IF THIS NOT BE I | Gideon Rubin
Dec 16th 2017 - Jan 26th 2018
The title of this exhibition “If this not be I” is taken from the title of one of Philip Guston's early works which bears the same title. It refers to a children's tale, The Old Woman and The Peddler, which Guston used to read to his daughter.
The story is of an old women who falls asleep on the way to the market and a peddler who cuts her clothes. As she wakes up, freezing cold, she cannot recognize herself. She then decides to go home, where she hopes her dog will recognize her and wag his little tale. To her horror, he doesn't, and instead barks and wails.
Some of the works in this exhibition originate from images of pre - W.W.II German magazines which Rubin has been collecting and working on in preparation for his coming solo exhibition at the Freud Museum in London, due to open early next year.
Other works originate from stills from ‘The Mirror’; a 1975 Russian film by Andrei Tarkovsky, a semi-autobiographical film, with a poetic narrative of non-chronological childhood, adolescent and adult memories.
