The b-uncut blog

Chris Ofili: Shock, And Then Not.

// February 10th, 2010 // b-scene // Amy

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Upon entering Tate Britain for the Chris Ofili retrospective, viewers are warned of the “offensive” imagery on view. Anyone familiar with the artist is accustomed to seeing the glitzy, brilliant, and intense paintings he is best known for: Ofili’s use of elephant dung, artfully placed on parts of his paintings and used constantly to prop the works up from the ground, as well as his constant inclusion of imagery from pornography magazines, are what made this British artist notorious. To the artist, however, the materials and intense colours used in the early paintings are not simply used for decoration but resonate with Ofili’s personal history, Nigerian voo doo, the lyrics of rap artists and the sociological concerns of black people today. Ofili’s new work continues to speak to the same themes but the paintings have lost their glittering flamboyance.

Ofili’s paintings are sparsely propped against the four white walls of brightly lit rooms and Tate’s space suddenly feels like a commercial gallery. His early paintings smother the viewer immediately;  they are immensely confrontational and challenging both from a distance and even more so on close inspection. But the true treasure of the exhibition is found after the early works; a dark walnut-panelled chamber has been built exclusively by David Adjaye to house Ofili’s “Upper Room” series that has just been purchased by the museum. The room acts as a site of contemplation, a religious chapel. Its title refers to the room where the Last Supper was held. Here viewers quietly absorb thirteen paintings of monkeys. The paintings are individualized by colour and the colours extend off the borders of the canvas and radiate against the dark walls underneath their individual lights.

Finally, as the viewer emerges from this enclosed space, they are left with Ofili’s newest works. Clearly, something has changed. The paint is a deeper range of colours, the works are unadorned, and references to sex, religion and pornography are inconspicuous. After the heightened sensations of the previous galleries, these unremarkable paintings are quite honestly a let down. Perhaps seen in their own light, without the heightened expectations triggered by his previous work one’s reaction to the paintings would be more positive. The majority of art critic reaction has been less then charitable; for example Charlotte Higgins posted on the Guardian “the moment I walked into the final room of the show my heart, I have to confess, sank”.  In a way I suppose one has to decide if his work was more then glitter and elephant dung. Is the artist relevant without the shock.