Marie Harnett: ‘What Was My Own’ & Georg Baselitz: ‘Hands’ at Cristea Roberts Gallery

Lockdown has finally loosened the noose on culture, thank god! It’s been a tough and long winter for everyone, not only due to the complete lack of daylight, but also due to the complete lack of anything cultured to do. Therefore, I was completely ecstatic when the Cristea Roberts Gallery on Pall Mall, London announced a double exhibition. So not only did I get to see works by two artists, but the exhibitions themselves were free! 

Now, to be brutally honest I hadn’t heard of the two artists being shown, but that didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. I’d previously been to see the likes of ‘Cornelia Parker’ and ‘Bridget Riley’ at the gallery, both of whom are household names in the mainstream Art World. But the likes of ‘Georg Baselitz’ and ‘Marie Harnett’, who are the subjects of this exhibition, were not so familiar. So here are some of the basics about both of them Georg Baselitz’s exhibition ‘Hands’ focuses on an aspect of the human body that has enabled humanity. Without them, life would be difficult to say the least and I humbly salute those who are able to function without them. According to the information sheet given to me the series of art works on display explore hands as ‘estranged from the body, the hands writhe and twist’. Marie Harnett’s exhibition ‘What was My Own’ takes moments from contemporary films such as ‘Emma’ (2020) or ‘Anna Karenina’(2012) and zeros in on moments of deep intimacy or emotion. Other pieces of her work are distorted the faces are gone- its unnerving.

Mano(Gold) 2019 by Georg Baselitz

The gallery is split into two levels, on the ground floor is the exhibition of ‘Hands’ and on the lower ground floor is ‘What Was My Own’. Starting on the ground floor, you’re confronted by three etchings ‘Eine Hand its keen Faust’ meaning ‘A hand is not a fist’. They’re quite brutal, but hands are hands they work hard. They are enablers. But seeing as these are an edition of 12 there are more of them along the wall, each hand is contorted into a different state of being, the life lines run deep, the fingers stretched out, bent- enticing you to come for a closer look. The most stunning prints are deep into the gallery, the ‘Mano (Gold)’ and ‘Mano (White)’. Their aesthetic at first glance unsettled me, they reminded me of x-rays. The gold of the hands printed on a black background glows subtly like embers. I cannot fault the detail in them, some suggest strings of tendons underneath the skin. Not everything that’s shiny is pretty. To me these prints are almost a commentary as to how much work our hands do in everyday life, some people work their hands ‘to the bone’ in order to achieve their goals. Instrumental musicians, for example.

Moving onto the lower ground, Marie Harnett’s pictures were tiny! So delicate and pretty. I initially did a double take because I recognised the stills from the films she was quoting. I liked that she chose films where women were pretty central, like ‘Anna Karenina’, ‘Little Women’ and ‘Emma’. The layout of the exhibition is sparse and I say that because the art works are so small. In a video on Instagram she laid out why some of the art works are so small, its because she wants them to feel precious. However, some of the works are huge. I mean, they compensate for the little ones. The larger scale ones have so much more to them, but I didn’t think they were as intimate and intricate as the little pieces she supplied for the gallery. The stills from films such as Emma were beautifully detailed, almost an exact snapshot of the film. I had to get really close to some of her works to make sure! But the most haunting ones were the ones were I couldn’t see faces. There is something so intimate and reassuring about a face - their expressions, their features. But the erasure of them erases an identity. Considering the films that Marie Harnett uses: Emma, Anna Karenina, are representative of women in a time when women didn’t have their own identity. They did, but due to societal pressures, their identity was already presumed, mapped out. One such piece I felt illustrated this really well ‘Approach’. All you see is a female, who face has been erased sitting, waiting, as male outlines approach her. 

I come back to this gallery time and time agin because its such an interesting space to me. Art spaces are transformative, the artist can do what they like in them- within reason (any serious changes to the space or the building may need planning permission) it’s always a joy to go into an arts space and see what the art does to it. How it changes the mood. Distorts the space. And distortion of faces, hands, human form seem to be central themes to these exhibitions. In a time when ‘normalcy’ has been distorted or simply doesn’t exist, I recommend seeing this show.

‘Hands’ and ‘What was My Own’ is on until the 15th of May 2021 at Cristea Roberts Gallery, Pall Mall, London UK.