What to make of the Gauguin exhibition at Tate Modern? Nobody seems quite sure.
Even though Tate Modern's blockbuster Gauguin exhibition doesn't open until Thursday 30th September, the show has apparently already broken advance box office sales at the gallery. This is the first major exhibition dedicated to the works of Paul Gauguin to grace London in over 50 years, and it looks like the public are going to lap it up.
This, of course, is great news for Tate Modern, but also means that visitors to the exhibition – which features more than 100 works by the controversial artist – may find things a bit hectic. Even Tuesday's media view was probably the busiest I've seen, with international press arriving en masse to get a glimpse of Gauguin's strange, primitive, mystical works.
But the art jury is still out on quite what to make of this exhibition. Brian Sewell, in the Evening Standard, reckons it's great if you already know your Gauguin pretty well but not so hot for newcomers to the artist – he blames the curators and Tate Modern's lack of natural light. Michael Glover in the Independent panned it for “pandering to an appetite for prurience” whilst Adrian Searle in The Guardian says almost exactly the opoosite.
Why is this? Well it's difficult to say. Arranged thematically, Gauguin – Maker of Myth attempts to shed new light on the Post-Impressionist artist, but it also means that it's difficult to grasp any sense of progression or chronological development. The show is also massive, perhaps too massive, and yet seems to flit around in a slightly disconcerting fashion.
Having said that, the works – despite Sewell's lighting quibbles – really do shine. Gauguin's child-like style – favouring intellect and emotional impact over technical capabilities – demonstrate a master of evocation, exoticism, visual trickery, and the ever-slippery relationship between myth and reality, dream-time fancy and the beating daylight sun.
Gauguin – Maker of Myth is at Tate Modern from 30th September 2010 to 16th January 2011.
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Image credit: Paul Gauguin, 'Nevermore O Tahiti' 1897, Courtauld Gallery, London. Oil on canvas. 600 x 1160 mm
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