I went to the Nottingham Contemporary exhibition for Francis Upritchard & Alfred Kubin yesterday. Due to the age of the early Kubin sketches, I wasn't allowed to take pictures in that section of the gallery. Kubin's drawings centres around themes of death, trauma, mystical creatures and fantasy worlds - subsequently echoing the horrors and shaded fantasies of his past. Something about the joint exhibition made me think of the 2009 stop-motion fantasy / horror film "Coraline" - set in a dystopian world, where things that would traditionally bring joy become dark and menacing, taking on a life of their own, not unlike the pieces within the exhibition. Upritchard's colourful sculptures and tapestries are themed around the expectations of counter-culture from the 70s / 80s. Her figures appear wryly and hunched over, as though they themselves grow tired of the excessive referencing of the decades' failed revolution. Whilst we still celebrate the evolution of alternative youth culture and it's remaining influence on much of the art scene, it is quite a tired concept that fell short of it's initial expectations, and in common practice appears generally quite gauche.
Attending an exhibition like this, I couldn't help but feel the artwork itself, whilst addressing the subject matter, didn't summon any quantitative reactions for me. Darkness and dystopia are captivating themes which I commonly look to in my own work, and whilst every one has different interpretations of such concepts, the artworks I saw yesterday didn't entice me in any way. I considered for a while whether it's because sculpture and drawings of this nature don't generally appeal to me. I imagine the black and white drawings were intended to create a profound contrast alongside the colourful sculptures, so I can respect that other people will like this, but personally I wasn't enthused.
...Is it just me of does this fella look the slightest bit familiar?
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