Culture Art

Hernan Bas: Memphis Living at Victoria Miro Gallery

Hernan Bas: Memphis Living at Victoria Miro Gallery | Exhibition review

Victoria Miro Gallery is spread over two sites in London, each currently showing Hernan Bas: Memphis Living, one the paintings and one works on paper. Perhaps we slightly drew the short straw here by visiting the drawings and works on paper which were possibly works in progress towards the paintings.

The works are quite sketchy, but we have seen more spontaneous sketching. They repeat the drawing of a male ideal, but we have seen more homoerotic work. The gallery provides an A4 sheet about the artist and the works, but the description and background is barely recognisable as relating to the art on the walls. Again, perhaps that all plays out in the paintings. The text describes flamboyant pattern and bold colour, and yet most of these watercolours are muted and mid-range, and the content lacks intensity. Artists often find their youth to be rich material, and here Bas references the Memphis look, the pop culture of the 1980s.

Bas has a fine feel for titles – The 2014 Mr General Idea Pageant; The Great Orange Boycott of ’78 – but these slight works have the feel of an artist’s private sketchbook with scribbled ideas still to be realised…perhaps in the paintings.

Victoria Miro has the strangest lighting. The gallery itself is not over-lit, but each work is bathed in an eyewateringly bright spotlight, which is truly disorientating and triggers the awareness of every little swimming dot in the visual spectrum.

Eleanor MacFarlane

Hernan Bas: Memphis Living is at Victoria Miro Gallery until 31st May 2014. For further information visit the gallery’s website here.

More in Art

1880 THAT: Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader at Wellcome Collection

Christina Yang

José María Velasco: A View of Mexico at the National Gallery

James White

The Edwardians: Age of Elegance at The King’s Gallery

Constance A

Carracci Cartoons: Myths in the Making at the National Gallery

James White

Wellington’s Dutch Masterpieces at Apsley House

James White

Ed Atkins at Tate Britain

Christina Yang

Fragments of Folklore: A landmark exhibition reimagines tradition in contemporary Saudi Arabia

The editorial unit

Splash! A Century of Swimming and Style at the Design Museum

Constance A

Marina Abramovic: Healing Frequency at Moco Museum

Constance A