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Review Oct 26 2008 « | »
Richard Owen - Moods for Moderns I made a swift exit from a new Commercial Road special on emerging artists. Street art has never really......

Tom Wright

I made a swift exit from a new Commercial Road special on emerging artists. Street art has never really been my thing and even for such a good cause, The Thaw was never able to hold my attention long enough to sway me.

Fortunately, East London in November is never short of an interesting art proposition so I shot up to Another Roadside Attraction; just off Muse Street, to explore a gentle reference to modernist design in the solo show of artist Richard Owens.

Despite numerous protestations by the gallery and artist, it is not immediately obvious that the work here is not just that, a polite and nostalgic re-imagining of the forms of the past. The ideals of modernism were complex and expansive but ultimately held true the notion of progress through material, technology and form. To look back, therefore, seems an unsatisfying examination of its principles and the works' undeniable beauty serves only to add a glossy banality to the exhibition.

Cabinet, for example, imitates so successfully the work of the de Stijl movement and Gerrit Rietveldt that it could have been lifted directly from Café de Unie in Rotterdam. Certainly, even Owens' concepts for Moods for Moderns - abstraction of modernist forms to make a comment on our consumerism - seems strangely similar to the Dutch movement's philosophy of ultimate abstraction to create a purity and artistic truth.

The exhibition runs until the 30th November, for more information, click here.

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