The mayfair art scene has gone minimal and zen last month with the following shows in the neighbourhood.
Bischoff/Weiss gallery
Londoner Nathaniel Rackowe was showing in this simple space on Hay Hill (off Dover Street). The gallery walls are plain white and the floor are laid with zig-zag wooden tiles. It feels like an unoccupied studio/loft space.
Nathaniel's works have created an interesting tension with the gallery space. The sterile cold cathode lights juxtapose with colour neons. Mirrors and sheets of glass form new shadow dimensions within the exhibition space, amplifying the presence of passing-by visitors. These reflections connect individual pieces around together to become an integral piece as a whole, with the visitor's movements injecting a temporary dynamic component to it.
28.03-05.06.2013
Gazelli Art House
Over Dover Street, we saw Italian artist Aron Demetz & Korean artist Shan Hur in a joint show. The connection between the works of the two artists are not obvious, in fact it is almost non-existent.
Aron's raw wooden figures are fascinating in the way they tries to represent life in two dimensions - that they are made of timber which was alive in the past and its form are human. He even has fake mushrooms growing from some of the figures, pretending life is thriving again on these dead logs.
this crack is a small-scale replica or Doris Salcedo's giant
crack in Tate Modern Turbine Hall?
Shan's works on the contrary are more site-specific and look like a parody of the gallery experience. As part of the gallery's
Window Project, he duplicated the gallery entrance's columns right behind the entrance doors and twisted one of them as one of the show pieces.
*****
Further Readings
Page: official press release for the Tainted show
