A visit to Saatchi Gallery in London...
5:07 p.m.
The works exhibited in art galleries not always offer the quality expected by the public. In some cases, such artistic expressions can result provocative or even vulgar. But, as it always happens with Contemporary Art, galleries are the place to see the latest and most eccentric pieces. Visitors, and most of all, the art market, will finally decide which are the most attractive ones.
The Saatchi Gallery in London is known worldwide for being always avant-garde and exhibiting the best of emerging art. But its last exhibition was discouraging. The gallery might be undergoing a new curation process or maybe it is reflecting, in the choice of artistic expressions, the miseries suffered recently by its owner (his divorce has gone far from the private sphere).
Sarabande, by Jansson Stegner (2006)
Technique: oil on linen / Measures: 99 x 86.4 cm
Saatchi Gallery, London.
Anyway, the thing is that the works presented on that last exhibition were supposed to turn around the subject of body expression and the result was far from expected: most works looked like bad copies of other artists and the quality was quite poor. Sixty percent of those works were paintings. Only one artist stood apart: Jansson Stegner (USA, 1972). Her women, leaned on rocks, looking relaxed and wearing police uniforms, made all the difference. Those paintings wanted to give answer to the clichés around feminine submission.
Grey Sky, by Jansson Stegner (2005)
Technique: oil on canvas / Measures: 61 x 53.3 cm
Saatchi Gallery, London.
His policewomen pose as in those pastoral images of the 19th century, but instead they hold in their hands element of violence and/or sexual domination. Each painting must be studied deeply because they say more than what meets the eye first hand, as it happens with the painting by Argentine artist Juan Pablo Renzi.
Great Plains, by Jansson Stegner (2007)
Technique: oil on linen / Measures: 122 x 86.4 cm
Saatchi Gallery, London.
Among the non-paintings, the best works were those by Denis Tarasov and Marianne Vitale, in a room for themselves only. The first one presented a series of photos of tombstones of a graveyard in Russia while Vitale also presented tombstones but in the form of a wood installation.
Markers, by Marianne Vitale (2011) - Recycled wood
Untitled (from the Essence Series), by Denis Tarasov (2013) - C-print
Saatchi Gallery, London.
Vitale's tombstones have all the same measures and shape, but they present an individuality given by the wood, which comes from an old warehouse. This instalation refers to the geometric feature of minimalistic sculpture, as seen with Carl Andre and Donald Judd, but in this case, the material used reveals past stories and an emotional context.
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