Exhibition reviews

Today I was fascinated to see, and a little underwhelmed by, Michelangelo Pistoletto's The Mirror of Judgement at the Serpentine Gallery.

Pistoletto is a leading figure in the development of both Arte Povera and conceptual art and this installation has had rave reviews, including the Guardian calling it "a beautiful and mind-expanding experience." As in much of his work, Pistoletti has here made use of religious concepts, imagery and phrases together with his repeated use of labyrinths and mirrors. He has written that "the mirror is the mediator between the visible and the invisible, carrying sight beyond it's normal possibilities" but has also stated  that the "image in the mirror is objective; there is no interpretation.”

Pistoletto argues that at "the beginning of our century, the avant-garde made art again autonomous." "Art ceased to be a symbol of religious and political power" and "actively takes possession of those structures such as religious which rule thought; not with a view to replacing them itself, but in order to substitute them with a different interpretative system, a system intended to enhance people’s capacity to exerting the functions of their own thought." This is where Pistoletto's labyrinth is intended to lead us. We move past symbols of four religions (a prayer mat, statue of Buddha, prayer stall, each before mirror, represent Islam, Buddhism and Christianity respectively, while a pair of large arched mirrors stand in for the Jewish Torah), to a central chamber containing a mirrored obelisk and the New Infinity sign (Pistoletto's symbol for the Third Paradise; a fusion between the first paradise in which terrestrial life is completely regulated by nature’s intelligence and the second Artificial Paradise which is developed by human intellect).

All this background information seems necessary in order to relate to Pistoletti's intent for this work; meaning that the work relies on a literary interpretation. The ambience at the Serpentine, at least as I experienced it, is not particularly contemplative as notices ban the touching of the work (due to its fragility), gallery attendants chat in corners, and there is no sense of the prayer objects inviting use. Visually, the concept is literal; mirrors judge us each time we use them and Pistoletto's installation doesn't alter that experience significantly without knowledge of the literary concepts that underpin the work.

Also at the Serpentine currently is this year's Gallery Pavilion designed by Peter Zumthor. Zumthor's pavilion as a "hortus conclusus", an enclosed garden, also relates to concepts of Eden or paradise. In Zumthor's essay about the pavilion, he begins by writing: "We come from nature and return to nature; we are conceived and born; we live and die; we rot or burn and vanish into the earth."

Out of Australia at the British Museum begins with the opposite; the wilderness inspired expressionism of the ‘Angry Penguins’ group of artists – Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Albert Tucker and Joy Hester. Arthur Boyd is a favourite artist and his prints do not disappoint formed, as they, through their fevered, passionate mark-making, echo the strength of the content. The exhibition includes an early work in Boyd's highly original Nebuchadnezzar series. Boyd and Tucker both address the passionate and predatory aspects of eroticism, something that also features in Eric Gill: public and private art, the other British Museum exhibition that I visited today. Gill combined sensuality and spirituality in images such Divine Lovers, which forms the centrepiece of this small review highlighting the wide range of his work. The effect that knowledge of the abusive element of Gill's sexual practice has on our response to the sensuality of his work is rightly noted but the primary focus is on his art and ideas.

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The Smiths - Cemetry Gates.