It seemed to me that the interrelation between these two sides: order in nature on the one side, and the human condition on the other, was the undefinable drama to be grasped, dealt with and communicated by me. – Franciszka Themerson, Bi-abstract Pictures, 1957
One of our favourite London gallery’s, l’étrangère, is coming to us November 4 with a brand new solo exhibition of paintings drawings and calligrammes by Franciszka Themerson, a seminal figure in the Polish pre-war avant-garde.
When I think of my hometown, Los Angeles, California, palm trees, expansive beaches and rainbow sunsets come to mind. I start to crave In n’Out Burger, hot pilates and early morning hikes in Runyon Canyon, $20 Juice Served Here smoothies (worth it, I swear) and the ever perfect ‘Trust Me’ menu at Sugarfish. I think of lazy strolls on Abbot Kinney, movie premieres taking over Hollywood Boulevard, hip hop nights at the club and performers on the Venice boardwalk. What I do not think of however, is art.
Now, before you go telling me how LA has a “killer art scene,” yes, of course I realize there is art in LA. From street art on every major boulevard, to Renaissance masterpieces at the Getty, and gallery private views with drinks flowing almost every weekend, by no stretch of the imagination is the City of Angels not a City of Art as well. However, living in London currently and having lived in New York, I never thought of my city as quite up to par with my adopted homes art-wise, at least not until The Broad.
The Broad has changed everything.
Marketed, quite accurately, as ‘LA’s new contemporary art museum,’ the building, by design firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, is a piece of art in itself gracing the skyline of Downtown LA. Inside, the vast-beyond-comprehenstion postwar and contemporary collection of philanthropists Eli and Edythe Broad awaits. Just to be transparent, that’s 2,000 works of art collected over the course of 50 years, and including the likes of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Cy Twombly, Keith Haring, Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Takashi Murakami, Ed Ruscha, Damien Hirst, Cindy Sherman and Christopher Wool, to name but a few.
Inside Outside at l’étrangère presents a new body of work encompassing painting and sculpture by the British artist, David Ben White.
Absorbed within the language and aspirations of modernist architecture, design and art, White’s paintings and sculptures disrupt the self-enclosed logic of this prescriptive legacy through a subversion of its objects and spaces. For his first exhibition at l’étrangère, White will treat the spaces of the gallery as subjects to be reinterpreted; the homogenous model of the white cube is reformed via signifiers of a familiar, domestic interior. Upon entering the gallery, a constructed environment comprising painting, sculpture and vinyl installation draws the viewer into a re-configuration of the relationship between gallery, artwork and spectator, one that gestures towards an interior design logic.
I had the chance to speak with David about his artistic practice and forthcoming exhibition.
On Thursday December 11th, I started my morning with a perfectly frothy cappuccino and a sinfully delicious almond biscuit from a tiny bakery in Venice’s famed Jewish quarter. Little did I know as I strolled toward the Guggenheim Collection after breakfast that the biscuit would not in fact be the best part of my day.
The Guggenheim Collection is housed in
the legendary Peggy Guggenheim’s former Venetian Palazzo. Overlooking the Grand Canal, the house is a real stunner but its’ true beauty is what lies within, possibly the most incredible art collection I’ve ever seen.
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