KVT – breathless at mda
Too Close to the Madding Crowd
Went to MDA (the new up-market nomenclature for Maison des Arts) this morning to see Portraits by Consuelo Steley and Bruno Huckel. It’s an interesting show in need of a good curator.
When you enter the large gallery holding Huckel’s lacquer works on canvas you are almost squeezed breathless by the overwhelming number of pieces on show. I think it would have been really effective if two thirds of the work had been left home and a select few been allowed to breathe. As it was it was difficult to choose a favorite as my brain was bewildered by the glossy, gravel earthy tones that crowded the walls and even reflected off the floor. The concept was really excellent and, when I put some blinkers on, I loved the pieces where the thick lacquer almost made the figure opaque, or when it had solidified as it was rolling like amber butter down the canvas. When the pieces started to take on a Degas-quey look and the lacquer thinned I appreciated the clever appropriation but wanted more of the meatier pieces that my eyes had to wade through to uncover the figurative details.
Steley’s water colors on silk were also too jammed in for eye comfort and a few of the clever pieces would have been really appealing with only five or six on show. I think that the piece in the stair well attests to that. Steley’s pieces are immediately reminiscent of Dutch/South African Marlene Dumas’ blurred edged work in the nineties minus Dumas’ charged eroticism. I would have liked to see a couple of the works presented outside the confines of their oriental mounting. I think that they would have jumped out at the viewer with immense vitality.
A good, if maddeningly crowded, show to end the Tet drought on the art scene.
| Not a reviewer, not a critic, “Kiếm Văn Tìm” is an interested, impartial and informed observer and connoisseur of the Hanoi art scene who offers highly opinionated remarks and is part of the long and venerable tradition of anonymous correspondents. Please add your thoughts in the comment field below. |
I went on the opeing night to this exhibition, and was also rather overwhelmed by the amount of people and all the other art that was on the walls and felt that the curator had been rather thoughtless in giving these two artists only one room each.It would have been nice if the walls had been higher and the rooms bigger. but I imagine that this gallery was once a house and no architectural effort has been made to host its artists with grace.
However I did find my self going from Steleys rooms into Huckels, then back again. and a little voice inside my head had just two words to describe what I saw on the walls; compassion, passion, compassion.
“overwhelmed” I learned this word, thanks; In fact that’s exactly the impression I was looking for!