Condo (Galeria Jacqueline Martins) - König London, February 2018
Last October, during Frieze, König Galerie decided it would test its own London space and set up shop in Winchester House on Old Marylebone Road. The space is incredible - next to a garage, a beautiful neon sign welcomes you downstairs to an underground carpark.
This is the setting for my final (and favourite) stop on the Condo 2018 tour. Condo, now in its third year, is a collaborative initiative whereby host galleries share their space with international ones either by allowing the latter to use their space freely or by co-curating exhibitions. The aim is to allow London’s contemporary gallery visitors to discover artists from galleries scattered across the globe (Sao Paolo, Warsaw, LA, Vienna et al) within the confines of their own metropolis. It encourages wider representation and cross-contamination which are always welcome on the scene.
For Condo, König hosted Galeria Jaqueline Martins (GJM) from São Paolo. The show focused on Minimalism - with König bringing that of Jeppe Hein and Jose Dávila and GJM Lydia Okumura’s.
We open with Okumura, whose revolves around site-specific installations exploring bi-dimensionality and three-dimensionality. In The Appearance (1975) and The Appearance (1976) she uses cord to create geometric compositions which appear at times flat and at times have depth. Similarly to Tuttle’s recent works, in response to Agnes Martin, in which he used pencil to play with sculpture’s dimensions (see here), Okumura traces on the white walls - making us aware of the space surrounding us, making the works wonderfully tied to their location.
We move into the main carpark space to find Jose Davila and his Homage to the Square (2017). Davila, who works and lives in Mexico, likes to re-contextualise works of art (such as Malevich’s famous square) in a contemporary setting. Here we find what I perceived as a delicate aluminium dream catcher of sorts - its components rotating revealing a beautiful geometric range.
Yet another artists who plays with our knowledge of critical works is Jeppe Hein, whose Left Diagonal Cut (2017) echoes Fontana’s famous cut canvases. Within the work we find a reflection of his Geometric Mirrors IV (2012). As with all pieces bearing reflective surfaces engagement with the space and the visitor becomes critical, as any movement creates new transient modes of viewing.
My favourite work was Okumura’s Different Dimensions of Reality (1971) in which again the artist plays with our perception of depth and dimensionality. Here we find nine aluminium plates and paint on the wall, arranged as if to trace the further most white square’s path from the wall to us.
As a bonus (unrelated to Condo) for those obsessed with Jeremy Shaw (I now consider myself to be, after seeing Liminals during Everything at Once) König’s showroom had this wonderful treat from his Towards Universal Pattern Recognition series:
Condo definitely ended on a wonderfully geometric high.
König London is at Winchester House, 259-269 Old Marylebone Road, London NW1 5RA and hosted Galeria Jaqueline Martins from 13 January to 17 February 2018.
