Courtesy the artist and Limoncello, London

Gemma Holt, "G5 Paper, Watermarked" (2008). Paper, 9 3⁄16 x 6 1/2 x 6 1⁄16 in.

   November 2008 Reviews

Total Enlightenment

Paul McCarthy

Eleanor Antin

Roger Hiorns

Lorraine O'Grady

Ron Amstutz

Raha Raissnia

Alexandra Grant

Dave Cole

Multiple Modernities:
India, 1905 - 2005

Clare Woods

Roger Hilton

Joachim Koester

The Talamoni Collection

Amelie Von Wulffen

Richard Long Stanley Brouwn Hanne Darboven On Kawara Richard Long Japan Art Association Honors Zaha Hadid David Zwirner Wins Worldwide Flavin Representation Art Basel

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The objects look strangely incoherent: a small wooden shelf hangs on the right wall, a ruler leans against the left wall, a stack of paper and a handful of bangles are on the floor. The rear section of the one-room Limoncello gallery is covered with a geometrically patterned carpet. This is the work of British artist Gemma Holt, who graduated with an MA in Design Products last year. I mention this because—without wanting to erect boundaries between “design” and “art”—I strongly suspect that Holt is actually neither here nor there. Holt’s intervention lies in the personal calibrations of everyday objects. The paper is size G5, a Holtian take on the A4 standard. Carpet tiles, bronze shelf brackets, and number and size of bangles are derived from these G5 dimensions. The ruler matches the artist’s height, and is divided in sections based on her thumb size. An interest in contingent rules and permutations of systems and codes is obviously nothing new. Hanne Darboven’s chronicles, Richard Long’s walks, and On Kawara’s habitual obsessions with time are a few examples, and these themes—or a take on them—also appear in contemporary work. Holt seems most indebted to Stanley Brouwn, who has employed units of measurement based on his body’s proportions since the 1960s. What Holt lacks, however, is Brouwn’s dry humor and elegance. By contrast her work seems unmediated and, frankly, too much of an effort to shoehorn design into art.

"Gemma Holt" originally appeared in the November 2008 issue of Modern Painters. For a complete list of articles from this issue available on ARTINFO, see Modern Painters' November 2008 Table of Contents.