The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema & Tv
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
      • Shows
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureArt

Richard Deacon at Tate Britain

Richard Deacon at Tate Britain | Exhibition review
4 February 2014
Stephen Powell
Avatar
Stephen Powell
4 February 2014

Richard Deacon, who won the Turner Prize in 1983, has long been regarded as one of our premier sculptors.  His work is lyrical, baroque and what first strikes one is its air of virtuosity. Yet there is something a little too slick about Richard Deacon’s sculpture. Its charm and beauty recommend it immediately, but on reflection one finds him either too jazzily neat, or Victorian in his neatness and muscular prettiness. One could, admittedly facetiously, compare his rather prim use of form to that of Augustus Egg.

Its achievement is not so much one of form, but of an ambitious use of space, which saves some of the biomorphic stuff from the early 80s. This use of space becomes more obvious as the show goes on, and wins out over the use of pattern as texture, and vice versa, that makes his late 80s work almost drab. He is ambitious to demonstrate his own achievements, but these are never quite as much as they should be. 

His work is, excluding some of the show’s earliest pieces, too resolved, too satisfied to really engage the viewer though they will entertain – particularly the two colossal Disney-ish conceits included from the last decade. Out of Order (2003) is great fun – ones senses that it is a piece to stand in, rather than observe from without. The show becomes less interesting as it becomes more enjoyable, as Deacon, never seeming to have been overly bothered by or bothered at all with the questions his work raises, has had a happy enough time with his caprices. This sense is not helped by the smoothness of the Tate retrospective – due to the size of his pieces, there is only so much on display, but one would be more interested in the stranger by ways of his career, particularly anything of his early development. He has a pre-occupation with whole shapes different from his recurring interest in form, and an interest in spaces as well as space, and these would have spiced up this exhibition. His materiality is theatrical. However his work is intelligent, has a mystery and occasional ghostliness about it that makes it worth watching. 

Stephen Powell

Richard Deacon is at Tate Britain until 27th April 2014. For further information visit the gallery’s website here.

Related Itemsreview

More in Art

Decentralise at Somerset House Online

★★★★★
James White
Read More

No Holds Barred: The Life and Art of Matthew Lanyon

James White
Read More

Shai Baitel announced as inaugural artistic director of Modern Art Museum Shanghai

The editorial unit
Read More

The National Gallery online: Lockdown’s top 20 most viewed paintings

The editorial unit
Read More

Art 2021: London’s best virtual exhibitions from home

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Ten artistic depictions of the Christmas story through the ages

James White
Read More

Five gifts for art lovers this Christmas

Emma-Jane Betts
Read More

Five alternative art exhibitions for Christmas 2020

Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

Sensing the Unseen: Step into Gossaert’s Adoration at the National Gallery

★★★★★
Anna Souter
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap
  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • London’s best pizzas for takeaway and delivery
    Food & Drinks
  • The Year Earth Changed
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Syml – Dim EP
    ★★★★★
    Album review
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Ride or Die
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Dad Stop Embarrassing Me!
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Weezer with the LA Philharmonic and YOLA at the Walt Disney Concert Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • London’s Michelin-starred restaurants open al fresco right now – and all those re-opening in May
    Food & Drinks
  • Live from the Barbican: Moses Boyd
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • The Secret Connection – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Cruise – Online
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Birdy at Wilton’s Music Hall Online
    ★★★★★
    Live music
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Maximo Park at the Sebright Arms | Live review
Chinese New Year special: Spicy Mushroom Spring Rolls recipe