Hello Chris Ofili

And so now here I am again, back in Europe. It was nice getting to see the Chris Ofili exhibition in London, but that was pretty much the highlight, and 5 days once again felt too long. However I would definitely recommend the Chris Ofili exhibition at Tate Britain. This was my main reason for going back to London this time, and it was really good. I had already seen one of his paintings in SFMOMA, and was familiar with his work from Art Now, Matthew Collings interviews, etc so the first few rooms of paintings at his exhibition were not particularly new. Obviously they look better in reality, and the mass of lots of similar works, similar size, subject matter, medium is much more powerful than when viewing one painting of his amongst other artist's work, as at SFMOMA. But for me the real high point was 'The Upper Room'. I had heard about this work previously in a controversial light, as it was purchased by the Tate Britain, on whose board of trustees was Chris Ofili, conflict of interest much? However upon seeing it I had to agree with the decision to purchase. You walk down a dark wooden corridor to a dimly lit room, wherein the paintings are lit from directly above, leaving the room in virtual shadow. You enter at the back of the room and along two sides of the walls are paintings, each a different colour, each depicting a monkey facing toward the end of the room. And as is natural at an art gallery, you stop to view each painting. But the real power of this work is viewing it as a whole. It is when you look with the monkeys toward the far end of the room, toward the queen, that you can start to imagine the inner workings of these monkey's minds. You feel almost one of them, bowing toward your superior, the hushed light of the room provides a feeling of reverence and I almost felt that I should bow my head and shuffle out backwards. The rest of the work in the exhibition, the newer work, was good to. I especially liked his paintings all in shades of blue, starting from 2 tones of similar blue together, and becoming progressively more contrasting. But 'The Upper Room' was definitely the highlight. Oops I forgot to mention the elephant dung, never mind, there it is.

artfagcity also mentions similarities between Ofili and Matisse (I think generally Ofili's newer works like Iscariot Blues, picture top). I only mention this because I love Matisse, and so appreciate when other artist's honour him (even unknowingly perhaps).

Tate, timeout and thank you artfagcity