Rebecca Warren
Serpentine Gallery, London
MODELLING figurative sculptures out of clay is an art that dates back to the earliest civilisations. Think of the so-called mother goddesses, those small female forms, two or three inches long, which seem to capture the essence of womanhood. Whether they served as votive figures or were connected to fertility rites are questions on which we can only speculate, but what is clear is that they retain their power to conjure up the sense rather than the mere appearance of the body. While the scale is very different, Rebecca Warren also investigates aspects of the female body, setting up resonances with these ancient figures.
Working with unfired “reinforced” clay, Warren creates figures that seem to be emerging from or sinking in to the primeval material. However, rather than model in any straightforward sense, she adopts a more impressionistic approach that is as much abstract expressionist as it is in the style of artists such as Rodin. Working within what is predominantly a male preserve, Warren uses the medium in an anti-heroic way, defying these three-quarter-life-sized sculptures to take on any noble role.
For Warren, the search is about the fugitiveness of the bodily image and the nature of sculpture itself – two themes that often seem to be in competition. While clearly continuing the figurative tradition, she does so in a way that defies any easy or flip reading. Some pieces require work in identifying the bits and pieces that make up the body. Often lumpen and shapeless to the point of absurdity, the monumental quality of some of the pieces carry suggestions of torsos and limbs mangled up in a way which deliberately sets out to be tentative, almost to deny the hand of the artist. The discovery of a breast-like form in sculptures such as We Are Dead, for example, comes as something of a relief in making some sort of sense of what is shown.
Other forms are less enigmatic. Some, for example, echo the work of renowned American cartoonist Robert Crumb. The piece Helmut Crumb consists of a giant pair of legs with a vaginal slit that is both crude yet an effective parody of the way that artists such as Crumb and Helmut Newton tend to portray women. In other works, such as A Culture, the figure is turned into a totem-like structure – tall and erect with large breasts.
The clay figures are complemented by sculptures in painted bronze and hard-edged metal forms. There is also a series of vitrines containing objects collected apparently at random. Bits of polystyrene, broken pieces of wood and Perspex are carefully arranged, often illuminated by a neon strip. Again, the challenge for the viewer is to try to create some sort of narrative, although the objects, like the detritus of modern society, are the stuff of waste, posing the question of why we are even bothering to look.
In challenging us to make sense of objects that almost defy the notion of “content’, Warren is playing devil’s advocate. With echoes of ancient mother-goddesses – by far the most engaging pieces in this show – the amorphous, exuberant, objects seductively evoke the primal mud in which all life begins – or ends.
Emmanuel Cooper
Rebecca Warren continues until April 19
