Seeing round corners @Turnercontemporary

One of the best exhibitions i have seen this year has been this eclectic example provided by the Turner contemporary in Margate. The gallery is situated right on the see front and can be seen almost from the train station, a fair distance away. This being the case i always enjoy the walk up to the gallery, most of the time it rains when i go to Margate but this time it was one of the rare occasions that it was actually sunny. The gallery was fairly busy with a good number of people already there when we arrived (Lucy, my companion as ever) it was nice to see a group of people admiring the work held in the Sunley gallery, Yinka Shonibare shone brightly with his captivatingly bound books in his signature fabric style. Along with a creation resembling that of a seesaw or scales with two smartly dressed globe head gentleman astride, representing the sides of the first world war. This work, though not in the main exhibition, really stuck with me throughout my visit and commanded my attention due to the array of colours on display.

Still, onto the main exhibition, in which a certain work by Theaster Gates stole the show for me with its sense of humour and absolute logical defiance. I really responded to the folk nature of the goat along with the train tracks it journeyed around ( an occurence that happened only once every fifteen minutes, and yes i totally waited) it was visually striking and to be honest made me chuckle at first. Looking deeper than the superficial humour, i uncovered Gate's intention in the work in depicting modern day divides in religious diversity. I found myself staying with this work for a fair while, purely to take in the whole message (and to see it fly round the track again). Moving on, i found the David Shrigley video work surprisingly engaging, usually i struggle to get past the style of Shrigley's work, however on this occasion i feel i was definitely converted to his cause as from that point on i really made an effort to look into his work further and it hasn't disappointed yet.

Overall the show collected artists together i never thought i'd see in the same show but they were tied together neatly by the use of corners to depict a whole host of messages that were definitely not lost on me. Particularly a small work in which a motorised rake like device both drew into and smoothed out the surface of some sand in a small display case, left me mesmerized and with a lasting farewell image in the form of two victorian gentleman globe heads on the way out, i can safely say i enjoyed my visit.