Fruit lies rotten and desiccated in a glass cabinet, each clementine, pear and pineapple trapped in a wire frame. As the fruit has withered away almost to dust, the wire frame around it has remained intact, a perfect metallic rendering of its former shape. Everywhere you look in this major show of work by pioneering British installation artist Shelagh Wakely (1932-2011), there is a tension between what is and what was, between barriers and empty spaces.
The first room is filled with rough, rushed paintings and line drawings of cups, vases and fruit segments. They feel like the work of a monomaniacal obsessive, desperately drawing the same shapes over and over, trying to decode a system of boundaries. The segments, cups and bowls of the drawings are made real as fragile clay and glass sculptures, all on the floor and teetering close to collapse, like prehistoric archaeological finds.
‘Turmeric on Parquet, After Curcuma sul Travertino (1991/2014)’, an installation of spiralling stencilled turmeric-filled shapes, is even more fragile. The air is warm and filled with pungent spice. It’s a dizzying experience, though undeniably a bit like walking through a giant curry. As I stood transfixed, a small toddler stumbled into the installation, sending spice flying. I stifled a sneeze, while the parents hurriedly whisked their kid away and the gallery assistant held back tears as she tried to explain the situation to her boss.
In the next room, I saw a man bend down and touch one of the clay sculptures. Then in the final gallery, filled with gilded fruit and a huge golden sheet, he reached a bony finger out to poke a rotting golden lychee on a table. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ I whispered as loudly as I could, reaching out to stop him. He pulled away, offering just a waved apology and sheepish grin. These acts tell the story of Wakely’s art well – it’s appealing, attractive, but so delicate that a single touch could ruin it forever. It’s a conflict that results in some beautiful art. That you definitely shouldn’t touch.
Eddy Frankel