Some times when I visit an exhibition I find myself totally stumped as to what exactly I’m supposed to be seeing. This was the experience I had with the Malcolm Morley show at the Ashmolean in Oxford yesterday. I hadn’t travelled down to Oxford specifically for this but rather my wife and I felt like a day out and there are fare worse places to go than Oxford. The Ashmolean is one of the finest museums and galleries in country so we’ve spent quite a bit of time there over the years. So it was yesterday – hence my introduction to Morley’s work.
Now before I had read this introduction I knew next to nothing about Morley and at the end of the exhibition I didn’t feel any better informed. There was nothing on offer that I could connect with. Morley appears to make large scale paintings of photos he finds in a ‘super realistic’, his description, style. Unfortunately, I’ve seen too many photorealistic paintings now to realise that whilst he is considered the pioneer of this style his paintings left me cold and unmoved. No doubt in his time they were ground baking but to me uneducated eye they just felt like bad copies. I walked away wondering whether I had turned two pages in my art history for dummies – however the clincher for me is the title ‘Turner Prize Winner’. To make matters worse he was the first winner – thus in some off beat way setting the standard (I know that is totally unfair).
If Malcolm Morley is your cup of tea then I believe this is quite a good collection – thus a good exhibition to see. Otherwise…don’t bother. My this sound so pissey and I apologise to all those involved with the show but Morley’s work leaves my cold.
As for my own artistic endeavours well I made a couple of sketches but I can never settle properly to work on these things.
Simon's Blog 