MERLIN JAMES

Many of James’s exhibitions—such as the one presented in these spaces in 2020—resemble scores in which homogeneity and variation seem to coexist. The impression is that of a jam session in which the freedom of the musician is total, precisely due to the repetition of a minimal structure; of a rhythm that when translated into terms of display is made of visual, thematic-conceptual but also chronological reiterations. Not by chance, we see a combination of works from different decades, or pieces conceived with apparently distant approaches: interiors and landscapes, erotic scenes, almost abstract works and compositions in which the painting presents itself more in the guide of an object than of an image. Just as the deck of cards of any good magician is assembled to make a certain series of cards appear, so an exhibition by Merlin James is a set of recurrences, imaginable but never actually predictable: a certain type of works is to be expected, but with what particularities? In what relationship? Thus an exhibition as a whole, through its individual works, becomes an exercise for the gaze, and therefore something irresistibly curious.

The title of the new solo show at the gallery, See Through, seems to point in this direction. It is a formula that clearly alludes to painting, to the state of opacity and transparency of images, but also to the common English expression “to see something through,” to bring to a conclusion, to devote time to the completion of something.

The exhibition is accompanied by a critical essay by Enrico Camprini.