Exhibitions
Richard Artschwager, Cindy Sherman, Richard Wilson (Saatchi Collection, till July)
Faith-killing furniture
Giles Auty
Afirst effect of war is to banish complacency. All of a sudden morality and mortality seem a bit less abstract and remote. Unsurprisingly, artists who go through war often discover unexpected changes in their priorities when peace returns. For the first time in years, the artist may see beauty even in a run-down local park. By contrast, convoluted intel- lectual theories of art may seem less compelling suddenly.
If danger and deprivation heighten a sense of the real, then peace and plenty unfortunately erode it. Today, the Saatchi Collection makes a fitting monument to a time of economic boom and to the financial profligacy that accompanied it. Perhaps this is one reason why going to the Saatchi Collection has provided some of the more unreal moments of my life. Another may be the strange atmosphere of secrecy and security that surrounds the collection; even something as straightforward as the tele- phone number there turns out to be ex-directory. Ask a taxi-driver to take you to the huge premises that house the collec- tion and he will generally disclaim any knowledge of its whereabouts, though it has been open now for over five years. The last driver to take me there was even willing to bet that the address I had given him was wrong since he claimed to know that area particularly well. Usually the spiked steel gates which bar the way to the collection are closed. Indeed, like the similarly unmarked doors to lavatories within the building itself, they are unwill- ing to disclose either name or purpose.
The trio of artists currently on view there consists of Americans Richard Artschwa- ger and Cindy Sherman and the English- man Richard Wilson. The art of the first and last falls broadly into the category of objects which those who possess most other things on earth might just conceiv- ably covet. Artschwager began his profes- sional life in 1949 as a furniture-maker. More lately he has switched to parodying furniture but calling his product art. Some of that on view is based on ecclesiastical examples: altarpieces, lecterns, confession- als. However, the artist constructs his borrowed artefacts in materials of peculiar- ly disagreeable colour and appearance. But this, so the exhibition catalogue tells us, is `a brilliant, acerbic act of nihilism . . . through embodying artifice (lack of truth), it also casts doubt on religious conviction and the power of ritual objects to offer solace. This one decision sets up exquisite tension, meaning and form that gives all subsequent work the ironic potential of parody.' I hate to contradict a professional colleague, of course, but feel that the precise way an altar constructed from formica can cast doubt on anything at all, other than its owner's judgment perhaps, is something less than obvious. Moreover, I imagine that in the walls outside the Saatchi Collection at least 'religious con- viction and the power of ritual objects to offer solace' may shortly prove in greater rather than lesser demand. In the mean- time, one's sense of relevance, let alone reality, is hardly advanced by the know- ledge that Mr Artschwager is accustomed to 'wearing a pullover decorated by a flight of ducks'. 'The birds', so the catalogue note continues, 'seem to have evacuated the heavens for relocation on the artist's chest.' Was this all they evacuated?
Regrettably, the same written source does not disclose how Richard Wilson attires himself, but since one of his artistic materials is sump oil, one imagines he does so less fancifully. Some gallery-goers may have met Mr Wilson's famous oil slick before, though some fresh topicality could be argued now in its favour. The visual illusion it creates by reflection is a clever one. Those who know the installation of old will need no enjoining not to put their hands over the side of the walkway which protrudes out into the oily lagoon. Paper towels are provided for those who are less familiar or wary. Indeed, a handful of these might help dry the eyes of those overcome by the less charismatic nature of Mr Wilson's remaining artefacts: the frame of a greenhouse disturbed while passing through a gallery wall and the remains of a touring caravan.
The third exhibitor is Cindy Sherman, a young woman who, perhaps lacking a doll when young, took to dressing herself up instead. She has managed to make a successful artistic career subsequently through this unusual habit. Make-up, masks and a malleable face help her disguise her features further. The results of her disguise are then recorded photo- graphically, sometimes poignantly. However, we learn from the exhibition's remarkable catalogue that since 1983 'the nice girl no longer seems willing to solicit masculine approval'. Indeed, `. . . she is Richard Artschwager's 'Table with Pink Tablecloth', 1964, formica on wood not content, after all, to be a dreamy mirror for masculine fantasy. The follow- ing series explore madness, depravity, ugliness and disease . . . misshapen faces are covered in warts, breasts and buttocks in weeping pustules. . . .' Male cynics may reflect that some women will go to any lengths to get themselves noticed.
The Saatchi Collection is at 98A Boun- dary Road, NW8, and is open on Fridays and Saturdays, 12-6 p.m. For appoint- ments telephone 071 624 8299.
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