Exhibitions
Young British Artists II (Saatchi Collection, till summer 1993)
Barclays Young Artist Award (Serpentine, till 28 February)
Steam of consciousness
Giles Auty
By chance, both exhibitions I am reviewing this week offer catalogues writ- ten by the ubiquitous Sarah Kent. Ms Kent is the main art critic of Time Out, the mod- ish but useful guide to London's places of entertainment including those of a bizarre and homosexual nature. Along with City Limits it is certainly the weekly I would choose if I decided to dye my hair bright green. Ms Kent has been involved.intimate- ly, too, in the recent culture of the Tate Gallery as the critic chosen for the jury of last year's Turner Prize. She was judge, also, of this year's Barclays Young Artist Award. Her star mounts higher by the elaY., Because in my limited acquaintance '3' her I have found Ms Kent a perfeetlY, agreeable social companion, I am ashamed to say a lot of her writing gives me a ten' ble tendency to giggle. This may be because there is something inherently beastly about men — as much of her writing proposes — or it may be because so many of the things she writes about defy sensible analysis. Young British Artists II, at Mr Saatchi 's whiter-than-white emporium at 98 Ad Boundary Road, NW8 (open Fridays an , Saturdays only, 12-6 p.m.), presents art 01 this kind, featuring a quartet of folk Wil°, cannot distinguish between notoriety an' fame. Possibly their patron's background lu advertising has an adverse influence here. Thus Rose Finn-Kelcey exhibits what IS basically a steam tray with overhead duct- ing and a freezer cabinet. These wring from Ms Kent some peculiarly anguished philosophising: even God's authoritY 1,5 called into question by Ms Finn-Kelsey s artefacts. In the meantime Sarah Lucas shows blown-up sections of newspapers of a laud — the Sunday Sport, for example — unlige ly to be read by those with an IQ even approaching double figures. These are u as a basis for a criticism of the male species as a whole. Marc Quinn exhibits a self-Pr trait, a sculptural head made from his own. frozen blood. Other heads by him are mod- elled in dough, which rises rather than melts when baked; he casts these subse' quently in more familiar and durable sculp. tural materials. Mark Wallinger photographically based portraits of his chums dressed as down-and-outs, usually in View of the installation at the exhibition Young British Artists II at the Saatchi Collection, showing works by Sarah Lucas and Rose Finn-Kelcey front of the doors of major financial insti- tutions. He also contributes four life-sized semi-silhouettes of famous racehorses. These last also arouse Ms Kent to a post- gallop lather of furious sermonising, for women have been known to throw them- selves under racehorses — although not these particular ones — in pursuance of political ends. We learn that racing is 'a manifestation of patriarchal authority and capitalism at their most naked'. We are told also that horses are an 'embodiment of phallic potency', although this lot look as though they could scarcely raise a canter between them.
Whether the Saatchi show is sillier and more vacuous than that at the Serpentine is a debatable point. But while Mr Saatchi is responsible to no one, Barclays Bank has shareholders who may be amazed at the values they are called upon to support via their Young Artist Award. Does Charles Saatchi share his artist Mark Wallinger's apparent disdain for our financial houses? I imagine the tycoon may have needed the services of a bank or two himself at some time or another. But if there is hypocrisy here on the part of patrons this is, even so, less odious to me than the self-righteous preaching of young, inexperienced people who have been supported so far mostly by the state in a total indulgence of their whims. Clearly none feels the least misgiv- ings in telling the rest of us what we are doing wrong.
Of the nine potentially prize-winning artists at the Serpentine, four each were graduates of the Slade and Goldsmith's College and two of Chelsea College of Art. Should you think my maths is as weak as a good deal of this art, I should explain that this year's winner of the £10,000 Barclays Young Artist Award was a brace of identi- cal twins. They are Jane and Louise Wilson who, in Ms Kent's words, 'work together constructing tableaux whose scruffy disar- ray seems to be the result of a crime or the cause of a suicide. These are presented in large colour photographs which arouse a disquieting mixture of prurient interest and the guilty suspicion that one is somehow responsible for the sordid circumstances, if only through indifference or neglect'. The twins' photographs arouse none of these things in me.
The Serpentine show is probably a grooming ground for future Turner Prize candidates. A number of the works already have the familiar hallmark of absolute futil- ity: functionless furniture, empty boxes, abstract paintings based pointlessly on sil- houettes of hideous tower blocks, slimy- looking send-ups of serious paintings by well-known artists. Anti-art backed by anti- criticism seems to be the latest name of the game. To be a critic now, one simply looks at a collection of miscellaneous and often meaningless objects, then lets a gentle stream of subconscious associative connec- tions take over. As work goes, it's almost like therapy.
Previous page
