mon 02/12/2024

Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history | reviews, news & interviews

Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history

Dominique White: Deadweight, Whitechapel Gallery review - sculptures that seem freighted with history

Dunked in the sea to give them a patina of age, sculptures that feel timeless

'Ineligible for Death', 2024 by Dominique White, Max Mara Art Prize for Women 2022-24 © Above Ground Studio (Matt Greenwood)

It’s been a long time since the Whitechapel Gallery has presented three seriously good exhibitions at the same time. Already reviewed are Gavin Jantjes’ paintings on show in the main gallery. He is now joined, in gallery 2, by Dominique White, winner of the Max Mara Art Prize for Women and in galleries 5, 6 & 7, by Peter Kennard.

Funded by the Max Mara Fashion Group, the Art Prize provides the winner with a six month residency in Italy and, in an interesting film, White describes the research she was able to carry out during that time. The four powerful sculptures now on show were inspired by the places she visited in Italy and the things she learned there.

Dead Reckoning (pictured below right) is like a sign writer’s tag expanded into 3D. Lengths of rusty iron tubing pierce the air as if in a gestural frenzy that has the explosive energy of graffiti. Spiky lines semaphore a message of angry defiance that seems to say: “I am here and I refuse to remain invisible.” Standing at the entrance to the exhibition, the work functions like the artist’s calling card. The message seems to be collective as well as personal, though; it’s as if White were speaking for all those whose voices have been stifled throughout history, as well as on her own behalf.

 dead reckoning 2024 Forged Iron Dominique White: Deadweight, Max Mara Art Prize for Women (2022 - 24), 2 July - 15 September 2024, Whitechapel Gallery, London © Above Ground Studio (Matt Greenwood)Dating right back to ancient Egypt and beyond, the Mediterranean slave trade was one of the topics she researched. Her sculptures evoke thoughts of shipwreck and the slaves who rowed Phoenician, Greek and Roman galleys. If the warship to which they were shackled went down, the slaves sank with it and were drowned. White is attracted to iron as a material because its presence in a wreck, she says, “is one of the signifiers that a ship was a slave ship”.

In Ineligible for Death (main picture) two chunks of driftwood rest across one another like the heavy limbs of lifeless bodies. Penetrated by loops of curling iron, they lie pinioned on the floor as if dredged up from the sea bed where they’ve rested for millennia. To heighten the sense of prolonged decay, the artist immersed the sculptures in the Mediterranean and allowed seawater to corrode and corrupt the materials until they resemble the remains of a shipwreck.

With its frayed ropes, fragments of rotten sails, discarded fishing nets and worm-eaten driftwood, Split Obliteration, 2024 makes specific reference to seafaring. This profoundly melancholy work seems steeped in history, yet it emanates a potent sense of resilience. And, for White, confronting the past enables her to envisage “a (Black) future that hasn’t yet happened, but must.” The intention, she says, is to make works “that are dilapidated and falling apart to create hope, an alternative future born from the ashes of the present. There is no escape except through destruction.” Unforgettable.

It’s as if White were speaking for all those whose voices have been stifled throughout history, as well as on her own behalf

rating

Editor Rating: 
4
Average: 4 (1 vote)

Share this article

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters