This spring, De Vleeshal in Middelburg will be presenting Scottish artist Toby Paterson`s first major solo exhibition in the Netherlands.
Toby Paterson is fascinated by modernistic architecture; his work analyses (segments of) buildings with a distinctive modernistic style. At De Vleeshal, Paterson has set out a course which consists of a modular system of freestanding open partitions constructed out of light, white beams. These constructions serve to showcase paintings, drawings and scale models, and to support large panels painted in vibrant colours. Paterson`s colours and imagery, derived from modernism, form a striking contrast to the distinctive Gothic architecture of De Vleeshal. For De Kabinetten van De Vleeshal Paterson has created a mural which can be read as an abstract, three-dimensional floor plan of a building.
Photo(s): Leo van Kampen
Interested though Paterson is in modernist architecture, the utopian ideals which form the cornerstone of modernism hold even more fascination for him. (…) Buildings are more than designs or spectacles; they are a social program and a necessary part of a new society [1]. This response to the 1932 exhibition International Style at the Museum of Modern Art (New York) provides a clear illustration of the ideals which charac-terize modernism. These ideals, which coincided with the use of new materials (glass, steel, concrete) and technology (mass production) in order to create more practical, more efficiently designed and – ultimately – more socially egalitarian communities, were once generally held in architecture and urban development. Now however, with modernism having fallen into disgrace and its ideals treated as suspect, post-war architecture is rapidly being erased from the urban landscape.
In his countermove to this trend, Paterson`s work urges us to reconsider modernism. He paints the buildings which fascinate him isolated from their urban context and in a highly neutral style. By approaching modernistic architecture anew and with a certain distance, Paterson succeeds in revealing the beauty of its lost ideals. Or, in the words of Will Bradley: (…) for Paterson architecture needs to have been completed and its failure understood before the beauty of its lost opportunity can be expressed [2].
Toby Paterson (1974) lives and works in Glasgow. He was the recipient of the prestigious 2002 British Becks` Futures prize. In 2007 Stroom Den Haag (The Hague) will organize a project with Toby Paterson.
[1] Meyer Schapiro, cited by Caroline Woodley in The New Architecture, Tony Paterson Catalogue, published by CCA, Glasgow, 2003. Quote derived from: A Selection of texts by Schapiro, edited and introduced by Felicity D. Scott, Grey Room 06, MIT Press, 2002.
[2] Will Bradley On Toby Paterson, Beck`s Futures Catalogue 2002, published by ICA London, 2002.
