Subodh Gupta: What does the vessel contain, that the river does not

Cast ashore Savile Row’s Hauser & Wirth, Subodh Gupta’s What does the vessel contain, that the river does not is driftwood…Keralan found, London abounding.

From India’s muddied docks, Gupta’s seventy-foot boat has drifted upstream to this post-industrial, fluorescent-lit gallery space, where the detritus of its migration is pellucid. That is, the artist’s weathered vessel is the receptacle of a tired soul in transit. Caught between belonging and displacement, arriving and departing, it is the embodiment of intermediate existence. Liminality is Gupta’s poetry.

Scott of the Hepworth

William Scott (1913-1989) is one of the forgotten painters of twentieth century British modernism, something that The Hepworth Wakefield is trying to correct in a show that mainly focuses on his almost abstract work of the 1950s, 60s and 70s. Scott's paintings of this period feature reoccurring motifs – frying pans, pears, bowls, kettles and fish – but rather than depicting them in a downbeat kitchen sink manner they exemplify the thing that makes British modernism compelling, they bring a pragmatic realism into the abstract mix.

William Scott, Still Life with Orange Note, 1970

Four Sculptures on the Top Floor of Tate Modern

There is much more to the current exhibition of Saloua Raouda Choucair’s work at the Tate than just four sculptures. Her geometric paintings are evocative of traditional Islamic design and yet are curiously contemporary and her nude studies are colourful, vibrant and patterned, yet unremittingly flat and slyly redolent of recognisably famous compositions; however, in the case of this blog post, there are four sculptures I would like to focus upon, three of which are Choucair’s.

Poem Wall, 1963-5

Jimmy De Sana: Suburban Color Sex Pictures

Perfectly sparse in its hang, Wilkinson Gallery has given these photographs the right amount of room. The viewer has to move deliberately to the next photograph, there is no feeling of rushing on from one image to another. Often these works need, or even demand, a double take. What may at first seem ridiculous becomes serious and darkly violent before then tipping into the surreal.