Exhibition Review: "The Triumph of Painting"

Sunday, went to see an exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery in London. They had put away the bad boy bad girl Young British Artist collection, and filled the rooms with paintings by six artists: Peter Doig, Martin Kippenberger, Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Jorg Immendorf and Hermann Nitsch. The new location of Saatchi is in ex-GLC offices, big old-fashioned County Hall rooms, with stopped clocks everywhere. This made a strange setting for a gallery, with whole rooms often containing just one hanging.

All the more weird is the presence of the only remaining installation, Richard Wilson’s “20:50”, a walkway leading the viewer into a room full of gorgeously reflective but anxiously deep and messy sump oil. This work was site-specific in the modern Saatchi gallery, but is now relocated in this big old municipal room.

Here’s my amateur art-critic resumé. The first painter encountered is Peter Doig, probably the most traditionally appealing of the bunch. He paints from a combination of found images and his imagination, resulting in scenes of buildings, forests, lakes, snow with what I reckon is a good balance of impression and expression.

Next, a mixture of the two Germans Kippenberger and Immendorf. Martin Kippenberger has the spice of variety, which I find gets more potent the more I see of his, but I didn’t engage much with any one painting. Jorg Immendorf’s pictures tend to be packed to the gills with obscure detail, which I like, even if this has become dated. He alludes to German history and his own personal history in exaggerated humorous ways. His mentor Joseph Beuys in his iconic hat seems to crop up a lot. It’s fun trying to work out just what on earth is going on.

Marlene Dumas’ ambiguous paintings of children were impressive, but maybe her presence could have been larger. The work of Luc Tuymans on first impression felt underwhelming and bland, but left a slightly haunting impression, such as a large painting of the view through a bird cage – black and hopeless. Big red splatters by Hermann Nitsch, supposedly remnants or backdrops of Viennese “Actionist” pseudo-sacrificial affairs, were impressive in the staid County Hall rooms, but only of glancing interest.

These are only my views – I’ve read critics for who the stand outs were Nitsch, Tuymans, and Doig was a disappointment. The cynical view of this exhibition is voiced by some, like Francesca Gavin:

Much of the exhibition feels like work bought when drunk at art openings in the 80s, now rediscovered and given some attention to raise their price tags. Saatchi’s triumph is an off-key kazoo rather than a regal fanfare.

and this may well be right – I can well believe it! Still I enjoyed the experience of the gallery, and at least some of the paintings. There are two more parts of the exhibition to come, and the third has many more artists represented. Don’t make the mistake we made of hoping they’d all be at this one!

Link to Saatchi Gallery