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From: rog
Category: Art
Date: 26 January 2005
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/current/current.htm
Martin Kippenberger Peter Doig Marlene Dumas Luc Tuymans Jörg Immendorff Hermann Nitsch
Firstly the new white walls make it much easier to view paintings. County Hall feels like a dungeon with paintings imprisoned in cells, which the viewer drops in to see the horror and smell the oil-paint fear. This is not a bad thing.
Of the artists Immendorff looked strong, perhaps just becasuse his brightly coloured cartoonish paintings are easy to get in to. But why not. Nitsch is not Pollock with Blood. Kippenberger pulls off the occasional great image, as in the bendy lamppost painting with the lamps atatched, but more often is dullly ironic. Tuymans giant Cezannian still-life is great, really powerful in its room, a difficult to compute, startling, superbest painting. His other stuff is the usual rehashed photos in sepia. Doig's paintings are pleasant. Marlene Dumas seems art schooly.
In the renovated space this is actually quite a satisfying show for the expert. The amateur may be confused that this mishmash can be called triumphant.
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