‘Revealed’ – Turner Contemporary’s first exhibition
It feels like Turner Contemporary – the Margate art gallery inspired by Turner’s connection to the area – has been in the works for as long as I can remember. However, it seems the end (or indeed, the beginning) is in sight as the gallery prepares to open its doors to the public on April 16.
First up is an exhibition aptly titled ‘Revealed’ which pivots on a promisingly obscure (seriously, if it had been the damned Fighting Temeraire I would have blacklisted the whole enterprise from this blog) Turner painting called The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains, in the Island of St Vincent, at Midnight, on the 30th of April, 1812, from a Sketch Taken at the Time by Hugh P. Keane, Esqre (1815).
Turner wasn’t one for brevity.
The Eruption of the Souffrier Mountains in the Island of St. Vincent, at Midnight, on the 30th April 1812, from a Sketch Taken at the Time by Hugh P. Keane, Esqre - JMW Turner
The painting depicts a dramatic volcanic eruption not dissimilar to a photo I recently featured on this blog.
Lightning streaks across the sky as lava flows from a volcano in Eyjafjallajokul April 17, 2010 - reproduced under CC licence from Zennon
The exhibition will feature new commissions by Daniel Buren, Russell Crotty, Ellen Harvey and Conrad Shawcross, alongside selected works by Teresita Fernandez and Douglas Gordon.
