Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
[enlarge]
Paul Moss, Lothar Götz, ‘Danger paintings nos. 1-6, behind Luther Götz, Kaufhaus Hager – umbrellas will not always be orange and brown’, 2003.
Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland
31 January – 19 March
Reviewed by: Stephen Palmer
It is not unusual for artists to look to their heroes for inspiration. The three artists in 'Remain in Light' do just that: their own art at once a celebration and a pastiche of the ideas and formulas employed by their art heroes. Using the language and form of painting as a starting point, these ideas are manipulated and given a contemporary and even futuristic twist.
Stuart Edmundson keeps one eye on Frank Stella and the other on Dan Flavin. He works with neon tubing and coloured rope lights, here showing luminescent text pieces alongside a painting-like object. The Stella-esque Always and forever, a cruciform of sequentially pulsing lights, appears primed to summon intergalactic visitors from some far-off celestial plain.
The perimeter walls of NGCA have been transformed by an extreme designer colour scheme. Lothar Götz is becoming well known for these Sol LeWitt-style transformations – as much a tribute to TV makeovers as they are to Conceptual Minimalism. Götz's flat rectangular areas of colour butt up against one another, accentuating the idiosyncrasies of the space. Occasional blocks of reflective silver sing out amongst the otherwise matt colours, suggesting a futuristic world of as yet unattained sci-fi decorative pleasure.
Competing with this kaleidoscope is Paul Moss's monolithic Danger painting nos. 1-6, a continuous freestanding wall made up of six separate but adjoining screens. The twelve-metre screen has been wrapped in 'danger tape' (the tape council workers put around obstacles in the road to warn pedestrians and vehicles). Moss is tipping his hat to Op Art impresario Bridget Riley, but here Riley's chevrons are formed into an undulating cascade of red and white. The monolith glows with mystical light and I am reminded of the curious object excavated from the lunar surface in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 – perhaps a Danger painting will one day be unearthed by future archaeologists digging beneath Roker Park, to similarly confound our future descendants.
Writer detail:
STEPHEN PALMER
is an artist and [a-n] production assistant
Venue detail:
No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?
To post a comment you need to login
Back to top