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Review: Anton Henning's Interieur no. 493

(originally published by The Student)

     When you step between the vivacious colours and three-dimensional art of Anton Henning’s Interieur No. 493 and the Ragamala collection at the Talbot Rice Gallery, it’s natural to feel a little surprised.
     The bright white walls of the main space, and Henning’s multi-format works, some of which are indistinguishable from furniture, create an environment far more domestic than your average gallery, and one in which abstract paintings, confused sculpture and a simple white sofa seem utterly disconnected from one another. The artist’s free reign over the gallery space means that he has manipulated it well, controlling as he does the lights, sounds and setup of the art we observe to distort the normal museum hush of such a space.
     However it is hard to find a common factor in terms of style: even within his collection of paintings, some pieces show Henning’s knowledge of art history through familiar forms in contrasted, lively colours, while elsewhere graphic nude paintings make us wonder what kind of domestic environment he was aiming for.
     Stepping through from this into the dimly-lit second gallery takes some getting used to. It seems either the two exhibitions running side-by-side are a prime example of the Talbot Rice Gallery’s great resources and the range of works at the university-run gallery’s disposal, or the curator was simply a little confused.
     The university’s collection of miniature Indian paintings depict a range of instruments and players in incredible detail, and are symbolic interpretations of musical modes (Ragas) and their connection with divine characters. The scenes shown are romantic, aristocratic and luxurious, evoking ideas of beauty, passion and poetry.
     The paintings have travelled a long way from their homes of Hyderabad and Jaipur, and now the decision to set them next to an exhibition so far-flung from this highly traditional kind of art is bordering on baffling.

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