Decor
Carole Roberts' intelligent and very elegant exhibition at Sellas Gallery takes its cue from the aesthetics of minimalism, the installation work of French artist Daniel Buren and the inquiry into the nature of language and meaning in art carried out by the conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth.
The installation entitled DECOR, takes clever and perceptive account of both the critical and the stylish or decorative aspects of minimal art whilst pointing to a continuing and fruitful relationship between art and design.
The installation format of DECOR is essential to its meaning and is an important part of Roberts' inquiry into the condition of the contemporary art object. A sensitive use is made of the Bellas Gallery space; its length, width, and combination of natural and artificial light. Five canvases in black and white line one of the gallery walls, each depicting with careful exactness an interior installation displaying the telltale stripes which are the signature of Daniel Buren. Each interior, Roberts tells us, has been reproduced from photographs of installations by Buren in art journals and design magazines.
On the opposite wall are nine carefully placed wooden panels each with coloured stripes. The distinct anti-aesthetic oddness of these rather strange pre-fabricated objects (are they panels taken from domestic doors?) and the tension which Roberts sets up between them and the interior scenes depicted opposite, is very much a part of her overall design. The aesthetic unity of the installation is signalled by the title of the show beautifully written in elegant lettering on the far wall of the gallery (Roberts employed a professional signwriter to complete this part of her plan).
The relationship to Joseph Kosuth is clear. Roberts uses image