Faithfull Weighty in London

London is a place for art, and it’s a place where the laws of gravity seem to be particularly strong. It’s not as though the people who live here weigh more than in other places, although in some neighborhoods and on some mornings, that is certainly the impression. It’s more connected to the weight of history, and particularly during the last big conflict to tear through Europe where the weight of falling objects was palpable, and it still bears its share of scars in the shape of memory.

There are artists who acknowledge it and those who don’t, and the separation between them might seem negligible. In some instances, it is that, and in other instances, it’s hard to wonder whether this would be the perfect moment to understand radical acts of compassion. In the art of Simon Faithfull , this is so light, that the touch sometimes even seems to be absent, but any second, third, or subsequent looks at the work reveal that it is there, and there is a force running through here that is as strong as the hands that made it.

However, the central fact behind the work is absolute refusal to form a central fact, and this is what makes his Recent Findings such a delightful and jarring break in time.

The works are breaks in time, because there are moments of great simplicity that are coupled with the method of the projects, revealing a design that is so complex that no one could be aware of every implication, or sometimes even half of one single implication. The work on latitude is in itself a reason enough to leave the comfort of a lovely hotel simply in order to enjoy a new kind of loveliness. The UK artist is finally showing some of these works here after having shown them elsewhere, and that’s a weight that falls to earth all on its own, and adds another level of meaning to the extraordinary work.

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