Patrick Caulfield and Gary Hume at Tate Britain

Interesting "two-for-one" - but does it work?

 

Tate Britain is currently showing two adjoining exhibitions of recent British artists for one entrance price; I don't recall this happening before, and the exhibition booklet does not give an explanation. Is it because neither artist would be particularly successful on his own? Unlikely in the case of Patrick Caulfield at least, who has been popular since the 1960s; Gary Hume is probably less popular with the general public, but is still a big contemporary name - maybe the juxtaposition with Caulfield is intended to raise his profile? Anyway, the show provides an interesting contrast and provokes some thoughts about postwar British art (is that the reason for the show?)

 

 

 

Caulfield's work is usually visually appealing, but not very emotionally engaging. The works shown (this is a fairly small show) represent aspects of modern life in a flat, stylised, boldly coloured style reminiscent of colour advertising (he is often thought of as a Pop artist, although he disliked the label). Many are still lives, and if human beings are included we are not obviously invited to empathise with them. Something I had not noticed before is that some paintings seem to include collage elements, but they are in fact painted too - naturalistic flowers, for example, in an otherwise highly stylised painting. Ultimately his work is enigmatic: is the emotional distance a comment on dehumanising aspects of modern life? do the realistic flowers highlight the modern distance from nature? are the depictions of consumer products and corporate spaces approving, neutral or mocking? I have been around long enough to recall his work over the decades, and I must say I thought his work wore well. As he died in 2005, this seemed just the right time for a retrospective.

 

 

 



Gary Hume is in some ways superficially similar to Caulfield, but much less accessible. His work would not fit as easily in a corporate boardroom or public waiting area as Caulfield's does. His surfaces also use flat areas of bold colour, but the subject matter seems to refer to real life indirectly, rather than directly as with Caulfield. This is in spite of the fact that he was originally known for paintings of doors (he has made the entrance to the exhibition look like one of these works): these are almost, but not quite, abstract. One painting is of an arm holding a pom pom, but the rest of the cheerleader (if such she is) remains a mystery. Some works have a grotesque quality, some are sweetly decorative. But he clearly means to engage in a way it seems Caulfield did not. Hume uses enamel and gloss paint, which impart a sumptuous sheen associated with luxury objects. In some, the colours are separated with ridges, which looks like the wire in cloisonne decoration. Unfortunately, often I did not engage with the paintings much as I did not really understand the references - the grotesque works I found more immersive as I found them easier to understand. The sensuality and decorative aspects were also easy to respond to - Hume clearly loves paint, colour and surface effects, and his use of them is quite different from the apparently cool Caulfield. Hume lives in the USA, which perhaps makes him less well known to the British public than he might be, so again a retrospective is timely.

 

So, are two better than one? In this case, I think it is. The two artists are intriguingly similar but different, which forced me to think about the differences. The contrast between distanced and immersive approach made me realise that the distanced effect is more typical of British art, which is perhaps a way of saying it tends to have a fairly intellectual approach. But as Caulfield shows, this may be cool but it doesn't have to be cold. Hume's more emotional approach seemed more hit and miss to me - jump in and see what happens rather than a considered statement - but was potentially more life-affirming. It depends what you want from art. Maybe the point of this show is that, unlike artists, we don't have to make a choice.