Tauba Auerbach, Knit Stitch, 2014. Stainless steel and powder coating. Image courtesy Paul Knight
In February 2014, the celebrated choreographer Wayne McGregor put on Tetractys: The Art of the Fugue at the Royal Opera House. As with so many of his shows, artistic collaboration was central to it, having worked with artists like Julian Opie, Tatsuo Miyajima and John Gerrard. For Tetractys, McGregor turned to the American artist Tauba Auerbach, whose interest in the geometric made her perfect for Bach’s complex musical structures. Auerbach’s formal training in traditional signing painting provided the background to devise a series of illuminated geometric glyphs in bold and metallic disco colours. With complementary-coloured costumes against a black background, Auerbach’s work created a bold colour pop with a clear statement of intent. This is mathematical art nerdery, which as any mathematician will tell you, is stating the obvious. Maths is beautiful, beauty is mathematical. Why not marry the two?
The exhibition that has just opened at the ICA is Tauba Auerbach’s first UK solo show. A feature of the American art world, Auerbach has exhibited widely in New York’s New Museum and LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and her work has crossed over from the art world and onto the stage, the page and even into high fashion. This is hardly surprising, given Auerbach’s attention to material, detail and texture. Matte, powder-coated surfaces or shimmering ‘chameleonic’ paint; the cold, clear sheen of glass with colours brought out by reflections of light seen at different angles; the ripples of wood: these are sculptures to be seen and walked around from every angle, and Auerbach certainly gives us plenty of light and space to do it in.
Highly conceptual, these helix steel structures are ‘studies in chirality’, chirality being an object not identical to its mirror image, and rendered in complementary yet ‘off’ colours. Based on the simple structure of the knot, Auerbach’s sculptures expand the complex technologies of the knit stitch and hook and eye closure into minimalist, crisp and brightly coloured formations. One onlooker wants to bite into these peachy pieces, I want to hang my coat. Seeing these complex works in a stark white room guiltily reminds me of Swedish desig. And then I remember her recent jewellery collection for the fashion brand Ohne Titel. The works are beautiful and crisp – but a little too cold to do anything for me.
Tauba Auerbach, Untitled, 2014. Glass with plinth. Image courtesy Paul Knight.
My favourite bit of the exhibition was, in fact, the exit. Auerbach’s ‘architectural intervention’ of the lower gallery transforms the wall that leads up to the ICA bar into interstices of white slats that cuts the bright white light into brief stroboscobes on your eyelids. Remind me why I should leave again?
Tauba Auerbach, The New Ambidextrous Universe
16 April – 15 June 2014
ICA, The Mall, London SW1Y 5AH
Text by Sophia Satchell Baeza