Bob LAW : Ideas, Energies, Transmutations

3 Sep-29 Oct 2020

Overview

Richard Saltoun Gallery opens to the public for the first time in six months with an exhibition of work by the British conceptual artist Bob LAW (b. 1934 - d. 2004). Beginning in the late 1950s, Law developed an abstract vocabulary that was rooted in corporeal experience yet oriented toward metaphysical concerns. Audacious in their minimalism, his drawings and paintings were shown alongside works by Jo Baer, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold and Robert Ryman in the early 1970s. Unlike these New York-based artists, however, Law's work evolved out of an engagement with the English landscape and an esoteric range of interests including alchemy, nature mysticism, numerology, and palaeontology. Curated by the art historian Anna Lovatt, this exhibition demonstrates how Law invested austere forms with affective, wry, or whimsical qualities, contributing to a re-enchantment of abstract art that has continued since his death in 2004.