Three new exhibitions have just opened at Margate’s seaside gallery, Turner Contemporary – Carl Andre: Mass and Matter, Rosa Barba: Subject To Constant Change and Turner: Turner’s Perspective. In this list, Carl Andre always comes first; he is page 1 in the gallery’s Spring programme booklet, he comes first on their website, on the sign outside the entrance, at the gallery’s front desk (“what’s on show at the moment?”… “Carl Andre, Rosa Barba and Turner”), and is, in the instance of some art critics who have visited Turner Contemporary in the last weeks, the only part of the trio written about.
This isn’t surprising; of course Carl Andre comes first. He is a celebrity in terms of minimalist sculpture. But, Mass and Matter is less impressive than I had originally hoped for; quotations by the artist in huge letters across the wall dwarf all the sculptures within the room, reducing them to uninspired remnants of the powerful and considered works of art they are so known for being. This isn’t to say there are no good moments – Andre’s minimalist poems are interesting and provide an insight into a lesser seen part of his practice – but the overall curation feels quite clumsy.
Despite Carl Andre coming first; despite the fame his name drags behind him, it is Rosa Barba’s Subject To Constant Change that takes centre-stage here. Hers stretches across two of the gallery’s largest spaces, whilst Andre’s work is tucked away in the back room and Turner gets left with the corridor.
It is important to add that Barba’s spotlight is very much well deserved. Her work, combining film, sculpture, sound, text and installation, is thoughtful, beautiful, enigmatic, poetic and very often moving. “I work with text, film, objects, sound… but I think,” Barba explains. “I think my main interest is in light: illumination – how material passes through light. Rhythm too: how one puts rhythm in space. My work can’t really be defined by just one thing.” Throughout Subject to Constant Change, the viewer moves bathed in projector light, the olfactory glands fill with the musky smell of celluloid and, in the background, relentlessly churning filmstrips rhythmically click, merging too with the electro-acoustic, collaged soundscape of the video piece, Subconscious Society, in the next room, a new work focussing on the 19th and 20th Century history of the Kent coast and Manchester.
Rosa Barba, 1 February until 6 May 2013, Turner Contemporary, Rendezvous, Margate, Kent, CT9 1HG.
Rosa Barba: Subject to Constant Change is also running at Cornerhouse, Manchester until 24 March.
1. Rosa Barba, Subject to Constant Change, installation view at Turner Contemporary. Photography: David Grandorge. Courtesy the artist.
2. Rosa Barba, Subject to Constant Change, installation view at Turner Contemporary. Photography: David Grandorge. Courtesy the artist.
3. Rosa Barba, Subconscious Society, 2012, film still. Courtesy the artist.
4. Rosa Barba, Subconscious Society, 2012, film still. Courtesy the artist.
ExtraORDINARY at The Lowry, Manchester, explores everyday objects and actions in contemporary art, and will allow visitors to interact and contribute to the fabric of this engaging exhibition.