Some people are just desperate to see how the sausage gets made. They want to watch all the skin and guts and snouts get mashed up and then stuff their faces. This is an exhibition for them, a celebration of the behind-the-scenes world of the artist’s studio where they can revel in the process, the environment and the conditions of art making; they can watch the art sausage get made.
Whether or not you enjoy this show will depend on how much you care about that process, how interesting you find looking at rooms where paintings were painted. The studio appears physically here. There’s Matisse’s wall, Dieter and Björn Roth’s desk, Francis Bacon’s messy floor. But mostly you see photos of these paint-spattered environments and the artists at work: Alberto Giacometti at his easel, Louise Bourgeois at her desk, Lucian Freud messing about.
There are lots of photos of empty studios too, and views out of studio windows, by artists like Andrew Grassie and Josef Sudek. The act of making art is presented like the act of going to work, because that’s exactly what it is. It can be tedious, boring, frustrating and long.
The real question, though, is do you find Francis Bacon’s floor that interesting?
That’s all documentation and archive for the most part, but there’s actual artwork on display too, like a gorgeous Kerry Marshall portrait of an artist at work, a sleek Wilhelmina Barns-Graham vision of an easel and an amazing Paul McCarthy video of a bulbous-nosed blowhard huffing about in his studio. The studio is the subject in these works.
But other art here feels only tenuously connected to the theme. The only thing linking the Carolee Schneeman photos, the Bruce Nauman movie, the Barbara Hepworth sculpture and the Robert Rauschenberg ‘Combine’ sculpture/painting is that they were made in a studio. And guess what, most art is made in a studio. That’s literally where art is made.
The real question, though, is do you find Francis Bacon’s floor that interesting? Is the environment of art-making even half as compelling as the art itself? For me, no. I’m interested in art for the art, not the detritus around it. At the end of the day, this is an exhibition about offices. I find artist studios about as interesting as I'd find their toilets.
This isn’t a bad exhibition. It’s clearly a labour of love, it’s hugely in-depth and full of insight into the artistic process. As a historical, archival, documentary exhibition about artist studios, it’s great. But as an art exhibition, not so much.