Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Peter Suchin, ‘A Conceit of Fiches’, ink and other materials on 718 index cards, 1990-2003.
Redux, London
10-31 January
Reviewed by: Jessica Houghton
Can a thousand words paint a picture? See Peter Suchin's wall display A Conceit of Fiches, 700 index cards bearing the artist's own scribbled note-making from 1990 to the present. Forming the rest of this exhibition are a large acrylic on canvas, six 'pocket' canvas acrylics and samples of Suchin's writing. Erik Satie's piano concerto Vexations plays in the background.
Suchin perceives the handwritten fiches aesthetically, comparable to a Mondrian, or Gerhardt Richter's colour charts. Both public and private, they recall Derrida's notion of the postcard; here, the 'unsealed' soul professes no grand revelations, but thoughts and findings, perpetual as daily metabolism. This is not a gallery but a "research centre and artists' space", insists Redux curator Peter Lewis. Still, the issue of display-worthy material niggles.
"I like people who make decisions," says Suchin. His abstract painting carries echoes of Hodgkin, Schwitters, Pollock, yet harnesses these influences on an original level. The smaller paintings come across as intimations of larger vistas, the visual equivalent of the fiches were the latter more textually gripping. Suchin respects the dilettante: his article 'Reinvention without End: Roland Barthes' discusses the discovery of 700 'amateur' paintings by Barthes after his death. Yet Barthes' case illustrates the fascination with dead legacy: Suchin is still alive, and ill-prepared for the posthumous documentation usually afforded by 'museums'.
It is interesting to witness the record of one man's compulsion in an exhibition that aims to break down categorical boundaries. However, the spectre of the Renaissance man is undermined by a flight from discipline; effective neither as image, text, nor gallery exhibit, the fiches fail to court criticism. A protest against sensationalism (or 'Sensation'-alism) Suchin's rejection of gallery status is telling: were this 'conceit' to bring capital gain, the critic's text should be vexed indeed.
Writer detail:
Jessica Houghton
Venue detail:
REDUX
Unit 303, Third Floor, Lana House, 116 Commercial Street, LONDON E1 6NF
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