Crumpled and crumbling, Angela de la Cruz\u2019s artworks are all on the verge of collapse. Her canvases are broken and folded in on themselves, her sculptures are barely assembled junk, and look as if they might turn right back into rubbish if there\u2019s a strong breeze.<\/p>\n
Just as you walk into this quiet, sparse show of the London-based Spanish artist\u2019s work at Birmingham\u2019s Ikon \u2013 her first UK solo show outside London despite being nominated for the Turner prize in 2010<\/a> and generally being one of the biggest art names in the country \u2013 there\u2019s a black-painted canvas wrapped around an old two-legged table (which once belonged to Guardian art critic Adrian Searle<\/a>). Next to it sits a painting in thick, brown gunk \u2013 a fecal monochrome, its bottom corner snapped off but gaffer taped back on, the whole thing wedged upright. It looks and feels like a body that doesn\u2019t work, faulty and leaky, patched up and forced back to the vertical.<\/p>\n Propped back up, mended, brought back to life \u2026 Angela de la Cruz: Upright at Ikon, Birmingham. Photograph: Tom Bird\/Courtesy Ikon<\/p>\n And then it clicks: none of the artworks here are actually on the verge of collapse, they\u2019ve already collapsed, this is them all repaired, propped back up, mended, brought back to life.<\/p>\n Angela de la Cruz\u2019s own body is in a similar state. She uses a wheelchair after a stroke left her unable to walk. Her body isn\u2019t as functional as it used to be, but it still works.<\/p>\n Something resembling form and function \u2026 Three Legged Chair on Stool. Photograph: \u00a9 Angela de la Cruz. Courtesy Lisson Gallery<\/p>\n And her art reflects that sense of mending, patching and bodging together. A white plinth is balanced on a white leather sofa, a wobbly three-legged chair is plonked on a stool, a piano is whacked on top of another piano so it can be played standing up, a red painting is teetered on top of another collapsed canvas. Everything is broken, but cobbled together into something resembling form and function.<\/p>\n That double upright piano was made for a performance of The Nutcracker in collaboration with the Birmingham Royal Ballet. In the way the nutcracker doll gets broken and fixed, or ballet dancers\u2019 pointe shoes get snapped in half to function, everything here is about repairing the seemingly irreparable and getting on with the job.<\/p>\n The piano works as a sculpture, but falls a bit flat when you see it being played. Making a pianist stand isn\u2019t that radical or limiting in terms of performance (hey, Billy Joel\u2019s been doing it for decades).<\/p>\n But that work does change the whole feel of the show. It makes the paintings and sculptures suddenly feel like a cast of broken ballerinas, somehow still twirling and pli\u00e9-ing.<\/p>\n The work\u2019s reliance on the tropes of modernism \u2013 monochromes, minimalism, etc \u2013 makes it all feel a bit formal and cold on a surface level. Which is a shame, because emotionally and conceptually it\u2019s none of those things, really. These are funny, humorous artworks, filled with frustration \u2013 paintings angrily smashed to reflect the destruction of the body, then quickly repaired as tempers cooled. They\u2019re deeply frail, properly human paintings and sculptures \u2013 and they tell a powerful story, one of staying strong in the face of adversity, one of getting back up, no matter how hard you fall. Because you might be limping or hobbled, but you\u2019ve got to keep moving.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Crumpled and crumbling, Angela de la Cruz\u2019s artworks are all on the verge of collapse. 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