If only life were like in the cartoons: we could all defy the laws of physics and abide by their toon equivalent, painting black holes to walk through walls. London-based curator Tobias Czudej (aka Chewday’s) has taken a passage from US writer Mark O’Donnell’s ‘Laws of Cartoon Motion’ as the title of this group show. It refers to forces of plummeting metalware as illustrated by Looney Tunes. In short: anything goes.
Carl Ostendarp’s pink and red wall painting transforms the gallery into a comic-book landscape, the perfect backdrop for works that rebel against the norm. Sculptures by art’s king of distortion, Claes Oldenburg, fit perfectly into this cartoon territory. One of Mickey Mouse converts the round-faced loveable vermin into a sharp geometric being, while the other, a stubbed-out cigarette, is enlarged to such an extent it’s impossible to miss. Other heavyweights artists, including Philip Guston and John Wesley, act as forebears for a crop of emerging talent, such as Catharine Ahearn, whose ‘Incredible Hulk’ sculpture comprises multiple green fists bursting out of a totem.
Here, parody knows no bounds. Proportions are altered and perspective is skewed so the ridiculous is made credible and the uncanny socks you right between the eyes.
Freire Barnes