New gallery spaces typically open with some sort of punchy, high-powered statement show – but Angela Ferreira's exhibition, inaugurating the contemporary wing of the venerable Marlborough Fine Art, is a much more cerebral, even reticent, affair. Her core concern, essentially, is: how does one represent a void, an absence, a vacancy – someplace where, to invoke Gertrude Stein, 'there is no there, there'?
Lest this all sounds a tad abstruse, Ferreira focuses in on two actual, topographic 'holes', the Cullinan Diamond Mine in South Africa and the Chislehurst Caves in southeast London, framing the comparison through various photographs, diagrams, superimposed outlines, and a pair of large, latticed, sculptural renderings of their internal dimensions.
Of course, there is irony and futility in attempting to delineate such negative space and our constant search for tangibility is a very human need. In this case, Ferreira unearths some solid examples to illustrate her quest, such as the Star of Africa, the world's largest cut diamond, excavated from Cullinan and incorporated into the Crown Jewels; and the figure of Jimi Hendrix, whose performances helped establish Chislehurst Caves as a key site of '60s counterculture.
Intermittently, Hendrix's song 'Stone Free' (note the pun) plays from hidden speakers. And, to be honest, it's a welcome blast of vitality in an otherwise dry and academic exhibition. It's not that the research materials aren't interesting – but rather that they're not abundant or overwhelming enough. As a result, the show feels strangely listless, as if there's something missing – which, on the other hand, may be precisely the point.