Raphael Danke @ Sorcha Dallas
| 07 Nov 2007
Sorcha Dallas is a strange space. Two units: one small white enclosed room, the other with a large window that opens onto the street so that you can look at art as if you were gawping at the doyenne of a canalside room in Amsterdam. For this show, the Berlin-based artist Raphael Danke has used the first to show a sculpture constructed from two Christian Dior bags cut up and rearranged into a single item so that instead of bearing the designer's logo the bag now reads 'Door'. So far, so surrealist. Alongside is a series of cut-up manipulations of the ballet dancer Margot Fonteyn that heavily reference Man Ray. Ditto.
In the other room - with the window - he has centred a large sculptural piece. This consists of a series of open doorways that steadily increase in size and apparently act as 'wings' propelling the "subconscious [to a] more poetic level", a framed collage, and, on a wall-hung plinth, a small sculpture that references Russian Matryoshka dolls. Again Surrealism is the guiding influence. The large sculpture looks like the result of a collaboration between Max Ernst and M.C Escher - you may think that suggests it is an interesting piece. It is not.
The problem with this show is that it seems to be a pointless act in nostalgia. The production values are good and the pieces are neatly presented but they are not using Surrealism as a point of reference, they are merely Surrealism rehashed. The feeling on leaving this show was one of mild depression. If this is the best that the supposedly exciting young commercial galleries in Glasgow have got to offer, then I'm afraid that, in the words of Fritz Lang, you can "include me out". [John Millar]
In the other room - with the window - he has centred a large sculptural piece. This consists of a series of open doorways that steadily increase in size and apparently act as 'wings' propelling the "subconscious [to a] more poetic level", a framed collage, and, on a wall-hung plinth, a small sculpture that references Russian Matryoshka dolls. Again Surrealism is the guiding influence. The large sculpture looks like the result of a collaboration between Max Ernst and M.C Escher - you may think that suggests it is an interesting piece. It is not.
The problem with this show is that it seems to be a pointless act in nostalgia. The production values are good and the pieces are neatly presented but they are not using Surrealism as a point of reference, they are merely Surrealism rehashed. The feeling on leaving this show was one of mild depression. If this is the best that the supposedly exciting young commercial galleries in Glasgow have got to offer, then I'm afraid that, in the words of Fritz Lang, you can "include me out". [John Millar]