WhiteCube - A tale of two Galleries

The First piece of proper research I have done for this, happened on Saturday 17th March when I went to the White Cube Gallery. truth be told I finally got round to dragging my self to galleries after having 2 weeks of bed ridden illness and a week of partying for my birthday. I went to both the Hoxton and the Green Park White Cube Galleries to see the Anselm Keifer and the Christian Marclay. Unfortunately the Christian Marclay had ended, which I really regret because he is very much a new discovery for me. I fell in love with his recent piece at Tate Modern. it will hopefully give me a kick up the arse to make me go to see exhibitions when I hear about them.

Well back to what I actually saw. It was probably good that it wasn't the Christian Marclay as I actually thought about the gallery and the curating as well as the work on show. Chronologically I saw the Keifer at Green Park, it was a very grand show with another sculpture (which I missed) in the Courtyard of the Royal Academy, but what I did see had a lot of pizazz. Whoever curated the actual layout of the show whether it was the artist or the gallery's own curator was quite a showman and the piece Palm Sunday which was dominated by a 30 foot palm tree, on its side, was placed for impact, to give the whole show a talking piece. Unfortunately and the is always an unfortunately for me this really distracted and detracted from the wall of paintings/collages which were much more complex and ultimately more interesting than the tree.

Downstairs there were very large paintings, landscapes using clay, paint (and apparently shellac) to show very wide horizons, arable plains. The shear scale was very effective, 10 foot high and 20 foot wide, putting you in to the spaces they portrayed/created, but again after a while the clay, which had given the initial impact, became distracting and felt like a gimmick.

I only saw the sketches for the piece in the RA courtyard, but because of the understated nature of the display, in a glass table top case, they were very effective and you could get the feeling of the intention of the piece which actually makes me feel as though I saw the piece in reality.

I dashed from Green Park, to the Hoxton Square White Cube as it was the end of the day, a strangely awkward journey, to a very different show. I have never heard the name Eberhard Havekost which I'll admit is not saying much, but I did recognise one of his pieces.

Havekost is a painter with quite a diverse range, from fairly gory depictions of accidents to sharply technically drawn flags. The exhibition showed this, but in the worst way, it was cluttered and abysmally hung. Whereas the Keifer was hung for impact this seemed to be hung for information with aesthetics not getting a look in. There was far too much on the walls and it seemed to be hung in no particular order, and you had no chance to appreciate the work. One or two pieces got a good showing, because they were big enough to be on a wall on their own. It was like the artist had wanted to show absolutely everything he had done recently and the curator hadn't had the heart or the guts to say no, I really don't feel I can comment on the work it self, which is probably being fairer than I ought because I was left pretty cold but I can't tell if that was because of the paintings or the gallery .

They say an artist is the best person to hang his work but I disagree, as an artist myself, I am far too close to my work to be objective. I can advise on my work or on a piece and its context to another, but a good curator should make decisions about the space and the transitions between pieces within it.

With these two exhibitions, The White Cube seem to have shown where their priorities lie. A grand high impact show for their big name in the new flagship and a cluttered poorly curated show for the small name in the gallery where their roots are. It feels very much like they are wannabe star trying to fit in with their new glamorous 'friends' trying ditch their past out of embarrassment. It might be that the business has taken over from the Art and that they are prioritising the show with the prestige and money making potential, or it could be that they have over stretched and are not actually capable of putting two shows up to a high standard in which case their reputation will suffer.