‘Present Tense’: a powerful show, peppered with déjà vu

In the UK, something’s in the air this winter. It’s not the mopping up of another hot mess of failed resolutions, or calling last orders on your bulk-buy Lucky Saint and disposable Elfbars. It’s something altogether more optimistic. In the art world at least, it seems that springtime has arrived early. But how long will it last?

A few recently opened shows are each touting the hottest art right now. The main event, ‘New Contemporaries’, returned to Camden Art Centre for the first time in 20 years. There’s also ‘New Now’, a two-part exhibition at Guts Gallery, celebrating, you guessed it, everything that’s art, and now. And at Hauser & Wirth Somerset, a new show, ‘Present Tense’ has got everyone talking.

Bruton is the sort of place you might take an alien, newly acquainted with Earth, to exemplify an ‘English village’. It was also where, ten years ago, gallerists Iwan & Manuela Wirth set up shop in the historic Durslade farm complex and called it Hauser & Wirth Somerset, blending, for the first time, their now-famed recipe of hospitality and art: not just a gallery, a destination.

Let’s start with the good news: there is some really good art in this show. Stuff that halts you in your tracks and reminds you of why you do what you do. In the Rhoades Gallery, the full breadth of contemporary figurative painting is flexed. You’ll find the clean lines and Hockney-noir of Emanuel de Carvalho, George Rouy’s warped, blurred dislocated take on the human body (with echoes of Les Demoiselles d’Avignon); and Vanessa Garwood’s Scooter Girls – it’s all there.

The Pigsty Gallery sees an artist couple Christopher Page and Clementine Keith-Roach in dialogue. The latter has created archaeological-like vessels that hold a milk-like resin, propped up by figures (cast using her own body) cupping their breasts. In The Workshop Gallery, Paloma Proudfoot’s visceral, web-like ceramics are offset by Francesca Mollett’s vast, absorbent landscape-meet-figurations. Elsewhere, the show covers sculpture, painting, drawing, collage, video and installation – and the rest. There is ambition, there is breadth.

But this ambition might also be the root of the show’s complication: there isn’t really a theme. The exhibition text describes it as “the next generation of artists living and working in the UK, from emerging to mid-career”, who are seeking to “address and confront notions of identity, consciousness, humanity and representation.” Call me a party pooper, but doesn’t that describe everything ever seen, done, experienced or said?

It might be said that without any theme, there is little to cling onto, little to anchor the show. But as Will Jennings recently admitted in his review of ‘New Contemporaries’: “The real fun of such a survey is to abandon such top-down curatorial control and instead surrender oneself to new and unexpected connections.” And after all, is having no theme at all any worse than shoehorning artists into one that feels tenuous at best? Guilty galleries, you know who you are! A pessimist might say that the fuel of the art world is cold hard cash, though sometimes you barely notice beyond the smiles, perceived passion and some wall text about progressive ideals, lived experiences and boundary-pushing. At least the Hauser & Wirth show lets us decide for ourselves.

But at times, ‘Present Tense’ feels more ‘déjà vu’. According to some art world insiders whose brains I picked after seeing the show, many of the featured artists need little introduction. For example, Gray Wielebinski; Shawanda Corbett and Joseph Yaeger have each had pretty major solo moments in recent years (respectively the ICA, Tate and The Perimeter); The likes of Ania Hobson, Antonia Showering and Hannah Quinlan & Rosie Hastings will loud ring bells for many. So are these artists really the ‘next’ generation?

“Scrooge!” Yeah, ok, but I was actually questioning the system, not the show. How do you begin to capture ‘now’, when ‘now’ barely sticks around for first impressions? Those whose job it is to know these artists’ names might smell a bit of old news, but what about those less inclined to stay up-to-date with every ripple of art world current affairs? Back in 1997 when Charles Saatchi put on ‘Sensation’, ideas could bed in, artists’ work could marinate and names could soak into the household. These days, the art market moves at a relentless pace. Artists come and go like buses; some will ride for a few heady stops, and others go the full way and lodge in the collective consciousness, but they are rare. Investing in younger art now can be like betting chips on a liquid table – sink or swim? You have seconds to find out.

Enough whining. Some of the works in ‘Present Tense’ have such compelling narratives that the lack of an umbrella theme is entirely forgotten. Among them are Victoria Cantons’ autobiographical paintings and film of her experiences as a transgender woman and Shawanda Corbett’s performative ceramic totems that draw on the African American tradition of painting porch ceilings to ward off malevolent spirits.

Notably, none of the 23 featured artists are represented by Hauser & Wirth. So what’s the incentive? Well, for the gallery, it’s a chance to flex their talent-scouting prowess (one look at their roster can back this up); for the artists, the opportunity to exhibit at Hauser & Wirth (one of – if not the – leading commercial galleries on the planet) is surely a no-brainer. But the galleries that have chosen to exhibit their artists in this show might do so at their risk; on the one hand, they gain immense exposure, on the other, they might end up with an empty nest before they’ve had the chance to say poached eggs.

Although ‘Present Tense’, ‘New Now’ and ‘New Contemporaries’ are each planting their flag in capturing the next generation, there is just one crossover (Sholto Blissett appears in ‘Present Tense’ and ‘New Now’). This lack of commonality feels like parallel universes of ‘the hottest art right now’; a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it climate of wet paint, astronomical pressure for artists, flipping and environments unconducive to longevity.

But let’s end on a high. Hauser & Wirth’s exhibition genuinely feels like the best of what the present could be, fleeting as that may be: a translation of contemporary sensation; all the joys, pain and progression of existing. Perhaps there’s something to say about enjoying it for what it is, while it lasts: a beautifully curated show with great art, a stunning location and for urbanites, a much-needed excuse to flee the city for some clean air (dappled with ripe whiffs of manure).

‘Present Tense’ is certainly not a blast from the past, but it does illustrate just how quickly ‘now’ is swept away in the rip tide of the contemporary art world. “Mood hoover!” you may heckle. Ok, such cynicism might be seen as contradicting the idea of new life and looking forward, which is where we began. But isn’t a dose of scepticism healthy? Otherwise, we’re all just going along for the ride.