Geographies of Contamination: The David Roberts Art Foundation

The David Roberts Art Foundation is one of the real hotspots of London’s art scene. Its latest show, Geographies of Contamination, is an unnervingly visceral showcase of never-before-seen works by 10 contemporary artists whose work delves into the throes of contamination, breakdown and global environmental discourse. 

A host of installations, films, sculptures and photographic works fill four rooms of spillage and decay-based investigation by some of the art world’s hottest-tipped emerging artists, including steelworker Olga Belama, detritus-artist Marlie Mul and Sam Lewitt, whose tactile sculptural works are made of new and obsolete communications technology. All were hand-picked by curators Laura McLean-Ferris, Alexander Scrimgeour (both ArtForum and Frieze magazine writers), and Vincent Honoré - Director of the Foundation. 

The works in this show hang together fairly loosely, but what connects them is the artists’ primal interest in what happens when the scientific and social systems constructed by humans to promote sterility and compartmentalisation break down. The grotesque pull-factor of the pieces is such that, fittingly, this curious fascination quickly spreads to the viewer. 

One of our particular favourites in this exhibition is French artist Nicolas Deshayes (b.1983), who sculpts the inner and outer surfaces of the human body in vacuum formed plastics and treated metals. The resulting industrial art objects are surprisingly beautiful and play on the contrast between the sterility of the media and our ingrained squeamishness towards bodily fluids and odours. Look out too for Dutch artist Marlie Mul, whose Puddle (Daub) (2013) can neither be called sculpture or installation – made up as it is of stones, sand, resin, cigarette butts and that great scourge of the natural, the plastic bag. By bringing these found outdoor materials into the DRAF’s interior space, the concept of the gallery is temporarily turned inside out. A thoughtful highlight in a fun, fascinating and provocative exhibition.