Marc Quinn's solo exhibition 'The Toxic Sublime' is now on show at White Cube in Bermondsey. The theme of the show is nature derailed and despoiled. Pictured: Frozen Wave (The Conservation of Linear Momentum), 2015
The centrepiece of Marc Quinn’s new show at the White Cube, Bermondsey edition, is Frozen Wave (The Conservation of Mass), a kind of withered, weathered take on Anish Kapoor’s crowd-pleasing Cloud Gate, the giant, mirrored bean that sits in Chicago’s Millennium Park (Quinn makes clear though that no direct reference is intended. The pieces are of similar material but not intent). Almost 25 feet long and nine feet taIl, Frozen Wave dominates its allotted space. Most visitors on preview night were, inevitably, drawn to its smooth, polished steel side and perhaps even repelled by the creases and wrinkles that face the other way.
The Conservation of Mass is the biggest, and most abstract, of a series of stainless steel Frozen Wave sculptures that are based on conch shells, eroded by seas and oceans until nothing is left but a thin, fragile mineral arc, a little wave. For Quinn they are a kind of accidental self-portrait, relentless and impervious natural forces leaving an odd echo.
The show in its entirety is called 'The Toxic Sublime'. And the theme, as the title suggests, is nature derailed and despoiled. Thirteen Toxic Sublimes appear here, crumpled aluminium sheets with dirty sunsets, mostly unrecognisable as such, bonded on their surfaces. They all start with the same garish sunset, a photograph on canvas. This photograph is sanded and gaffer-taped and then taken out into the streets to be branded by Thames Water manhole covers. These are then applied to the aluminium sheets, which Quinn batters and bends and twists into a sort of seascape.
They look like debris of course, but of what? In some, the ruined sunset comes off as nuclear. There are odd scrawlings which might make these artefacts. They are all toxic Turners, questioning whether we have the right to call anything sublime anymore, given our dumping and disrespect.
For a unique and exclusive take on 'The Toxic Sublime', check out the September issue of Wallpaper*, on sale come 13 August. Quinn has collaborated with us on a truly remarkable – properly sublime, perhaps – fashion shoot, featuring some of the works in the show and his new muse Jenny Bastet.
The Frozen Wave sculptures are based on conch shells, eroded by seas and oceans until nothing is left but a thin, fragile mineral arc, a little wave. Pictured: Frozen Wave (The Conservation of Culture), 2015
For Quinn they are a kind of an accidental self-portrait, relentless and impervious natural forces leaving an odd echo. Pictured: Frozen Wave (The Conservation of Energy), 2015
The Toxic Sublime – B(=_cUo-214!96c, 2015. They are made up of crumpled aluminium sheets with dirty sunsets, mostly unrecognisable. This photograph is sanded and gaffer-taped and then taken out into the streets to be branded by Thames Water manhole covers...
... these are then applied to the aluminium sheets, which Quinn batters and bends and twists into a sort of seascape. Left: The Toxic Sublime – 5$_5,)'^6$3Y]7w, 2015. Right: The Toxic Sublime – O8@=du5JPnf&Zx, 2015
ADDRESS
White Cube
144-152 Bermondsey Street
London, SE1 3TQ
-
Wallpaper* checks in at the refreshed W Hollywood: ‘more polish and less party’The W Hollywood introduces a top-to-bottom reimagining by the Rockwell Group, capturing the genuine warmth and spirit of Southern California
-
Book a table at Row on 5 in London for the dinner party of dreamsRow on 5, the first restaurant ever to open on Savile Row, emerges as a perfectly tailored fit for fans of fine dining
-
How a bijou jewellery salon in Monaco set the jewellery trends for 2025Inside the inaugural edition of Joya, where jewellery is celebrated as miniature works of art
-
Inside the distorted world of artist George RouyFrequently drawing comparisons with Francis Bacon, painter George Rouy is gaining peer points for his use of classic techniques to distort the human form
-
‘I'm endlessly fascinated by the nude’: Somaya Critchlow’s intimate and confident drawings are on show in London‘Triple Threat’ at Maximillian William gallery in London is British artist Somaya Critchlow’s first show dedicated solely to drawing
-
Surrealism as feminist resistance: artists against fascism in Leeds‘The Traumatic Surreal’ at the Henry Moore Institute, unpacks the generational trauma left by Nazism for postwar women
-
Looking forward to Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary partyFrom 9-12 May 2025, Tate Modern, one of London’s most adored art museums, will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a lively weekend of festivities
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA week in the world of Wallpaper*. Here's how our editors have been entertaining themselves in the run up to Christmas
-
Love, melancholy and domesticity: Anna Calleja is a painter to watchAnna Calleja explores everyday themes in her exhibition, ‘One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night’, at Sim Smith, London
-
Ndayé Kouagou speaks the language of the chaotic social media influencer in LondonNdayé Kouagou celebrates meandering incoherence with an exhibition, ‘A Message for Everybody’, at Gathering in London
-
Out of office: what the Wallpaper* editors have been doing this weekA snowy Swiss Alpine sleepover, a design book fest in Milan, and a night with Steve Coogan in London – our editors' out-of-hours adventures this week
