Making an Exhibition

I very much prefer figurative art, in all its various forms. It strikes me as a more inclusive, mor engaging and formally more enriching approach to the world than more abstract endeavours.

It was therefore with some trepidation that I visited the new exhibition abou the Nunhead Abstract Expressionists at the Nunhead and District Municipal Museum and Art Gallery, in Gellatly Road yesterday.

This was a strange experience for me - like anyone who has dabbled in the history of local artists, the work of the various groups that grew out of the Nunhead Pals after the First World War is well known.  Subtly influential and in some ways groundbreaking - despite their inarticulacy - these artists, and particular the loose collective known as the NAE, have been the subject of some scholarly attention of late.

And the N&DMMAG have many of the original works on display, from the Skehan Hoard and elsewhere.  So despite my generalised dislike of Abstract Expressionism, this should be a good show.

Unfortunately however, despite some wonderful art - by which, I must admit, I was profoundly moved - what the exhibition presents is a comprehensive failure of curation.  A wholly wasted opportunity to tell the story of some of Nunhead's brightest stars, and a travesty of intellectual thought and feeling.

Ostensibly, what the exhibition purports to offer is a historical guide to the story of the NAE's rise to fame and eventual slide into obscurity.  This is told in a series of set-piece displays, supported by short textual introductions and the obligatory multimedia.  However, in the desire to tell that story the art itself is quite neglected.  No label discusses technique (eg the new use of impasto and ciaruscuro that so shocked the Vorticists when they discovered it), no explanation is given for the materials they used (an implicit revisioning of the cheapening effects of Communism decades before Orwell). 

In summary, they are presented as historical quirks - oddities outside both the avant-garde and the artistic mainstream - when in fact they were one of the key enginehouses powering the New British Art of the 1920s and '30s.

Further, in what purports to be the intellectual underpinning of the exhibition, a rather naive piece about 'Slippages,' there is minimal discussion of the foundational impact of Saussurian linguistics on their subsequent deconstructions of language and utterance.  An inexcusable lacuna.

There is talk of a redevelopment plan for the N&DMMAG.  On the strength of this exhibition, they would do better to get their intellectual house in order before investing in bricks and mortar!

The rest of the Museum is, of course, very nice. 

 This is art of a recently-discovered 15th Century fresco.

This from the History Wing.

 An ancient Nunhead Roman pavement - beautifully conserved.

 The current crop of Nunhead artists are well represented.

And the Museum is slowly garnering an International reputation, stretching far beyond the boundaries of Southwark.

So I had a cup of tea and a cake at the majesterial cafe, run by the inestimable Mrs Brew, and then went home, slightly shaking my head.

The Exhibition of Nunhead Abstract Expressionists at the Nunhead and Diistrict Municipal Museum and Art Gallery closes at 6pm this evening.  Just look for the signs opposite Skehans.  In fact a preliminary trip to Skehans would probably help with any visit to the N&DMMAG.