Ken Currie is surely the most political young artist to have emerged from Scotland recently. Having, in his early paintings, championed the working man, he now embraces a wider theme. His recent works, currently on view at the Raab Gallery, while as uncompromising as ever, reveal a new bitterness. Blank faces - half clown, half corpse - preside over scenes of death, sordid sex and torture. Although apparently non-specific, these powerful, harrowing images surely owe something to the war in central Europe. Currie pedals a unique brand of brutal realism, redolent of Dix and Gericault, and offering a bleak vision of the future of mankind.
On a lighter note, from this Thursday, the Serpentine Gallery's show, "Take Me (I'm Yours)": in an attempt to break down the barriers between viewer and object, visitors are invited to participate in, and in some cases even to take home the art works. The show has been masterminded by that young turk of the curating world Hans Ulrich Obrist who offers "the opportunity to do everything that is normally prohibited". Ooh er!
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