To be Frank....

A review of Frank Auberch at Tate Britain

The latest in the frankly embarrassingly large crop of current exhibitions.   If you are going to see this particular exhibition then I suggest two things. 
1)      Get to know Mr Auberch’s work before you go;
2)      Don’t get too close to the paintings.
I had not done 1) although I knew of Auberch by reputation I knew little of what he had done, so I went it cold.  I’m afraid to say I didn’t like it.

The work was arrange in decade from the 50’s onwards.  My main problem with the work is frankly there is too much paint.  I find it forms a barrier rendering the paintings nonsensical and difficult to engage with.   In the first room this was particularly so where the dark brown theme that predominated and the shiny glaze on, for example, the painting of the Earls Court construction site was viscerally repulsive.  It looks like poo. Much better and more interesting, in my view are his charcoal drawings.

The next room was the 60’s. The colours have moved on and there is a little less paint but it still bulges out from the canvas.  The landscapes I found more interesting than the portraits and the first one of Mornington Crescent grew on me a little after a while.  It is an example of what I mean by 2) above in that if you get too close to the paintings it dissolves into a meaningless jumble that in fact I found very off putting.

The 70s was more interesting. Better use of colour and slightly less paint.  Again the landscapes are the more engaging and for example I found the reclining head of JYM baffling and lacking emotion.  My favourite in this room was Primrose Hill in Summer.  It was in this room that I also discovered an odd effect.  Caught out of the corner of my eye the paintings really popped out at me.  They looked really good.  Turn to look them full on though and this effect ebbs away.
On into the 80’s and again there is less paint and it ceasing to be an obstacles and a couple of pieces such as From the Studio had a nice metallic sheen.  OF much more interest to me where again, his charcoal portraits and in one, called Head of JYM he managed to achieved an interesting 3d effect.

On into the 90’s and more portraits of Mornington Crescent.  The work features large violent lines which are both integral but to me, off putting.  By the next room, the 2000s I was beginning to find this irritating. You have to work very hard with Auberch’s paintings, they are very dense and take a long time to get to know.  The effort is not often rewarded and I find them lacking something.  I became resentful.

The last room was curated by someone else (the others being done by the artist himself) and was the best.  In this I made a discovery. I greatly preferred his smaller works, and found them to be better, for example To the Studio 1993 and Hampstead High Road High Summer, I found them to be more intimate and more intelligible.  Interestingly when I brought the postcards, the paintings in this reduced form looked a look better than they did in real life.

There are some interesting things going on hid but they are hidden to often by overworking and a sort of bombast.  His best work, like the charcoal drawings are where this does not happen.  Come out from behind the paint Frank! Let us see you.