- Venue
- Tate Modern
- Location
- London
AxMe was a taste of an artist who is under represented in the UK. This is a first look at her for me despite a body of work which is highly acclaimed. Gallagher moves across media, although it can be said that her medium is drawing. She uses collage extensively throughout her practice, appropriating magazines from African American culture, penmanship paper and film to delve into a mind concerned with appearance, personality and transformation.
Entering the exhibition for the first time, you are confronted with her meduim trademark penmanship paper covering the walls of the gallery. In this room resides Odalisque (2005), a still projected image of Matisse reclining with his later collage overlaid delicatley with gold leaf. Strangely the gold rim of Matisse’s cup shines through, the rest not too discernable. The room is divided. One side of the room we have Gallaghers later works on paper, opposite her series of paintings from the 1990’s including the seductive Untitled (1998). An expansive field of whitewashed penmanship paper reveals intricately drawn sausages, or mouths, around which are arranged afrohead silhouettes across its surface. At first funny, these elegant images instill a troubling vocabulary of whitewashing. In fact many of Gallaghers works are segregated visually into black and white. Oogaboogah (1994) is a similar bleak white modernist framework with sparse Malevich-like black squares, but they contain spooky smiling faces.
Tolerate the repetitve child like soundtrack in the next room and you might be able to spend enough time to look at the cover work for the show: Double Work (2002,) POMP-BANG (2003)and Afrylic (2004). Presented before you are massive works consisting of Black culture idols from magazines from the 30’s to the 70’s collaged over with humourous headresses and shapes all in yellow plasticine (yes, plasticine!). I didn’t linger to count how many collages lay on these massive grided structures, but considering Gallagher spent three years making these shiny works, they were a bit overwhelming.
Murmur (2003-4), a foray across media into film, is an engaging assimilation on her language of looking. I waited to see the reveal of this collaboration between Edgar Cleijne in the darkened room but there was no allusion to an outcome, like her paintings and collages. The cinefilm projectors orientate images onto the four walls, some revealing the actions of collaged movie stars, some displaying lucid animations of fishes. When you move through the space, you walk in front of the films, your own silhouette briefly on screen. It was immersive, but I left feeling slightly empty, or missing something.
Gallagher’s Morphia series tops the show. After Murmur, you wander into a room of these drawings. They occupy the gallery like people, presented on special four legged plinths. Morphia arguably is a progression on the earlier afro- modification and mutation of Double Work et al. They resemble Chinese watercolours. Delicate double-sided drawings cut through, they receive surrounding space. Her recent works like Bone-Brite (2009) shine out too, balancing beauty and poignancy worth close appreciation.
