VISUAL ART | Previews & Reviews
PRIVATE VIEW RACHEL LOWTHER
Rachel Lowther studied at London's Chelsea School of Art and in Frankfurt and New York. She spent 14 years in New York as an artist and curator, where she assisted Jeff Koons and Matthew Barney. She’s now based in Glasgow where her new exhibition, Nothing compares to the first time getting shot at, has opened at GSA
What led to you making work in response to GSA’s World War I archives?
They approached me after seeing some work I made about war for Glasgow International in 2014. I think I’ve been skirting around the theme for years. I took a hiatus from art after having my children, and coming back to it I was very aware of what was happening in the world such as the beginning of the current crisis in Syria. I kept asking myself: what is the role of an artist when there is such unspeakable horror in the world?
What did you discover in the archives? Lots and lots of letters. Soldiers wrote back from the Front asking if the School knew what had happened to their classmates. Parents wrote about their sons who’d been killed. I found a letter from [GSA director] Fra Newbery to the Board, asking if he could institute propaganda among the students, to try to get as many as possible to enlist. My hand was trembling as I read it, thinking about the pressure these young men were under.
How did you turn your research into artwork?
I made a series of clay sculptures of civilian figures and then attacked them with a pick axe handle. The film of this is in the show, as are the figures. In a way, they are the epitome of non-violent resistance; they just stand there and take it. I also made embroideries using phrases from the letters.
Why are you dressed as a chicken in the poster for the show? My mother’s uncle Carl was sent a white feather in 1914, like lots of young men were. He lied about his age, went to war and died just before he turned 18. It just struck me that this tender little object caused so much pain and death. (Susan Mansfield) ■ Reid Gallery, GSA, until Sun 20 Mar.
92 THE LIST 4 Feb–7 Apr 2016 92 THE LIST 4 Feb–7 Apr 2016
REVIEW MIXED MEDIA HELLO, MY NAME IS PAUL SMITH Lighthouse, Glasgow, until Sun 20 Mar ●●●●●
In an exhibition like this, which summarises both the work of an iconic creative personality and someone whose output is available to purchase off the peg, the line between celebration and marketing tool tends to become blurred. Yet, presented in touring form by the Design Museum London, it’s wonderfully curated, and the join between creativity and commerce is fortunately obscured. In its presentation, the show strives to actually be Paul Smith – all of the text is written in the first person, and there’s a mirrored antechamber which is described as being the inside of his head, in which television screens projecting abstract patterns hang from the ceiling and Smith’s words linger in the air.
The effect of this is wonderfully personable, and it gives us a real sense of Smith as a human rather than a brand. There are physical mock- ups of spaces which represent milestones in his life: a three-metre square white cube to the same dimensions as his first shop, opened in Nottingham in 1970 and ‘managed’ by an Afghan hound called Homer; the Paris bedroom where he presented and sold his first items of clothing; his trinket-swamped office in Covent Garden; and his design studio, busy with visual inspiration and Althea & Donna’s ‘Uptown Top Ranking’ on the retro radio. It all feels very London.
Elsewhere there are images of each of his bespoke stores and many promotional campaigns, as well as examples of Smith’s clothing which emphasise his
personal taste in knitwear colours, lining patterns and sharply cut suits. Most intriguing of all, however, is the room of ‘stamped objects’ – everyday items covered in postage stamps and sent to his office – which have been arriving anonymously since 1998. His wife Pauline is gratefully recognised in the show’s text, and Smith himself appears in video interviews; his designs are striking and desirable, but it’s in focusing on the personal that the exhibition succeeds. (David Pollock)
PREVIEW SCULTPTURE / PAINTING SARA BARKER: CHANGE-THE-SETTING Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 12 Mar–Sun 5 Jun
Sara Barker has become a name to watch in Scottish contemporary art, with a solo exhibition at GoMA last year as part of GENERATION, and now one at the Fruitmarket Gallery, next to Waverley Station. ‘It’s such an important institution in Scotland,’ she says. ‘It’s interesting to take sculpture outside and deal with light and a different sense of scale, but I feel more at home in a gallery, there is more freedom.’ Barker trained in the painting department at Glasgow School of Art, and her process begins with painting on thin sheets of aluminium: ‘I think of them as a sculptural material; when I make them I know I’m not going to leave them as flat objects. I might be listening, reading, scribbling on the metal, everything feeds into the work. It’s a really free process.’
While her multi-layered works are often ambitious in scale, they tend to be described as delicate, poignant and associative, exploring and defining space; both physical and imaginative. Barker draws inspiration from writers and poets, and the monograph for the Fruitmarket exhibition will include a new text by novelist Ali Smith. Barker says that this work will explore the edges of the gallery space itself: ‘Some of the works are cutting into the back wall, creating a sense of liminal space in the gallery, so you feel like they’re hanging over the train station. I’m pushing on the boundaries of a space more than I’ve ever done before.’ (Susan Mansfield)