JANE PICKERSGILL
Leonor Antunes - the frisson of the togetherness
Whitechapel Gallery (2018)
The contextual reference for this show is This is Tomorrow - the Whitechapel’s 1956 exhibition which brought together influential artists, architects and writers of the post war modernist movement in a critical dialogue of current developments.
Antunes reaches back to the history of the neighbourhood, and its trades and brings them to play with an installation inspired by, amongst others, Erno Goldfinger, Eileen Grey, Annie Albers and Mary Martin. The latter three being female artists/designers who have often been overlooked as they were relegated to the role of interior designers.
Artisanal skills are celebrated; metalworking, glassmaking, saddlery, knotting, rugs, bespoke lighting (designed by Antunes herself) and a tiled cork and lino floor. The room is screened, though open, by taut hemp rope, knotted and woven through hooks on the floor. Like many pieces in this work, they are titled Erno or Willow Road, in this case a reference to the banisters in Erno Goldfinger’s house of that address.
There is a contrast between the tensioned, the loose, the knot and the loop. The coffered ceiling of the space is mimicked in grids of knotted ropes. Hangings comprise bridles and woven strips of leather. Larger hides have been cut and assembled into panels which echo modernist chair components. Further partition like constructions are made from teak with triangular cut-outs, ‘stitched’ together by hemp rope; possible intending to evoke the garment making and textile workshops which proliferated in the neighbourhood until quite recently.
The geometric floor pattern (to a design by Mary Martin) is rigidly followed by the placing of Antune’s lighting with identically bent bases; elements re-interpreted from her brass suspended constructions such as discrepancies with M.G. (2011).
Antunes documented work can leave one with the sense that she is fetishizing modern architecture and interior design. However, as you move through this space it is apparent that the primary concern is how we experience and inhabit interiors.
