Utopian in Utopia
From Ideas of Utopia: Alibaba, Hangzhou 2018. Photo: Stockley
Artists, especially painters, always seem rich in privilege, able to create worlds and dreams out of a few tubes of oil mixed with crushed pigment; and to provide escapism and inspire dreams in those who see them. So, now that its creators are long dead, the completely magical house of the Bloomsbury Group (as they came to be known) who created their own world at Charleston in Sussex is a perfect setting for other artists to be shown in and to explore, starting with a triple exhibition by British artist duo, Langlands & Bell (2 April - 29 August).
The story of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant is well known; the attractive farmhouse they first rented, then bought and remodelled, has been widely written about. Justly, for the two principle artists, along with their writer and painter friends, plus children, turned a pretty farmhouse into one of the most important Modernist works of art in 20th century Europe. With few surfaces unembellished with paint, along with additional decoration supplied by textiles from their own Omega Workshops, and ceramic lampshades and other ceramics made by Quentin Bell, all offset by the magnificent walled garden and pond, Charleston offers abundant joy and inspiration for anyone with eyes to see and a heart to feel.
Charleston. Photo: Lee Robbins. The Charleston Trust
The studio at Charleston. Photo: Lee Robbins. The Charleston Trust
Into this environment, now significantly upgraded and improved for visitors with a good café and loos and all such necessaries, Charleston has set out on an ambitious programme to showcase living artists too.
Langlands & Bell are a good fit. This generous show comprises three distinct exhibitions, each worth the trip. The artist duo teamed up at Hornsea College of Art in 1978 and have worked together for more than 40 years, so this triptychal show is certainly due; not quite a retrospective for it goes more forwards than back and is reflective rather than retrospective. It also gives Charleston the opportunity to demonstrate its ambition at international level.
Langlands & Bell, The Kitchen, 1978 (detail of Old Kitchen); Photo courtesy of the artists
The first show, Ideas of Utopia, explores how architecture shapes concepts and ideas. The architecture of various high-tech international buildings from Brussels to China has been transformed into large 3-D framed models/plans/pictograms (which the artists term hanging relief sculptures) in the new, light and airy Wolfson Gallery. Nearby are a few young works, including The Kitchen from 1978 — assembled cutlery found in abandoned East-End houses by the artists at that time. This powerful, semi-surreal piece will stay with you.
From Ideas of Utopia: Auditorium of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Photo: Stockley
The South Gallery offers an absorbing exhibition of paintings and photographs curated by the pair called Absent Artists. Their first curated show of paintings (but one hopes not their last), the work was chosen from the Katrin Bellinger collection of artist’s representations of their studios or elements within them with no people present. The artist roster Is stellar. Personal, intimate, romantic; untrammelled by even the slightest irritating interpretation, the viewer is free to dream. Find a way to visit this jewel of a show, which ought to go on tour.
From Absent Artists: The Artist’s Studio by Maximillian Luce, 1875. Oil on canvas 29.9 x 24.1. Photo: Stockley
Near Heaven Is a commissioned intervention in Vanessa Bell’s former attic studio. Used as storage for decades so never on public view until now, acrylic mirrors (removable) have been inserted Into the room’s high-pitched, beamed old roof-space. The mirrors distort and enlarge the beautiful old workspace below, and populate it with … you. It’s an interesting and also unsettling experience that made me hope that the attic will be opened to the public afterwards; for here, like Alice in Wonderland, one truly steps in to the artist’s studio after the artist is gone. Here are faint scribbles of patterns not realised; a painted door; a painted lintel. Here, you feel and breathe Vanessa Bell as if in one luminous breath between thought, eye, hand, and brush-stroke. Reflect on that.
From Near Heaven: Decorated lintel in Vanessa Bell’s attic studio, on show to the public for the first time. Photo: Stockley
Langlands & Bell at Charleston
2 April – 29 August 2022
CHARLESTON
Firle, Lewes,
East Sussex BN8 6LL