{"id":1182303,"date":"2026-09-02T10:45:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T10:45:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1182303\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T10:45:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T10:45:23","slug":"john-currin-opening-credits-at-sadie-coles-pauls-show-of-the-month","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1182303\/","title":{"rendered":"John Currin: Opening Credits at Sadie Coles \u2013 Paul\u2019s Show of the Month"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"John<\/a>John Currin: \u2018Followers\u2019, 2026, oil on canvas, canvas size: 40.6 x 53.3 cm \/ 16 x 21 in, frame size: 57.1 x 44.5 x 5.7 cm \/ 22 \u00bd x 17 \u00bd x 2 \u00bc in<\/p>\n

New month, old show\u2026 Rather than shut up shop during August, Sadie Coles<\/a> has generously kept her Savile Row space open throughout and beyond. Plenty of time, then, to catch John Currin<\/a> (as well as interesting film work by Helen Marten<\/a>). Seeing the show a month ago, I was fascinated but wanted to know more. Last week, stuck in hospital, I listened to the best \u2018Talk Art\u2019<\/a> podcast I\u2019ve heard to date \u2013 and it\u2019s Season 28! Robert Diament<\/a> gives Currin room to expand in relaxed, urbane and engaging detail on all aspects of his life and work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Last summer Currin wanted to combine pastoral landscapes with figures, and found that mountain trees looked beautiful in headlights as he taxied his children round the Acadia National Park, Maine, where his family live some of the year. The views put him in mind of a slew of 16 x 30 inch canvases he had inherited years ago from his High School art teacher. Now distorted, contradictory figures appear across them like a performative cavalcade. They combine multiple sources: models from Montgomery Ward and Sears catalogues that Currin has long collected, finding that in some years \u2013 especially the mid-1970\u2019s \u2013 the combination of clothes, hairstyles and expressions makes them read like his paintings in advance; live models; mannequins as dressed by his long-term assistant; and other secondary sources including any amount of art history. Currin also mentions Kenneth Clarke\u2019s categorisations of the nude.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John Currin: Opening Credits\u2019 \u2013 installation view, \u00a9 John Currin. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photo: Katie Morrison<\/p>\n

All of that fed into \u2018a billion two-martini drawings\u2019 from which women emerge without restraint \u2013 gigantic breasts, spherical bellies, stick legs, goofball faces \u2013 in a trash-fuelled mash-up. Currin says such imagery has persisted since the 80\u2019s: he doesn\u2019t know why, but goes with what happens \u2013 \u2018comedic, yet sentimental and poignant too\u2019 in the spirit of \u2018looking but not judging\u2019. He interprets them as \u2018a child misunderstanding sex\/experience \/ what he\u2019s looking at and an adult misunderstanding childhood looking back\u2019. He sets them in \u2018Arcadian\u2019 landscapes, but not as we might think of them classically. The spaces are more shallowly de Kooning-esque as Currin \u2018imposes a modernist aesthetic onto old paintings\u2019. And the trees we see are mostly taken from images of forests shredded by armaments in the Ukraine.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>John Currin: \u2018Wonderland\u2019, 2026 oil on canvas, canvas size: 40.6 x 53.3 cm \/ 16 x 21 in. frame size: 57.1 x 44.5 x 5.7 cm \/ 22 \u00bd x 17 \u00bd x 2 \u00bc in. \u00a9 John Currin. Courtesy the Artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London. Photo: Maris Hutchinson<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty more. Currin discusses Monet, Manet, Poussin, Cranach, Hans Baldung, Parmigianino and Kippenberger with compelling freshness. He vividly evokes his vision before (\u2018erectile dysfunction with colour\u2019) and after a recent cataract operation, including a period when only one lens had been replaced. Then there\u2019s the loosening effects of using pointed rather than flat brushes; the use of Mylar add-ons to rehearse possible changes \u2018like an analogue Photoshop\u2019; the role of fashion and flowers; colour choices; the purer landscapes and drawings also in the show. Out of hospital now, I\u2019m itching to look again with all that background in my head \u2013 and advise you to listen to Talk Art and do the same by 12 September!<\/p>\n

Paul Carey-Kent selects a \u2018Gallery of the Month\u2019, a \u2018Show of the Month\u2019, a \u2018Work of the Month\u2019 and a \u2018Book of the Month\u2019 for his weekly column in FAD. \u00a0A collection of previous gallery columns,\u00a0\u2018Paul\u2019s Galleries To Go\u2019, is\u00a0available from FAD Bazaar.<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

CategoriesTagsAuthor \"\"<\/p>\n

Paul Carey-Kent<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Art critic and curator, based near Southampton. I write most regularly for Art Monthly, Frieze, World of Interiors, Seisma, Border Crossings, Artlyst, … and, of course, FAD.<\/p>\n