The Pianist
Unusually for the Saatchi Gallery, their current exhibition ‘Abstract America – New Painting & Sculpture’ is disappointing. However, there is a lone figure to be found there, in Gallery 5, which is worth a look. Life size, ‘The Pianist’, by Matt Johnson, sits playing his grand piano, striking a very welcome and warmhearted human note alongside the other exhibits. Quirky rather than abstract, he plays intently; leaning his back into his performance, animated by the bright blue contrast he strikes with his setting. His colour gives him an exuberant visual ‘zing’ and the slight floppiness of his posture highlights the eccentricity of this project; making him appear fallible, despite his brilliance.
Visitors can’t resist stopping to take a photograph. They stand in wonderment at the sheer extravagance and madness of the sculpture, looking at him with affection. As they do so, they’re drawn back to the tarpaulin associations of camping and groundsheets, sacking and laundry bags, and remember childhood rainy day distractions of origami or the end of the school term when the maths teacher indulged them with puzzles instead of sums.
How can tarpaulin have been given such presence and humanity? Luckily polypropylene doesn’t crease because, no doubt, Matt Johnson must have folded and unfolded this piece umpteen times to capture a plausible piantist’s attitude, never mind the angle of the piano lid. (How many sighs of creative exasperation sit in each of his folds?)
Saatchi Gallery 2009
Matt Johnson’s piece is inspired by the work of Dr Robert J Lang who is a pioneer of the cross-disciplinary marriage of origami with mathematics. He is recognised as one of the world’s leading masters of the art and, generously, is happy to share a large number of his ‘crease patterns’. Like many working drawings, these crease patterns have a beauty of their own.
Robert L Lang
So, though it’s unlikely that you have umpteen feet of tarpaulin available to create your own Saatchi ‘Abstract America’ sculpture, and whilst you put an order in for some at your local supplier. (Assuming, also, that your computer hasn’t yet rendered your life entirely ‘paperless’.) You could give this barn owl a try.
Robert L Lang
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/matt_johnson_articles.htm
Posted by Katie Barr-Sim about 1 year ago in Art
About Katie Barr-Sim
Katie is a business development director. She still wonders what she’ll be when she grows up but has always had a keen eye for design and a way with words.