Part of this stage direction involves the architecture of the exhibition space. Works are often exhibited either in real historical venues – Palazzetto Tito, Venice; Powel House, Philadelphia; Historisches Museum, Haus zum Kirschgarten, Basel – or spaces are created to resemble European period salons replete with wallpaper, cornices and fireplaces.
The 18th century Grafton Street premises provide an ideal setting for this show. Visitors to the gallery are confronted by The Jungle in La Bayadère in London. A reinterpretation of a work first seen at Monika Sprüth Philomene Magers Munich in 2003 and comprising trees, plants, birds and sound, the piece is inspired, not only by the ballet La Bayadère (famously choreographed by the balletmaster Marius Petipa and set in the romanticized, ethereal ‘exoticism’ of India), but also an episode of the cult TV series The Avengers involving a retired colonel who, on his return from a British colony, creates a fake jungle in the English countryside.
The back gallery, decorated in the manner of a traditional English period drawing room with striped Regency-style wallpaper and mouldings contains several new paintings and works on paper recalling a romanticised world of English teas (The Egerton House hotel, London – tea time, 2007), old London (London Taxicab at Dukes Hotel London, England, 2007) and bucolic bliss (the pastel cloud, yellow + pink, on a summer´s day, 2007).
