Gauguin

We've long sneered at Gauguin the marauding tourist, capturing his exotic bathing babes in his greedy gaze. But we've failed to look at the details, which this exhibition points up delightfully. His subjects were less heroic than those of the world-conquering Impressionists, but it's often what's going on in the background that sends Gauguin's work tilting off its axis. It's these abstract intervals which perform the visual equivalent of poetry, refracting reality without ever quite breaking free from it altogether. (OW)