Art

Stefan Thater’s new work seems like a quaint homage to the golden days of trade and craftsmanship associated with London’s East End. Large-scale ink drawings of abstracted tools, old-fashioned keys and trade symbols from another era are intertwined into ornamental patterns that sometimes echo art nouveau floral designs or pages from nineteenth-century illustrated books. They are executed in faded greens, pale pinks or blues on yellowed sheets of paper that are either attached to the gallery walls or stuck to board and propped against the wall. In the environment of this former Bethnal Green workshop, all this could make for a nicely antiquated, nostalgic atmosphere – if it weren’t for the blocks of heavy cement dumped on the paint-splattered floorboards, which bring us right back into the bleak reality of contemporary east London with its housing estates and cheap shops.

Embedded in the surfaces of the grey blocks are pieces of brightly coloured packaging tape shaped into loops that mimic the ornate drawings. No doubt ironic statements on cheap mass production, the tape reliefs bare an almost comic resemblance to ancient fossilisations – like future relics of today’s throwaway culture. Cement and tape are also used for the sculpture ‘Boxfile’ in the front gallery – a chipped old folder placed upright on a table, labelled ‘London County Council’ on its spine. What Thater wants to tell us here remains ambiguous – maybe it’s a comment on the lack of beauty and craftsmanship in modern utilitarian designs, or perhaps a sideswipe at the bad city planning responsible for the borough’s ugly new face?