JOSEPH BEUYS - A SPACE BETWEEN MIND AND HAND.
40 YEARS OF DRAWING - THADDAEUS ROPAC GALLERY LONDON.
Joseph Beuys - from a collection of 100 drawings on display at Thaddaeus Ropac London.
How beautiful is this space? - Somewhere between the minimal strict of the medical, a Kubrick corridor and something of a dance hall - all parquet or paved monochrome marble.
100 drawings by Joseph Beuys - the Grandfather of conceptual art and thinking - are shown for the first time in the UK. Presented in humble wooden frames on white washed-walls poured over in natural winter light - a collection from the Beuys family archive.
‘What is drawing? When two surfaces touch - a pencil line unwinds across the paper - it offers only itself - a line executed more by blindness - than evidence of something in the world… but this contact between mind and hand is evidence, shred, calculating evidence of a moment, when time and action unite - with minimum interference, minimal expectation, other than pencil on paper doing their most basic of tasks - to touch each other’ - writes Phyllida Barlow.
Barlows’ poetic introduction to this intimate exhibit feels respectfully on point, sensual even - private. My immediate thought was just that, these many fragments of errant thoughts, taken from a mass of notebooks feel Margiela-esque in their voyeuristic desirability - mysterious as the creative process is - the assorted mid-century stationary which creates an almost invisible background to the tender drawings to which they testify. The many pages - whose delicate edges are perforated with traces of the spines of journals from which they have been taken - books carefully pulled apart and reorganised to exhibit - a new order formed - a subtle reminder that these works were in fact from a series - whose original flow we will never know.
Notes made for the eye of the maker alone, graphite searchings, I imagine were never intended for public consumption - like any posthumous display of process - I wonder what would the artist think now? As an educator he probably would welcome the vulnerability of showing your ‘workings out’, the primary research stages of ideas - which were to evolve into more resolved outcomes later in his career. And there are little saplings of ideas here - sketches of hares, stags, insects, sledges, bodies, and the symbolism of birth, life, and death - all themes which the artist famously explored.
A wall displaying a series of drawings of mountains - feel particularly pivotal to the exhibitions course - these sketches are symbolic possibly of the artists mysterious past as a pilot, where he allegedly cashed into the mountainous regions of Znamianka in 1944. The artist was rescued by Tatar tribesmen who wrapped his body in animal fat and felt to aid the natural healing process - materials he revisited and used within his work as an artist. Interestingly these accounts have been questioned by historians and yet the hazy sense of reality seems important to the drawings - rendered with urgency - their line quality feels deliberate and searching, as if drawn from life - specific and yet also feathery vague - like memories or imaginings - the bleached white of paper - dazzling like sun on snow.
Joseph Beuys - 40 Years of Drawing - until 22 March 2023
Thaddaeus Ropac, Ely House, 37 Dover Street London
PRADA SS23 - A SPACE BETWEEN ARMOUR AND AMOUR.
A SERIES OF RUNWAY PIECES IN LONDON.
Unlined coat in cotton gingham with a hand knitted mohair triangle - From a selection of pieces from the Spring Summer 2023 menswear collection by Prada.
I find it hard to resist Prada, the name alone makes my heart beat faster, a style that protects while also invites - I think of that precise combination of elements - a design formula decided upon with the instinct of one pair of eyes and complimented by another - a language enunciated by one person and yet has been learnt by so many, emulated even - impersonated like an accent - and yet when you wear those pieces - all created with the knowing complexity of that particular point of view - there really is no replication.
The Prada aesthetic seems more exotic from a far, and yet when I visit Milan I understand more - because in fact these elements are not so distant from the identity of a specific generation of the cities residents - who do not, in fact work within fashion - nor I imagine care about it - an age of citizen who dress for comfort while remaining loyal to a certain mid century democratic uniform of task specific and weather sensitive - with a certain nostalgia of youth.
The pleasure of Prada is immediate - ideas so well realised in specificity that they are calm to the touch. The eye glides over their cut and form while looking for the particular combination of elements which define this rare species - firstly the colour - always so specific - reminiscent of that pre mentioned era while never feeling retro - then the fabric - again so precise - a tremulous language of touch - and of course the cut and construction - oblique in finish and yet such thought has been invested - to achieve that invisible quality which is more feeling than physical - more so when worn - where a mirror is not needed to know.
A single breasted raincoat cut from what appeared to be a checked linen table cloth has an almost ready made quality of a printed paper napkin - the immediacy of that pattern - triggers thoughts of a picnic blanket or table cloth - from a time I do not know, where an impromptu sense of the alfresco is worn with a straight face. Fellow gingham characters swing adjacently - cut out into a precise offering of raincoats, blouson jackets and neat shirts - characteristics of a gentleman’s wardrobe prevail with discreet intelligence - roomy raglan sleeves, wide top-stitched seams, placket fronts and pale horn buttons slot precisely through generous key hole button holes - all offer clues of cultural origins while the whimsy of that joyous check feels deliciously perverse in a time heavy with gloom.
And that triangle, affixed between the shoulder blades - this time hand-knitted in charcoal mohair - feels nostalgic even tender - a little amour - in an armoured uniform of now.
Prada, 16-18, OId Bond Street, London
Special Thanks Massimo