MOHAMMAD ALI TALPUR (b. 1976) Untitled (10), 2017 Acrylic on canvas, 63.5 x 53.34 cm
At 86, Bridget Riley has a show, predominantly of recent work, at David Zwirner. It’s a mixed bag. Two stunning black disc works, a brave inclusion as they are from the early sixties and provide a tough measure for the rest of the show; new works returning to black and white using part-curved triangle motif shimmer in black and white, successful but not a revelation; and dots in brown, green and grey which predominate, to rather pallid effect. But with one exception: a wall painting with much sparser use of the dots in which the popping of new after-image circles characteristic of the early disc works occurs in a new setting to tremendous effect. Worth seeing, then, but it’s still tempting to say that the best new Rileyesque show is across town at Austin Desmond, where the Pakistani artist Mohammad Ali Talpur – quite openly a Riley fan – does quite a few new things with Riley’s early language of repeated parallel black lines on white ground. Some arrive afresh at optical movement – though Talpur says he doesn’t aim at that any more than he does at spiritual readings. Two, which make a grid of squares from straight verticals and curved horizontals, give the illusion of colours if viewed from a few feet back: I’m not sure how, but I tested this with several people who all saw the chromatics, albeit with varying hues. Will it work the same online, I wonder?
Bridget Riley: Untitled 2 (Measure for Measure), 2018 Graphite and acrylic on plaster wall, (170 x 382 cm) Courtesy David Zwirner
Most days art Critic Paul Carey-Kent spends hours on the train, traveling between his home in Southampton and his day job in London. Could he, we asked, jot down whatever came into his head?
