And that wet final Friday afternoon of January did go on, here comes Part Two and out of Gazelli House and that Lilly Fenichel exhibition and Part One, did you read Part One first? On a wet Friday in London part one, Jennifer Binnie at Richard Saltoun Gallery, Lilly Fenichel’s Against the Grain at Gazelli Art House… and on to the second of the multi-part adventure for exploring art always is an adventure, up the road and over to Grafton Street where Thomas Ruff‘s expériences lumineuses is happening at David Zwirner Gallery and there is part of me that questions the need to write about things happened in the more established/establishment galleries like this one, they don’t really need it and I do question if you do?  Who knows what anyone wants from this Organ these days? The busiest page this month is one from May 2017 about the The drawings of Austin Osman Spare, not that the recent pages aren’t busy, things art busier than ever on the Organ website in terms of views and traffic, what are you all doing here though? What do you want from us? What is the point of all this? Really? Send me a postcard, let us know, I’m curious, not the curious orange, or even the Kurious Oranj, just curious…   

David Zwirner Gallery says “it is pleased to present an exhibition of work by the German artist Thomas Ruff at the gallery’s location in London” – I do wish they’d say “they were” not “it is” – “expériences lumineuses marks the artist’s first solo show in the city since his critically acclaimed presentations at Whitechapel Gallery and the National Portrait Gallery in 2017, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2018, where he was commissioned to create a series to inaugurate its Photography Centre. The exhibition juxtaposes new and recent series, presented on the ground floor, with a selection of images surveying Ruff’s career on the first floor, together demonstrating his expansive approach to photography. This is the artist’s thirteenth solo presentation with David Zwirner”.

Now I didn’t decide the title of the show was in lower case, the gallery (or maybe the artist?) did, it does make us look rather unprofessional though, not that we need any help with that and no, a David Zwirner Gallery show, or for that matter, most West End of London shows really don’t need any support or critical comment from us, but it does make me look at where I’ve been, it does make me think about it and art is serious and art is delicate and art is strong and art is a force for good and well I was passing the gallery and some of this photography is very painterly  although looking back now is it really much more than good looking eye candy and a sugar hit? Is just slick camera play and maybe it doesn’t need us? Here’s a #43SecondFilm…

No one is answering the door to D.Contemporary again, not the first time during advertised opening hours, you’d almost think they’ve had a look via the surveillance camera and didn’t like what they see, it can be frosty at that black-doored space (they do like to quote my reviews when I do get in though, one day they’l put two and two together). There’s a gang of what looks like art students over in that gallery looking at some big neon slogan, I don’t need a neon slogan in January 2025, it probably has some historial reference or relevance, not today though. I can deal with pre-war American abstract painting (see Part One) but I really don’t need another line of pink neon wordery (or wormery as the spellchecker wants it) today.

And on to the Jim Hodges thing at another gallery that probably doesn’t need any coverage from us (do any of them?). Miraculously managed to somehow avoid seeing anything from this show beforehand, kind of expected it to be all over social media –  “Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to present It only takes a minute, a new UK solo exhibition by Jim Hodges. This is the American artist’s fourth exhibition at the gallery” – really wanted to walk in knowing nothing about what was in this new show, I mean I was armed with some kind of idea what might be in the big gallery, no specifics though and if you haven’t been and are planning to then you should probable bale out of this review right here and avoid the spoilers…   

The big glass fronted first room of the gallery looks empty, it looks like a big blank canvas, is still manages to look exciting. You can’t see a thing from outside on the street and you walk into a space broken up by art-free white walls not usually there, it kind of throws you out, well no kind of about it, it completely throws you out. Have I got this wrong? Am I here too early? Are they still installing? I thought it opened last week? Is there a time hole and where’s that step gone? Disorientating…   

“Through materials, images, forms and gestures, reflecting on intimacy, history, values and causality, Hodges invites an enquiry into our relationship to time, its measures, and meanings. Extending through the gallery, composed of found materials, carved marble and oil painting, in varied ranges of scale and tonality, this new body of work resonates with whimsy, humility, foreboding and mystery to highlight themes of beauty, fragility and impermanence. Rendered in white marble and painted bronze, the familiar, modest gathering of intimate belongings to be discovered in Craig’s closet have been captured in time. Even as they speak of the specific world, and the specific life in which these objects – clothing, keepsakes, closed forever containers – were brought together, they seem to now transcend their temporal materiality….”  

Not feeling ‘whimsy’, feeling a little bit shocked as the work finally comes into view maybe? Or just pleased? A place to hang things. Of this work Hodges writes: “For those of us with the good fortune to have a place to hang our things, a closet is a magical container, a collection of materials, arranged by each of us, that can, at a glance, reveal our cares, desires and even our deepest secrets. Within a closet time is frozen, and in what is kept there fragmented into contrasting visual and conceptual rhythms, meters and durations. Things accumulated and arranged, carefully stacked and aligned are juxtaposed with the quickly thrown down or casually abandoned to be taken care of later or simply forgotten. Out of this dense setting narratives blossom and come alive – looking in we’re reminded of who we are, where we’ve been, the hopes, treasures and dreams we hold. It’s there in boxes concealing our heart’s contours, scribbled messages on folded notes and cards, photos, records, files – all the stuff we’ve saved for reasons each item embodies, and all the choices made are there as well in this often hidden holding space, the closet.”

No, not feeling ‘whimsy’, feeling rather good about it though, about the questions asked by the artist and the questions I immediately want to ask of him, of myself (the questions I’ve been promoted to ask?), about the marble, about needing to touch it, is it really marble? And hey, if you can’t make the show there are photos here, hell, I even made another #43SecondFilm while no one was looking. You can check out that closet shelf yourself and who doesn’t like checking out someone’s closet once you’ve checked the bookshelf and their shoe rack? Once again it feels powerful in here, it feels compelling,

Not feeling ‘playful’ though, feeling contrasts, it does feel alive, living, voyeuristic? Feeling a little dark on the inside and things are just about to get a lot darker, this latest Jim Hodges show is quite an experience and who needs my words  – “Shifting from playful contrasting weights and tempos, from light reflections in polished marble to the twinkling wings of a butterfly night light, the exhibition moves next to a darker terrain where we are met with shadows and suggestions of memories and times long past. It only takes a minute draws the viewer along a path that concludes in the dimming light of the last gallery where we come upon a mysterious, looming garage space. This murky, sensual apparition, rescued from the Louisiana bayou, is a musky and erotic threshold for the senses and our imaginations to cross. There we encounter an archive of materials in a spectrum of patinas that build to create a double portrait of a father and his son”.

“Throughout his evolving mixed-media practice, Hodges invites his audience to join him in the co-creation of living art – of experiences that resist mechanical reproduction and defy simple categorisation. Over decades Hodges’ work with common and familiar forms has mined psychological, emotional, spiritual and social terrains that spark potent connections….”

And even if you do know his work, even if you did have some kind of idea, once you’ve got past the closet, turning the corner it the very big back room is still a gasp, it is still powerful, it does take your breath, although does it quite so much if you aren’t already a regular visitor to the space? I mean if you don’t know how big that back room is as you walk into the almost pitch blackness of it all? This is really addressing the gallery, although that might now have been the point? And what actually awaits in here? Do we walk into the space? The darkness? What is this? A giant, and I really do mean giant, a giant shed in the darkness that you just have to head into, but what happens when you do? 

For Hodges “…joy and inquiry are entwined in the connections and relationships that art can bring into being, transcending cultures, differences, divisions, binaries, and barriers. Valuing the common and every day we meet, to co-create the art where our shared humanity may be felt, and in feeling we can find affirmation and reminders of the delicacy, fragility and preciousness that is our human materiality. And in this materiality of site specificity, each of us shines with one another across the field of art’s infinity.”

Jim Hodges, It Only Takes a Minute is at Stephen Friedman Gallery until 1st March 2025. Stephen Friedman Gallery is at 5–6 Cork Street, London, W1S 3LQ. The gallery is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am until 6pm (11am to 5pm on Saturdays). Previous Stephen Friedman Gallery coverage on these pages

Part three in a minute, we’re in Cork Street now… Previously: ORGAN THING: On a wet Friday in London part one, Jennifer Binnie at Richard Saltoun Gallery, Lilly Fenichel’s Against the Grain at Gazelli Art House…

As always, do click on an image to see the whole thing or to run the slide show