We always enjoy the eccentric offerings at the quirky Gasworks Gallery in Oval, and their current exhibition certainly doesn’t disappoint. Previous shows have featured a giant Styrofoam coffin, and another saw the space turned into a Hampstead Heath cruising area. So we popped open the subterranean port hole to our office and went to inspect the latest offering.
And the offering is ‘Critical Art Theory’ by the very vivacious 87 year old Japanese/American artist Ben Sakoguchi. The artists’ earliest memories were of being held in an internment camp during WW2 with his family. This trauma informed his view of history only being developed by white American/European men, and their failings being conveniently forgotten. We hope our CEO Kevin is reading this.
The 67 paintings in the show draw a rough chronological timeline from cave paintings up to the invention of photography. Using primarily painters from the canon (read…white dudes) he turns their view of the world on its head by comparisons to metal band KISS, Back to the Future, and Teenage Mutant Turtles, as you do. And if you’re thinking ‘Pop Art’ then you’ve hit the nose on the head and you get a prize. Occupants of the White House are also not spared a satirical eye. God knows with the current one he has enough material to fill fifty galleries.
When we saw these paintings online we thought they were collages and stencilled letters. In reality they are meticulously drawn paintings reminding us of detailed Japanese prints. Some of the pictures within pictures also look like film posters. They could also spring to mind cartoons that your grandad sketched in anger after a few too many brandies on Christmas day.
Many of the paintings on show engage directly with racial subjugation and gender bias. And while Critical Art Theory might lack the side splittingly humorous appeal of a Styrofoam coffin, it’s an intriguing journey into how the world has been shaped by the white male gaze for millennia, as viewed by artists who we’ve learned not to question.
Critical Art Theory is open now until 7 September and is totally free. But please remember that if you want to take part in the fun it is only open Wed-Sun 12 to 6. If you want even more fun they are having an artist open day on 6 September and details can be found here.
