London – “The body as a battlefield – which applies to everyone,” writes Galli. This declaration, cited in the text of the exhibition for the solo exhibition So, then, then At the Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art, indicates the artist's approach to painting – and life. Most of the exhibition paintings date from the 1980s and 90s, based on emerging avant-garde countercultures in Berlin-West and the centrality of the body with increasing movements pleading for feminist, queer and disabled rights. Galli was born in particular for her age at the end of the Second World War, who fortunately went unnoticed by Nazi officials who targeted those who have physical anomalies. It is tempting to read his images of limited torses, to reach the members and the hybrid characteristics in response to his own experience, but it would be reducing. These paintings speak of the universality of the experience of the body as a site of protest and politicization.
Many works are simultaneously violent and sensual, using a sparse but complex visual language which refuses to give in to the analytical eye of the spectator. In “OT, (750 Jahre Galerie Notelfer)” (1988), for example, the distorted bodies seem to dance, perhaps in joy. A pair of short fingers hands a yellow heart while another brandish a blue knife. Simple brush strokes alludes to orifices and sexualization, while the sparse application of primary colors is almost childish, suggesting an innocence derailed by the potential of violence.
Galli's ambiguous figures exist in a continuous state of metamorphosis between formation and deformation. In addition to the paintings, the exhibition includes drawings on A4 paper, artist books and images of indexes cards, capturing a plethora of fantastic bodies and folk characters. Many of these conventional conventional conditions; For example, the works of the index cards are all double-sided and will be reversed halfway from the exhibition, creating an alternative narrative arch.
While many works in the opening rooms of the exhibition seem to rely on literary or mythological sources, a certain number of paintings towards the end of the exhibition are more domestic, alluding to objects such as kettles or tea cups. Several members present members extending closed spaces, as if Protestant bodies had been crushed in houses or cages, suggesting themes of surrounding and confinement. Here, as in the work of Galli, in large, the struggle to free oneself from the limits of the politicized or objectified body is held in a productive tension with the desire to re -engage with it in all its visceral complexity.
Galli: So, then, then Continue to the Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art (St James's, London, United Kingdom), until May 4. The exhibition was organized by Sarah McCrory and Natasha Hoare.
