- Venue
- Graves Gallery
- Location
How quickly contemporary art sinks into time and becomes part of a more historical collection. Recent pieces discussed just a few years ago as current begin to merge with 20th century and previous artworks. And so it goes on. Abstraction and Art Now is art from artists who have already made it into public collections, and whose place is thus secured to be rotated with the other works.
The Now art has already gone through processes of understanding, even though by practicing artists still in the process of making their point. Sometimes we – I say we meaning I – can’t always remember if we have seen certain works in the flesh, as the image is so familiar, and so it is startling to see the unfamiliar scale or texture or qualities of familiar works. Mark Quinn’s sculpture Kiss manages to gently combine historical artistic references and his own concerns of looking at disability in glowing, porcelain-like white marble, giving the piece even more presence than the image suggests. Floating Sam Taylor-Wood’s scar is more visible at proper scale, balancing the meanings in her work.
I like the way Graves gallery has some themed rooms where newer pieces sit side by side with the context from which they sprang – older paintings. Sheffield has a very fine collection in its archive and a programme of placing contemporary and recent work in the mix.
Why might I mention the quality of light in the ladies? Exhibitions include the entire context of showing, and although the artists can’t have anything to do with that, the visit includes the entire experience. I have never seen such harsh and ugly fluorescent light – not even in the seventies. It fizzes the air with a blue tinge, and must be what a fly experiences just as it is on the point of death in one of those insect zappers you see in chip shops. It’s just one of the things so horrible you’ve got to tell someone about it.
Graves Gallery is also hosting a collection of Andy Warhol self-portraits. Now, there is an artist who may be historical, but whose ideas and practice continue to resonate into current debate and contemporary artistic concerns. The image, the image, it is all about the image. However, less often discussed about Warhol is the texture and painterly qualities of the works, reminding that these are handmade, or factory produced artefacts. Seeing the squidge of the printing processes, the splash of colours from one frame to the next, and the hand at work, makes the message of manufacture and multiple more eloquent and poignant.
