discuss the work.

THE POSTER KING: EDWARD MCKNIGHT KAUFFER

A pioneer of British Modernism, American graphic designer Edward McKnight Kauffer, arrived in England in 1914 and changed English commercial imagery forever.

The Estorick Collection are currently displaying a selection of his poster designs including his iconic London Underground and You Can Be Sure of Shell ad campaigns and lesser known works from private collections including book illustrations and cotton tag designs.

Kaufer re-interpreted the avant-garde styles of his contemporaries, Impressionism, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Vorticism and Futurism into accessible everyday images for advertising.

In Watford (1915), designed for London Underground, he promotes the town with a sparkling pond and an arched bridge reminiscent of Monet, with Andre Derain colours,  the trees are purple-blue, the bark surrounded by thick yellow outlines.

Winter Sales are Best Reached by Underground (1924), portrays a bustling street scene of people wearing mackintoshes and hats, evoking Gino Severini’s Le Boulevard (1913) – permanently on display in the Estorick. They use a language of diagonals, fragmenting bodies, geometric shapes and obscured faces, an echo of Futurisms love for dynamic urban life and modern technology.

Kauffer’s work is unique yet familiar, modern yet natural, utterly chic yet comforting. This is a rare opportunity for those who love design, modernism and even just England.

TRUE WOOD

TRUE WOOD at Campbell Works

Reviewed by Jenny Pescod 10/6/11

Neil Taylor's latest exhibition uses biblical legend to explore the power of objects and how much they mean to us. His parodies of Christian relics, bright blue crosses made of foam, slogans daubed on church stationery, belie his clear fascination with the  ideas and stories behind them, the materials they are made of  and their effect on those who believe. 

That a crusty fragment, enshrined in a catholic transept, might have found its way via Jesus's cross, the Queen of Sheba's dream, and grown into a tree out of Adam's corpse, is an amazing, if scientifically dubious, story.   Perhaps more fascinating, is that belief in this story inspired conflict in the Middle Ages, and spawned a market for relics, that still persists. 

Taylor's work asks ; why these objects?  Without objective truth, what is there but superstition? Could a packing crate be as valuable?
The work "On this house I'll build a rock" nudges his audience to consider these relics religious absurdities.  And prompts us think of our own relics, the everyday props and crutches on which we build our own fragile identities and roles, religious or otherwise. 

True Wood dwells gloriously on its theme, while gently making fun of us; the only things actually made of wood are not exhibits but crates and access tunnels. In all, a visually alluring show with a valuable message.

FROM MORANDI TO GUTTUSO at the Estorick Gallery

The Estorick Gallery, in the quite streets of Canonbury, is maybe the best place to view art within the immediate area. Eric Estorick’s collection of Modern Italian Art (mainly Futurism)  is made up of around eighty pieces by artists such as Modigliani, Giorgio Morandi and Giacomo Balla.   Within the beautifully converted Georgian house, the six rooms are intimate and rarely crowded, allowing for a calm and quietude, rarely experienced in the major galleries.

The current exhibition ‘From Morandi to Guttuso’  displays the collection of Alberto Della Ragione (1892-1973) and sits alongside and extends themes and styles already found in the Estorik Collection..

The collection presents a superb display and education in an important era of Modern Italian Art, bringing together a mixture of Futurism, figurative painting and the ‘aero-paintings’ of Fillia and Prampolini (a strong influence on Surrealism).

The first room’s dominated by dulled colours and everyday objects.  Roberto Melli’s ‘Reawakening in Summer’ (1938), depicts a lady dressing and beautifully carves a face and feet out of wooden like blocks.   The room is primarily dedicated to the figurative, suggesting social undertones that for some artists of the era affirmed prevailing fascist ideals.

With brighter colours and modest abstractions, the second room is well contrasted to the first.  Here we find stunning paintings of Gattuso (‘Houses in Rome’, ‘Ashtray’, ‘Scantily Clad Women’) and the shape driven meditations on geography and agriculture by Prampolini.

This is a great chance to see and learn about Italian Art from the inter war years and visit a relaxing gallery  with lovely Italien cafe,  that is only a walk or bike ride away.