Chris Ofili
Tate Britain, until 16 May
There’s always something temporary-looking about an installation of Chris Ofili’s early paintings. These works are not hanging on the wall, but lean against it, propped up on feet of elephant dung — the best-known ingredient of this Turner Prize-winning artist’s work. As a consequence, the exhibition looks as if it’s still in the process of being hung, and these elaborately decorated and largely trivial paintings have yet to be hoisted on to the gallery walls. But, no, what you see is what you get: glitter, paint, resin, map pins, collaged magazine images, all dexterously arranged in what the Tate publicity department is pleased to call ‘a distinctive iconography, fusing hip-hop culture, spirituality, folklore and the natural world’.
One of the first works in this retrospective is unambiguously entitled ‘Painting with Shit on it’ (1993).
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