Sunday 9 February 2014

To Leave a Light Impression at White Cube Bermondsey

Entry: Free

Having suggested that I might abandon the blog this year, I've since decided to try posting twice a week until the end of my bookbinding course. In a surprising turn of events I actually have posts lined up for about the next month.

It's been over six months since I last wrote an exhibition review, which seems ridiculous. 2013 was quite busy to say the least. However, on Friday I went to the White Cube in Bermondsey at lunchtime to see an exhibition of Darren Almond's work, To Leave A Light Impression. The show comprises work from two series of photographs by Almond – Fullmoon and Present Form – and some small bronze sculptures.

His photographs are beautiful. They're huge shots of breath-taking landscapes, backlit so they glow. The Fullmoon series were taken at night by the light of a full moon with a long exposure, although this is not at all apparent from looking at them, (there's one picture where you can see the progress of the stars across the night sky). The Present Form series captures the Callanish Stones on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. This stone circle was erected over 4,000 years ago and Almond's enormous photographs do a good job of showing just how strange and monumental they are.

While all the images are lovely I have to admit to being l a bit disappointed by this show. If you take photographs of stunning landscapes, then your photographs are obviously going to look stunning. Almond has travelled widely and used some unusual techniques to take these photographs, but I didn't feel blown away by them. I expected something dramatically different to the usual landscape photography I see and that just wasn't there.

The White Cube also has exhibitions by He Xiangyu and Franz Ackerman.

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