A presentation of recent acquisitions, including a bunch of artists - and, in some cases, works - that have come across my radar before, including a couple of David Rosetzky cut-ups, Polly Borland (via "Untitled (Nick Cave in a blue wig)", 2010), three of Steve Carr's smoke bubbles, a series of Thomas Demand pieces colourfully in conversation with Matisse ("Cuttings", 2014) which for the first time sparked a response in me to his work, a Mapplethorpe, Sophie Calle ("The giraffe", 2012 - poignantly lovely), Trevor Paglen (these were the three 'drone' ones that I've seen before, but I hadn't realised till just then that Paglen was also the photographer who caught my attention with his spacey couple of pieces at the Mori Art Museum last year), a pair of Alex Prager stills, Carsten Holler.
And then there were a few that were new, and that struck me powerfully - especially the two by Thomas Jorion ("Toyo", 2009 and "Blednik", 2011) and Danny Singer's three portraits of small town life under expansive skies ("Sturgus", "Delisle sky", "Gainsborough winter sky", all 2015), large format and high-hung - both Jorion and Singer distinctly painterly in both their framing/eye and rendition - and Pieter Hugo's "Green Point Common, Cape Town" (2013). I noticed recently that photography had, stealthily, at some point become possibly my favourite form of contemporary visual art (although, having said that, I tend to experience many of the individual contemporary artists who I think of as my favourites as each more or less sui generis rather than as working in particular forms like sculpture, installation, etc even though of course they are), and this selection was a reminder of why that is.
And then there were a few that were new, and that struck me powerfully - especially the two by Thomas Jorion ("Toyo", 2009 and "Blednik", 2011) and Danny Singer's three portraits of small town life under expansive skies ("Sturgus", "Delisle sky", "Gainsborough winter sky", all 2015), large format and high-hung - both Jorion and Singer distinctly painterly in both their framing/eye and rendition - and Pieter Hugo's "Green Point Common, Cape Town" (2013). I noticed recently that photography had, stealthily, at some point become possibly my favourite form of contemporary visual art (although, having said that, I tend to experience many of the individual contemporary artists who I think of as my favourites as each more or less sui generis rather than as working in particular forms like sculpture, installation, etc even though of course they are), and this selection was a reminder of why that is.
