UPPER-INTERMEDIATE (B2) LEVEL ARTICLE
Juicy art bits presents:
The Saatchi Gallery - Pangea II
by Sara Simon
This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. Attribution: www.CGPGrey.com
The Saatchi Gallery is one of the world’s most famous galleries for
contemporary
art. It is in London, easily
reachable
from Sloan Square station. It was opened in 1985, by Charles Saatchi who wanted to open his personal collection to the public. Nowadays, the Gallery has been
donated
to the City of London, and became the Museum of Contemporary Art for London.
What is Pangea II?
Commonly, the word Pangea is used to describe the primordial supercontinent. Between the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic Eras (which means between 300 and 175 million years ago) the continents we know were all together creating one big piece of land. Pangea was in the southern hemisphere and was surrounded by only one big ocean. As we know with time (millions of years) the land detached creating contents, oceans and seas, and our planet settled in the way we now know.
Why am I describing that? Not sure really, but I guess this is the initial inspiration that the Saatchi curators had when they began organising the Pangea exhibition last year, and its sequel Pangea II, that is now on at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
Pangea II is a collection of artwork by artists originally from the southern hemisphere of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and South America. Common themes throughout the exhibition seem to have been influenced by the country where each artist comes from.
In this brief article, I will introduce just few of the artists you can admire in Pangea II. I hope this will inspire you to pay a visit to the gallery, and learn more about contemporary art.
What is Pangea II?
Commonly, the word Pangea is used to describe the primordial supercontinent. Between the late Palaeozoic and early Mesozoic Eras (which means between 300 and 175 million years ago) the continents we know were all together creating one big piece of land. Pangea was in the southern hemisphere and was surrounded by only one big ocean. As we know with time (millions of years) the land detached creating contents, oceans and seas, and our planet settled in the way we now know.
Why am I describing that? Not sure really, but I guess this is the initial inspiration that the Saatchi curators had when they began organising the Pangea exhibition last year, and its sequel Pangea II, that is now on at the Saatchi Gallery in London.
Pangea II is a collection of artwork by artists originally from the southern hemisphere of the world, such as Africa, South Asia and South America. Common themes throughout the exhibition seem to have been influenced by the country where each artist comes from.
In this brief article, I will introduce just few of the artists you can admire in Pangea II. I hope this will inspire you to pay a visit to the gallery, and learn more about contemporary art.
Jean-Francois Bocle, Tout Doit Disparaitre! Everything Must Go! (2014)
|
In Room 1, Jean-Francois Boclé
invades
the whole space with the
installation
Tout Doit Disparaitre! Everything Must Go! 2014 . It reminds you of a sea skyline and the colour inspired me with a sense of beauty, similar to the feeling of freedom you have when you walk
barefoot
on a beach.
But after a few seconds, this breeze is
swept
away by the reality of the work, which is made from plastic shopping bags. The artist, originally from The Antilles,
aimed
to
reflect
on the side effects of
colonialism,
creating in this way a
memorial
to the
lives lost at sea
during the slave trade.
|
Diego Mendoza Imbachi (Room 3), develops a reflection on the effects of
industrialisation
over the landscape of his mother town in Colombia. In his painting, the artist used
graphite
and
binder,
to create a thick metallic paste that gave the structure to his tree.
Diego Mendoza Imbachi, Graphis – Loggia (2014)
The size of these
canvases,
and the contrast between the body of the
trunk
and the
watery
branches, creates a
vibrant
effect in the painting that
permeates
in the whole space.
|
Diego Mendoza Imbachi, Graphis – Loggia (2014)
|
In Room 3, Diego Mendoza Imbachi shares the space with a Cuban artist, Jorge Mayet. It took me a while to realise that those
miniature
trees were not real, but made from electrical wire and paper.
Cuando Mas Pienso En Ti, 2008, is a tiny and
delicate
mini installation. It causes the viewer to reflect on distant relationships, where two
souls
are held together by something delicate and
precious,
as the
roots
of this miniature tree, that grows
fiercely
in a
precarious
landscape.
Jorge Mayet, Entre Dos Aguas (2008)
Other artists among these include Ephrem Solomon, Eduardo Berliner, Eddie Ilunga Kamuanga, Dawit Abebe, Boris Nzebo, Mikhael Subotzky, who have been inspired by the local community and people from their country of origin.
|
Ephrem Solomon, a 32 year old artist from Ethiopia,
engraved
his lonely women in wooden sheets then used natural
hues
of colours to
animate
his artwork. In his work, this young artist allowed the viewer into the ways and manners of Ethiopian society. The booklet says : ‘Here, the
underutilised
object becomes an
allegory
for the
unfulfilled
lives of the
citizen
who
appears
to be doing nothing more than waiting’. This
absence
therefore is
illustrated
by an empty chair and
abandoned
slippers,
always part of the
composition.
|
Ephrem Solomon, Unknown Life (2013)
|
Dawit Abebe, No.2 Background 3 (2014)
|
Dawid Abebe, instead,
enriches
his large painting with
collages
of travelling and sign symbols such as documents, stamped papers and so on. His media is a thick oil paint, which the artist used to create body figures
depicted
from a back
perspective.
I cannot tell why I felt
intrigued
by his work. I guess it was because of his human figures, who stand abandoned and
resigned,
observing something that is hidden from the viewer. I could only imagine what was on the other side and this perhaps allows the observer to create his own extension of the artwork.
|
I feel Saatchi really allows anyone to appreciate the world of contemporary art. At the main entrance, if you are interested to know a little more about the artwork on display, you can buy a little guide for only a pound. You can also buy the big catalogue, but I suggest to wait until the end of your visit, and get it from the shop on the first floor.
To conclude, and if you are not to tired and dazed after all the images and sculptures in the Pangea II exhibition, I suggest you have a quick look at the second floor where there is Dead: The celebration of mortality on, another collective exhibition that illustrates death in a singular, artistic way. You had better not be easily influenced!
To conclude, and if you are not to tired and dazed after all the images and sculptures in the Pangea II exhibition, I suggest you have a quick look at the second floor where there is Dead: The celebration of mortality on, another collective exhibition that illustrates death in a singular, artistic way. You had better not be easily influenced!
Here are some questions on the text:
- The Saatchi Gallery is a private gallery.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
- Pangea was a country.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
- All the artists in the collection come from countries in the south of the globe.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
- The installation Tout Doit Disparaitre! Everything Must Go! is a representation of the artist's home town.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
- Many of the artists got their ideas from the people who come from their country.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
- There are only two exhibitions on at the Saatchi Gallery at the moment.
a) True
b) False
c) Doesn't say
