Saatchi and Serpentine - January 4th 2015



Visiting the Saatchi Gallery has become routine when visiting London each holiday. The thought is that it always has a broad scope of contemporary artists, unlike other galleries which often have exhibitions of one or two artists at a time. However, similar to my experience of the 'Walk On' exhibition in Plymouth in October, I found it really hard to engage with a lot of the works in the Saatchi because of the setting. Especially since the tutor's exhibition at Enys House, I have become increasingly disillusioned with the white cube gallery set up, which now seems sterile and uninspiring. On my last visit to Tate St Ives, I found it to be more of an art museum than a gallery, preserving artworks from the 20th Century, instead of challenging and exploring the current art scene. Although I think the Saatchi is more contemporary in this respect, the works drawn from modern attitudes and culture, I found the display just as 'tepid'. I also had the feeling that the people in the gallery were not especially interested in the art, passing by the works quickly with little time for a thought about them. Ultimately, although one of the most prestigious contemporary galleries in London, I found myself thinking 'I wouldn't want my work in here - not at all'.

 

The concept of popular art galleries such as the Saatchi is troubling for me. On one hand, doesn't exposure mean success? The more people who know you and see your work, the more renowned you are, the more money you make and the more ambitious future works can be. I think artists often do strive for fame or recognition, and this can be deemed as a reasonable measure of success in this field; but after my recent visits to galleries I have thought that I would value the intensity, and significance of people's engagement with my work as success, over how many people view it. Thus I really wouldn't want my work in a place where people go to appear fashionable, or where artworks are crammed in together and overpowered by each other, or presented in a way that is not right for the piece. I would want people to stop and look, and feel and consider what the work is saying and their response to it.

 

Perhaps my work is inherently unsuitable for the white cube, and vice versa, because it needs the history of places and the world around us. I found the Enys House environment so inspiring because the works called upon elements of the architecture and were fitting to the space. In modern galleries however, the work always seems autonomous and removed from everyday life, rejecting natural connotations with the ordinary world. Even installations seem as if they can be copied and pasted to other environments instead of being intrinsically entwined (physically or with their meaning) with the space in which they are displayed.