ART FIRST, 21 Eastcastle St, London, W1W 8DD, until March 22
Shangri-La, 2013, watercolour on paper, 35x50cm (c) artist |
I place in your hands, (2013) 109 x14cm, |
What is Shangri-La doing in an art gallery?
Its message sharpens the poignancy of other darker art works in the show. For this show is entitled Lost Horizon
and chronicles our search in vain for a Utopia. Paintings, scrolls,
videos, mirrors, word lists, collage, etched crystal glass all invite us
to reflect on our dream of a perfect society.
This particular art work looks like a collage but is in fact a beautiful trompe d'oeil painting of discarded flora and prunings from the artist's small balcony garden in South Korea.The accompanying notes remind us that "The search for paradise begins, and ends, at home".
This particular art work looks like a collage but is in fact a beautiful trompe d'oeil painting of discarded flora and prunings from the artist's small balcony garden in South Korea.The accompanying notes remind us that "The search for paradise begins, and ends, at home".
The work on the right is embellished with gold vinyl lettering spelling out its title, I place in your hands, a fragment of dialogue from Lost Horizon. Postcards like these are still sent as friendly, perhaps tantalising, tokens from remote and desirable places. Many of the other exhibits are not so benign. A work in ink on Chinese linen To Be Governed lists some words taken from the writings of the 19C anarchist Proudhon: "taxed, stamped, forbidden, corrected, punished, spied on, choked, sacrificed..."
www.artfirst.uk
www.simonmorley.com/biography/
www.artfirst.co.uk/simon_morley/pe-14.html
www.goodreads.com/book/show/1862372.Writing_on_the_Wall (by Simon Morley, 2003)
www.whitechapelgallery.org/shop
The Sublime, a book edited by Simon Morley and published by Whitechapel Gallery
www.goodreads.com/author/show/2031.James_Hilton
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