Summer art season events and happenings are stacking up, from exhilarating outdoor installations to gargantuan projects stretching the entire breadth of cities around the globe. Now it's the turn of Pace, gracing us with not one but two summer exhibitions – the Agnes Martin-influenced 'Signal Failure' and Yto Barrada's 'Faux Guide' – on show at the gallery's London outpost at Burlington Gardens, just a stone's throw from the Royal Academy's main courtyard.
Echoing the towering Agnes Martin retrospective recently unveiled at Tate Modern, the gallery has allocated the upper floor of its West End hub to the late abstract impressionist, gathering contemporary artists – such as Sara Barker, Philomene Pirecki, Cédric Eisenring, Mathis Gasser, Scott Lyall, Sergei Tcherepnin and Tobias Madison – to reinterpret her geometric universe of clean forms and lines.
'Signal Failure' aims to address not just Martin's life and work, but also – more importantly – the way in which she responded to her fast-evolving surroundings, permeated by mediated relationships and communication. Her response was simple yet unusual; she worked with ‘her back to the world’. Martin took her time and remained faithful to traditional, physical means of working, resisting the swift proliferation of digital imagemaking in the 1960s, sketching timeless pencil line images in primary colours and shapes.
Mathis Gasser and Cedric Eisenring's Yellow Gate is the exhibition's most striking piece, overshadowing the whole space with evenly-spread, repetitious yellow metal grids. The massive 'gate' channels Martin's desire to explore and exploit space, physically exporting her drawings into the material world. The work moreover toys with the viewer's perception of space and time – altering our physical instincts and slowing us down.
On the ground floor is a new show of work by Yto Barrada, entitled 'Faux Guide', an exploration of the psychology of collecting that sees the space dotted with peculiar creatures and artefacts, displayed as archaeological findings.
The Moroccan-born artist's interest in the gap separating intangible truth and physical ambiguity made paleontology an ideal choice of subject. Aptly reflecting this, the intensely personal exhibition features collections of floating rocks, human-sized dinosaurs, crushed ping-pong balls and colourful rugs – the artist herself as the titular 'faux guide, like the casbah hustler bringing tourists into a city of his own invention.' The exhibition design further adopts the structure of a geological time scale, demarcated by the Berber carpets' coloured bands, that correspond to painted sections of the wall.
Placed within the fields of archaeology, museology and science, these artefacts evoke a strong quality of subjective knowledge. A guide which may not necessarily be faux, then, but rather personal nonetheless.
Sergei Tcherepnin's Rotating Box comprises an unstretched canvas that operates as the ground for two brass elements, wired up to transducers and a mini computer, playing a digital composition by the artist. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
Yto Barrada's solo show 'Faux Guide' is located on the gallery's ground floor. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
The exhibition design adopts the structure of a geological time scale, demarcated by coloured bands of Berber carpets that correspond to painted sections of the wall. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
Cast assemblages of fossils suggest an affinity between the use of cast sculptures and the models of nature used by artists, scientists and museums. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
An assemblage of heart-shaped fake artefacts. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
A close-up of one artifact – an irreverent take on the processes of paleontology. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
The show includes photographs of dinosaur footprints and children’s toys from the 1930s, real and fake fossils, a mold of the hand of a fossil preparatory, a model of a complete dinosaur (pictured) and pedagogical paintings. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
In autumn 2015, A Guide to Fossils for Forgers and Foreigners will be published; the catalogue includes examples of Barrada’s new work, and a number of texts written and selected by the artist. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
The publication will explore notions of patrimony and shifting definitions of authenticity, with the author's trademark humor, subtlety and wit. Photography courtesy of the artist and Pace London
ADDRESS
Pace London
6 Burlington Gardens
W1S 3ET London
-
SANAA scoops 2025 Charlotte Perriand AwardThe 2025 Charlotte Perriand Award has been awarded to Japanese architecture studio SANAA
-
Ora-ïto transforms the Renault 17 into a futuristic yet retro-tinged visionThe R17 electric restomod x Ora-ïto is the fourth in Renault's series of designer-led reimaginings of iconic models from its past. We think it's the best of the lot
-
First Look: a domestic idyll by Lucy Stark and Fabien Cappello at the Blunk SpaceInspired by the life and times at JB Blunk's haven of a house in Inverness, a new exhibition of paintings and objects has us dreaming of California
-
Artist Jonathan Baldock plays hide and seek with the windows of Hermès' London flagshipA series of fantastical, brightly coloured hedges, dotted with peepholes, transform Hermès' New Bond Street store, offering an interactive experience for the passerby
-
Penny Slinger’s 1970s erotic Photo Romance asks: ‘Is this where my story begins?’Artist Penny Slinger’s seminal ‘An Exorcism’, gets an immersive outing
-
Please do touch the art: enter R.I.P. Germain’s underground world in LiverpoolR.I.P. Germain’s ‘After GOD, Dudus Comes Next!’ is an immersive installation at FACT Liverpool
-
‘Happy birthday Louise Parker II’: enter the world of Roe EthridgeRoe Ethridge speaks of his concurrent Gagosian exhibitions, in Gstaad and London, touching on his fugue approach to photography, fridge doors, and his longstanding collaborator Louise Parker
-
‘A gentleness in the hard truths’: behind the scenes at Slave PlaySlave Play, London is on at the Noël Coward theatre – Amah-Rose Abrams reports on a ‘hilarious, tender, confronting’ performance and its masterful mirrored set
-
‘Regeneration and repair is a really important part of how I work’: Bharti Kher at Yorkshire Sculpture ParkBharti Kher unveils the largest UK museum exhibition of her career at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at BalticHannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the BarbicanIn Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
