Hastings Contemporary exhibition review by Peter Clossick PPLG
Immortal Apples, Eternal Eggs
21 September 2024 – 16 March 2025
Hastings Contemporary
Rock-a-Nore Road
Hastings TN34 3DW
This surprising exhibition is full and varied, exploring the broad genre of “still life” categories through Modern and Postmodern viewpoints. The exhibition features 50 artists and more than 50 artworks from the past 100 years, combining the Ingram plus the David and Indres Roberts collections. It includes works from Barlow, Bourgeois, Caro, Caulfield, Craig-Martin, Frink, Moore, Nicholson, and Sarah Lucas, all asking what a “still life” is.
The exhibition’s title is a quote from Virginia Woolf’s description of the critic and artist Roger Fry’s bedsit in 1940: –
” Frying pans were mixed with palettes; the same plates held salad, other scrapings of congealed paint…on the table, protected by its placard, was the still life—those symbols of detachment, those tokens of a spiritual reality immune from destruction, the immortal apples, the eternal eggs.”
The exhibition has many brilliant works that surprised me, such as Tara Donovan’s Stalactites, which are made out of buttons.
And from Sarah Lucas, a chair with protruding stockinged legs. Exploring the boundaries of still life perception, using everyday objects and found materials and referencing Duchamp, is Phyllida Barlow, with a painted wooden palette and constructed oversized bottle rack—examples of putting together an idea with stuff from the environment.
Then there was this surprise from Henry Moore, who made a colourful sketch of ideas in coloured pencil in 1949, just after the war.
Hewe Lock constructs a magnificent aeroplane covered with gold plaques, insects, crowns, babies, machine guns and swords, all about warmongering.
One could continue with examples of the over 50+ works on display. Historically, still life was at the bottom of the hierarchical list in art history as banal subject matter. This exhibition brings the genre to the forefront and up to speed in the 21st century by examining how rich the subject area can be, dealing with everyday materials. Cubism pushed this subject area to the front; many of these works have never been seen in public. Here is what “still life” could be like in the future.
I recommend a trip to the seaside town of Hastings, East Sussex. The Hastings Contemporary gallery is just a few steps away from a pebbled beach looking out to the open sea, and local cafes serve delicious fish and chips for lunch. It’s guaranteed a great day out.
Peter Clossick PPLG, September 2024