The building of The Turner Contemporary Gallery could not juxtapose itself from Margate's sea front any more prominently. In a nod towards contemporary design it sits staring out to sea, jutting out jarringly in comparison to the run down, 250 year old exterior of Margate town.
This white cube of modernism, designed by David Chipperfield Architects, is an obvious bid to regenerate this British coastal town, which used to be a bastion for holiday makers, but has now seen better days. The town is comparatively vast, with the typical charm of a British seaside resort. What's more, the array of art galleries feel like it has the basis for an art community to flourish in. However, these days the faded signs and boarded up buildings give the impression of it limping along, in need of a large cash injection.
It may seem that the surrounding of the gallery is irrelevant to the gallery itself; however, this could not be further from the truth. Although the building appears to have cut and pasted out of London Town onto the North Kent sea front, it could not work more synonymously with the history of Margate and Thanet.
The directors and curators of the gallery have decidedly made the opening exhibition a celebration of 'imagination, discovery, wonder and creativity' all leading directly back to Turner and highlighting very British concepts and ideas that originated from his time revolving around innovation, science, nature and art, and how they have translated into this modern age.
On walking into the building, in the Sunley Gallery on the ground floor, the viewer is struck by the sheer size of the window that frames the seascape, looking out onto the horizon. Borrowing and multiplying the landscape, was specifically commissioned by Daniel Burnen and ties in perfectly with Turner's fascination and constant study of the sea. The feeling of size and space that is created in the foyer, is a prominent theme throughout the gallery. Each artist has been allowed a large amount of room to exhibit work; often only a couple of works reside together per room. So much so, that whilst the work there has been selected and curated in a very inspired way, one completes the circuit feeling like there should be more to see. However, there is one huge flaw in the curation and amazingly that is in how they have chosen to present the work of the galleries namesake.
The exhibition uses Turner's dramatic painting of 'The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains' completed in 1812 as a centre point. All of the art points relevantly back to Turner and in several cases work had been created specifically for the exhibition.
However, much to my disappointment and no doubt other viewers, the only painting by Turner in the entire gallery was exhibited in what can only be described as a hallway. Take a handful of steps back from it and you will back into the opposite wall. Something that is very surprising, considering the notable amount of space every other work was afforded.
There is a pleasing variety of contemporary works that compliment Turner's vision and work. Appearing on the main stair is Douglas Gordon's text work, After Turner 2000. Turner's final words were reputed to be 'The Sun is God' and Douglas uses wordplay to signify the varying levels of meaning, which are made more powerful by the symbolism of the ascending stairs. Teresita Fernandez's work is delicately represented by thousands of tiny beads, named Eruption, it conveys the mouth of a volcano, in a direct link to The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains.
Furthermore, in the North Gallery, Conrad Shawcross' installation Projections of a perfect Third, was an example of using science in art and understanding how things work, conveyed in the repetitive nature of his engineering, an echo of how Turner examined ideas over and over again. Similarly, in the West Gallery, the work of Russel Crotty shows a fascination which he shares with Turner with nature, specifically his observation of the stars, nature and the coastline. The observer can walk around the graceful globes he has created depicting the landscape, much like one would walk around a museums installation of the planets.
One of the most significant works was Ellen Harvey's installation, ARCADIA, which bases its structure from the sketches of Turner's first exhibition in 1804 at his house in Harley Street. Her engraved mirrors, placed on light boxes, mirror the 1804 exhibition, but with images of present day Margate. These scenes seem to tie the exhibition together as it creates a historical link between Turner's Margate and today's Margate, the town in which Tracey Emin grew up in.
The Turner contemporary is part of a scheme to bring this British seaside destination back to life, back to the days when greats such as JMW Turner would frequent Margate, unlike modern day holiday goers, who opt for the polish of Marbella or St Tropez's coastal towns. Hopefully, if future exhibitions continue to be as successful as The Turner Contemporary's opening exhibition, one day, Margate may become a British ARCADIA once again.
