Backdrop
David Goldenberg
Unmaking and remaking the infrastructure of Western Art
The British/Indian UK based artist Peter Fillingham has for some time been recognized as an exceptional artist, curator and teacher. Who has, unlike few artists in the UK, risked being ambitious, which we could see in the collaborations with the artist, curator, writer and executive editor of /seconds, Peter Lewis, specifically in the show’s Host, Tramway Century City, Tate Modern, Sharjah Biennale. Asks questions which need to be asked. Fillingham has also been recognized for his long-term work and collaborations with leading artists of the day, Derek Jarman, Tacita Dean, David Medalla, and Rasheed Araeen.
The exhibition could be seen as a focal point for a conversation. In that respect l want to offer a close reading of the exhibition combined with my thoughts and mental imagery triggered by the exhibition. And above all that, Fillingham is interested in forms and thinking behind Western art structures, which means that to understand the exhibition it is necessary to think into the ideas behind the exhibition on both a formal and cognitive level, which demands that we test the thinking that we possess and search for new ways of thinking.
There are several reasons why we should pay attention to Peter Fillingham’s work and take time to methodically think through his recent show at Marian Goodman’s Gallery, Paris.
Fillingham asks important about the condition and state of art today:
What is possible in contemporary art?
What is the status of the object of art?
What is Colonialism and who is actually registering and actively engaging in this fundamental problem?
What is the status of art and culture in the UK?
How and in what way is it possible to register and address questions that require to be asked “within the current state of contemporary western mainstream culture?”
These essential questions are posed within the status of the object of art, fabrication, thinking process, displaying and curatorial decision making, seen from multiple positions, destabilizing fixed positions and thinking, on view throughout the recent exhibition.
To understand the ideas behind the exhibition it is necessary to read the press release by Marian Goodman Gallery, notes by Tacita Dean, specifically ideas behind the title of the show and the use of clothes in the exhibition inherited from Basil Dean, Tacita Dean’s Grandfather. Aware of Fillingham’s work related to work in the show, Fillingham’s astute way of talking about art which hasn’t, as far as l am aware, been recorded or printed apart from a recent podcast.
The first overall impression of the exhibition is of an accessible, uncluttered, well-organized show, comprising small to medium-size color sculptures, prints and fabrics, clothing, and letters of the British alphabet. 3 distinct bodies of work produced between 2020-2025, although the prints refer to works and exhibitions of the 1990s.
The second impression is that there is a dialogue between diagonal and vertical/horizontal forms, disintegration, a transformational process that change the original base form. Seductive colour drawing in the viewer in while unifying the exhibition.
On a rudimentary level they refer to elements across society that assemble society itself. The structuring of the social and the structure behind art, where art refers to western mainstream art, class, power, civilization, secret languages, mainstream Language, High/Low culture. In effect, isolating key ‘elementary’ components – clothes as manikins, colour, material, elementary forms, strips of fabric, letters of the alphabet – molecular symbolic particles hidden behind existing structures
The process of disintegrating what is fixed, solid and there and process of transformation to forms throughout the exhibition, opens-up a space where room for thinking is made possible. The space of thinking, and the conditions of possibility, as opposed to replicating the thinking that you have inherited and remains un-thought, Post-World War 2 narratives and dogma. Anchored around two historical moments, the two world wars – [the relationship of art to war, art as mass entertainment] – and the event Helter Skelter that signalled the end of the counter-culture at the end of the 1960s, with reference to music by the Who and the Beatles and their idea of dirty sound.
On entering the space, the eye is attracted to two objects. One towards the end of room one, and the other on the wall at the far end of the gallery in room two. The first object is comprised of three parts, two coats and a folded pair of trousers on hangers, attached to a stand. The second object at the end of room two, a wall mounted collage of multiple juxtaposed vertical lozenges and rectangles of hot and cold monochromatic colored materials.
To the bottom right on the inside of the entrance, at waist height, extending along the right-hand wall, running along room one and two, a series of related small-scale works. Between the work to the right and series of works, there is a wall mounted print in multiple colours, comprising lozenger and rectangular shapes.
In the second room this pattern of works is repeated. A small wall mounted print, the 4th in the series of waist level objects, a large industrial bolt shape, although l am not exactly sure what it is. Next the wall mounted densely colored image seen from the entrance, and to the left, occupying a spacious wall area, letters of the alphabet attached to pins on the wall, next to a similar space where the audience can select and rearrange the lettering.
Pause for thought
On what level are the works operating on? And how to classify the range of works given the diversity of materials, works and themes?
Are these works of art in themselves or are we witnessing something at another level? I mean that the sequence of works, although surprising and unexpected, are something we see, but we don’t know exactly what we see. So, there is a difficulty in describing and identifying the category of this ‘thing’. By ‘thing’ l use the definition from Wittgenstein and Heidegger. Existing on the level of the unrecognizable, below conscience. Something that we see but we don’t know cannot name or describe. Even recognizable elements, clothing, lettering, colour work samples, although functional and familiar, are subjected to the ‘procedure of unmaking and remaking’ where recognizable forms and objects are rendered unknown.
Key to this thinking is a recognition of the grammar of mainstream pictorial logic, and how and in what way thinking in the west and western colonialism are embedded within mainstream art forms, structure and pictorial logic.
Secondly how is colour and material used in Fillingham’s practice?
We can identify several processes: colour applied to material to measure and occupy the space of a venue in that immediate time and place.
Emptying out the space of art
Colour and material as the sign of art
Colour coding
Attaching colour to things
Locating/identifying different colored cultural objects
Attaching signs of art to a structure in the process of being constructed or disassembled, which we can walk into and view from behind, which is equivalent to standing inside a gallery space, then walking behind the gallery space. This can be seen as a model for the exhibition.
In the exhibition there are examples of colour or colored material attached to objects in the form of colour coding* – class, working class objects, food as culture, fashion as positions in society and hierarchical ordering, geographical and temporal space.
Color functions alongside the other “central pictorial grammatical element”, the diagonal in juxtaposition to the upright, the vertical, horizontal and rectangle.
Moving behind the existing structure of mainstream Western art.
How and in what way is it possible to register and understand the hidden structure of Western thinking and pictorial logic that Fillingham brings to light in the works that make up the Exhibition?
We can recognize a similar thread of enquiry in Rasheed Araeen’s sculptural works based on Islamic patterns and Beuys chaotic fat wedges questioning the rigidity of geometric shapes.
Each cluster of works reveals not only Fillingham’s thinking process, but also strategies to make material more than visible. A fullness, care and attention to detail that shifts pictorial material into another area that demands attention, move out of the ordinary and banal into fine art objects, taking the form and ideas to another level, whether through refined workmanship, or material that is ‘more than’, an irritant that sticks in the mind, in excess of the objects and materials – which we find in the clothes and the series of objects focusing on diagonals
The exhibition works as both a critique of art today and to camouflage the works and objects in the space as objects and sculpture of art, whereas they exist as something else. Here we can see recognition of current problems and censorship through an evaluation of the radical contraction to art over the past 25 years as part of the conservative revolution in art, squeezing out alternatives to mainstream art. How is it possible to manifest something that escapes categories, that is of a completely different order? That escapes neoliberal logic the banality of colonialism as assimilation through mainstream western art, as appropriation within commodity art, as guilt, as confession, as documentary, as dogma, within the poverty of representation and ‘something fixed?’ – escaping the logic of neoliberal appropriation? Released from the existing order where rupture and a glimpse of other possibilities, manifests an entry point into an entirely other order becomes both possible and actual.
We gain a glimpse of this where the unmaking and remaking with the transformation of all elements, in a space and volume that is impossible to gauge and measure with the complete relativization of all parts and structures of art, are set in motion and seen as a unified whole.
Examining the works in detail
At the start of the exhibition, to the right of the entrance are two works, a sculpture titled short drop and on the wall a print titled Black. I see this as a coda to the exhibition, which is repeated in room 2, and in the arrangement of clothes.
Small drop
The first work Small drop is one of two works devoid of colour, in black and white, along with the pair of folded trousers.
The structure as an absent structure and work, appears to show two upright white box pedestals or architectural models, set at a distance. Across the gap between the pedestals are a number of thin strips, from which forms are suspended by cord and thin rods at different diagonals. It is not clear what these suspended forms are or why they are suspended. The point is that we need to look down and into the structure. Yet the organization of elements is evocative and triggers mental images circumventing obvious iconography and references. I have a strong sense that the work as a whole presents an open form, suggesting a gallery space and works appearing in that volume of space, with echoes of a 3-d printing chamber and a computers virtual space. The constellation of suspended diagonal forms suggests the process of entropy, disintegration and falling, acting out the process of unmaking and remaking. It is also possible to imagine the work upside down, so the black Criss crossing bars can be seen as handles for a puppeteer to manipulate his puppets.
At the same time l equate this physical process to mirror mental processes and thinking, both a frozen moment of dissolution and the unfreezing of thinking trapped in stasis, the unfreezing of form and culture trapped in the prison of mainstream culture.
First print: Black
The 2 prints develop ideas going back to 1994 and printed in 2020. Produced by tracing architectural interiors of gallery spaces, as a template for students to understand how to locate their work in gallery spaces. Exhibited in both the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (now Kunstinstituute Melly) and the Kunsthal Rotterdam for the exhibition Watt in 1994.
I understand the prints position within the context of the exhibition in two ways. Within the sequence of the developing forms on the plinths, and as a historical document that condense ideas and processes in time. The prints refer back to the constructed sculptural collaged colored textile work on the wall in room 2. so, the prints can be seen as flattened static versions of these works.
On looking at both prints l understood these less than any other work in the exhibition. But my first thought on seeing the work was that the prints momentarily freeze an operation or process that is taking place in the sculpture series, the conflict between diagonals, verticals and horizontal. The failure of comprehension is correct, because if they are turned 90 degrees it is obvious what they are depicting, gallery spaces, so the prints are themselves undergoing the same process works throughout the exhibition are undergoing. It makes sense to have a print of exhibition and gallery spaces turned 90% so the spaces are rendered unfamiliar, changed into something else, expanding what is taking place in the short drop.
The two works Short drop and the print of exhibition/gallery spaces trigger thinking at the start of the exhibition on the material form of the exhibition space itself. The Short drop’s void dissolves and reconfigures forms in a potential new gallery space.
I would say this idea of thinking of an exhibition as a totality is what makes this exhibition important for understanding correctly how critique and analysis of art takes place today as a complete structural whole idea of how culture works to open new possibilities.
17s, Strip (2025).
In the next work, a diagonal display case on top of a white plinth, present a row of diagonal bars, in a moment of rest, and an opportunity to look at the bars in detail, before the next formation in the next iteration of the work. I see this piece as transitional, moving towards something else, in terms of manifesting a fuller physical form. It is the quality and delicacy of the craftsmanship and use of bands and quality of colour. What l also find interesting here, is the incomplete half box which the mind wants to complete, which can also be seen to reference a gallery sliced in half. The size and thickness of each bar, the strange, sweet candy colours, the delicacy of the wrapping, the juxtaposition of colours clashing against each other can be seen as both a display of seaside rock and fine art works, working class culture and places juxtaposed against bourgeoisie high art and space.
It is only at this level of craftsmanship and resolution that a work not only commands space but also comes into itself as a work. For a work, argument, thinking to function and contest on the same level dominant, familiar and fashionable forms, there needs to be a command of cultural forms to compete with coexisting forms and narratives.
The issue here as with all the objects is how to register, acknowledge and describe what is visible?
8s, Helter Skelter (2025)
There are three installation shots of the work, two shots which don’t work, and the final installation shot shown in the exhibition which does work, so it is interesting to work out why this version works. I would say that in this configuration and presentation there is a focus which the other presentation fails to achieve.
With Helter Skelter problems of registering objects and its description are at their most acute. In this instance the presentation is far more complex, housed in an open box structure. However, what we actually face is the outside surface of the box. Here as in the previous two examples, the question of scale is problematic. Is this the actual work, a model for a larger work or a model for something that cannot be shown?
The bars appear to be suspended, thrown in the manner of the I-Ching, criss-crossing, suspended and occupying an enclosed architectural model. From each bar, wooden extensions pass through holes in 2 vertical sheets at the front and back. Face on you only see the extension passing out into a new space and space of you the viewer. So the front panel obscures and closes off the internal space, breaking and breaking open another space, dimensions, and the initial container, alluding to juxtaposing multiple spaces and dimensions. On another level we can see this operation as the perforating and drilling through to break open a white cube and space of art.
The title and work collide together multiple references and allusions, working class culture and aesthetics, violence, collisions and explosions, thrills. How and in what way the work embodies the full set of references is not entirely clear, other than to hint at the end of an era, a new language and idea for a challenging aesthetic. But maybe the correct question is how is it possible for an object to embody this complexity and function as a whole?
Helter Skelter refers to Charles Mansion, Fair Ground Slide, The Beatles music reference to The Who.
Paul Sérusier’s oil painting The Golden Cylinder from 1910.
Fruit Salad
Fruit salad is the 3rd suit that Fillingham made coming after Rainbow Suite, The King of Kings (things that you do not know about the English) 2017
Fruit Salad is an army term referring to the collection of medals and ribbons worn by a soldier. The new work continues a series of wearable art works and research into English culture.
Fruit Salad is situated next to Helter Skelter, and like Helter skelter poses considerable problems with the complexity of its references and processes that the material has been subjected to. The work comprises 3 pieces, two coats and a folded pair of trousers, hanging on clothes hangers attached to sculptures that closely resembles clothes stands. Three uprights and at the bottom, feet in the form of diagonals. The uprights mimic the uprights of the plinths and delineate an undisclosed open shape.
The clothes were donated by the artist and friend of Peter Fillingham, Tacita Dean, and belonged to her Grandfather Basil Dean. Before the exhibition l had never heard of Basil Dean, but it doesn’t take very long to realize how important Basil Dean was, as a writer, establishing Ealing Studios, work in theatre, Ballet, and the war effort through the organization ENSA. The Basil Dean clothing was intended to give members of the ENSA status and acceptance within the armed forces.
But why would this extensive area of engagement with cinema and the entertainment industry interest Fillingham and feed into the work? Maybe this is reflected in the excessive baroque operations, which reflects the restlessness of Fillingham’s mind and desire to understand a problem and object of art from multiple directions, refusal to take things for granted and refusal to acknowledge that an idea and set of concerns are finished.
The work appears to organize at least three operations. A gentleman’s country clothing as a backdrop or background, with the additions of horizontal and vertical-colored strips of material, maybe flags and military ribbons, rosette and ruff type forms made from multiple colours. Referencing the large wall work in room 2 and to the candy-colored seaside rock. With obvious reference to fashion, class, football, political parties, war, court jester and Pierrot. In keeping with the mounting hints it is useful to keep in mind Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Why do l say that? Maybe we need to acknowledge the necessity of a similar disruption and fundamental shifting of pictorial grammar that Schoenberg’s work ignited in music history. In the same vein of thinking what is also obvious is excess and constructing the model of something that goes beyond what exists, forms and models that are unfamiliar and rejected by puritan codes and fashions of the West, pointing outside Western values?
Here
Here presents the clearest complete form in the show as an idea of a satisfying object, scaled up from a small object. Is it a coincidence that the object is derived from a pot of colored pigment, raw material before it is used to make art works? Granular particles behind appearance. The presentation reinforces the impression in confrontation with the majority of the works, “What is this and what am l seeing?” As a further meditation on the idea of the open form of the two up right plinths, miniature architectural buildings, the space of a gallery, or even an unknown ground for a new type of art form, an apparition materializing in the ether of this unknown space.
The Backdrop, 2025, wood panels, fabric
The work Backdrop comprises strips of colored fabric on wood, made of vertical squeezed shapes, sitting next to the English alphabet, in relationship to the prints. I thought the work was an anomaly, in the same way that on first sight the alphabet appeared to be an anomaly. But l am wrong, the two works function in the same way. The strips of material appear to be taken from this work and attached and rearranged in different patterns on the clothing or to make up the prints.
BF,RE,FW,DJ,CG,GJ,GB,MJ, 2024
The Alphabet reveals the abstraction that shapes the social, that guides and positions peoples and cultures within the taxonomy and epistemology of Western global colonialism and neoliberal logic. Yet in this manifestation there is an acting out the possibility of breaking and reordering this naming, ordering of categories, hierarchies and positions, rearranged into arbitrary chaotic patterns, crystalized as condensed bits of information as visual signs.
Backdrop, The Alphabet, Here reinforces the possibility of a new language and language in the making. The collected material as a skeleton, covering and skin. With a series of 4 models to rethink the gallery and how art manifests in that space, with examples of art embodying society and history in its complexity and as a totality.
“Basil Dress”; Peter Fillingham
Marian Goodman Gallery, Paris, France, between 22nd May – 18th July 2025.
Photographer: Rebecca Fanuele
Images Courtesy of the artist and of Marian Goodman Gallery. All other images copyright Peter Fillingham
