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Curiosity unsatisfied

Andrew Lambirth

Wednesday, 7th May 2008

Mari Lassnig
Serpentine Gallery, until 8 June

Alison Watt: Phantom
National Gallery, until 29 June

When I first saw the card for Maria Lassnig’s show I thought it was just another young or middle-aged artist trying it on. Then I discovered that Lassnig was born in 1919, and I wanted to know more. Had she always painted with this level of crude energy? Was her naive expressionist brushwork developed and refined over a lifetime? Unfortunately, it’s impossible to tell from her current solo show (the first of her work in Britain). Far from being anything like a retrospective survey — or indeed an introduction to an unknown artist — the work has been restricted to paintings produced in the past eight or nine years. The exception is in the selection of short animated films running on a screen in the foyer which mostly date from the 1970s. These, from the sampling I gave them, seem quite witty and inventive. Is it then legitimate to assume that Lassnig’s best earlier work is in the medium of film, and her best recent work in paint? Perhaps.

The catalogue does not illustrate any comparative material from earlier years, similarly restricting itself to recent paintings and beguiling film stills. So it is impossible to make an assessment of Lassnig’s new work in the context of her career, and my curiosity remains unsatisfied. Never mind, what I saw at the Serpentine does not make me want to rush out and circle the globe in pursuit of her earlier work. The first painting you see is a nude self-portrait holding one gun to her head and pointing another at you. In these days of ignorance and ineptitude, Lassnig’s vigorous alla prima daubings look quite passable. But there is no passion here — at least no passion that communicated itself to me. I found the whole experience of seeing this show oddly perplexing. The speedy caricatural drawing, the bright acidic colours, the awkwardness — these might be paintings by an art student who has yet to experience life, not by a mature artist now in her 90th year. They are not life-enhancing nor do they express any joy in paint; but neither are they powerful enough to be life-denying. They’re just rather flat and grotesque. The show simply doesn’t explain this Viennese artist’s high standing in Europe and America.

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