review — Publications — Art Aesthetics Magazine

The New Exoticism?

Twenty-two new works are now hung in the shop on Piccadilly scattered between sunglasses and biscuits, hanging above a staircase or peeking through displays of fabric. A limited edition scarf and teapot have been produced as a result of the collaboration. But who are the audiences - and consumers - for this work? Who is Fortnums trying to target? The Queen and aristocrats whose emblems Zhang has simplified to mere marks of Fortnum's green or crude lines memorialising a highland kilt, or the tourists from China who visit the shop to buy tea and biscuits? The new visitors in Hong Kong, who will go to F&M’s first store outside the UK opening before the end of the year?

The Figurative Communication of Denis Sarazhin

Denis Sarazhin’s Pantomime Series (2016-) forecloses ‘language’ in returning to the painterly and figural. He focusses our attention on the body by cleverly frustrating the viewer’s instinctive glance toward the subject’s face. In this way, the artist challenges us to reconsider the communicative potential of the body. Compellingly painted; they reward contemplation. Sarazhin’s ‘return to the body’ without reference to the ‘face’ is an important contribution to the post-language debates that reverberate inside and outside the gallery