There’s nothing wrong with being old fashioned, and something about German artist Tomma Abts’s art feels like it’s from another era entirely. Her work is pure, simple, direct abstraction. For most of her career, she’s worked exclusively with 48x38cm canvases – the same size, the same shape, over and over again, in endless permutations of colour, line and surface.
It’s like she’s reaching into the past, ripping at the throat of the whole history of abstraction and distilling it all down. The paintings are very organic things, you can see the process, the marks under the paint. There are long swooping lines, jagged chunks of geometricity, bright yellows, dark greys. Smooth and organic butting heads with rigid and robotic.
Some canvases are split in half, others have had their edges rounded. There are optical tricks, natural washes of colour. It’s really, really, really bloody nice.
The whole show feels slow, gradual, meticulous, it’s as if Abts is surprised by the way each work has turned out. Each wave and angle, every line and surface, seems to bloom out of nothingness, an invisible visual seed bursting into coloured life. In many ways, it’s sort of what you always wanted all the old modernist abstraction of the ’30s to be. Flawless, direct, meditative.
But, oh boy, is the Sackler Gallery a tough place for it. Nothing seems to sit right in here, it all just gets dwarfed by the space. Abts has even totally ignored the two central spaces – they’re just too tricky to deal with.
That aside, though, the show’s a total delight. There’s no thinking, no hard work, it’s just gorgeous colours, perfect light, intricate shapes. It’s a chance to let your eyes swim away into the art, an ocular summer holiday, and, more than anything, a sun lounger for your brain.
