Giulio Paolini’s show at The Whitechapel Gallery To Be or Not to Be is a body of quizzical,
clever work that repeatedly refers to itself within each artwork as well as
outside to the 'tradition' of looking and referencing. Clever in that the
viewer is constantly deconstructing and decoding visual game play (artist as
master thief or serial killer leaving clues to be unpicked and solved by
downtrodden detectives) one feels as if a spectator in a temporal game whose
rules are in flux.
I last
saw the work of Kader Attia at Tate Modern - it was a powerful dual slide show
juxtaposing images of WW1 soldiers facial reconstruction with images from an
archive of everyday items that had also had their lives extended by ingenious
fixing(s). The show at the Whitechapel continues this theme with disfigured
marble busts of soldiers next to repaired Arabic leaning boards. Within the
building there is a lot to see if you throw in a series of films shown in the
Zilkha Auditorium, the socially engaging work by Stephen Willats, Francis
Upritchard's Zabludowicz collection Project where he has worked with Brazilian
rubber to create a series of intriguing animals and the selection of sculptural
pieces by Mike Nelson from the V-A-C collection. But I'm waiting for the
Richard Tuttle show which coincides with the Tate Turbine Hall Commission that
I saw being built the other day - it is very large and I think could be a
winner.
Its the
Chinese moon festival – yes the moon has been quite incredible over the past
week – so a trip to China Town to buy moon cake in celebration.
