Thomas Eggerer @ Maureen Paley 3rd Mar - 8th April

[CAP]

This is a show I was looking forward to and then forgot about and now it's over. Perhaps I was distracted by the Easter Bunny. Hard to say. Anyway it was kind of interesting, as most of Tom's show are, big acrylic paintings of vaguely collective activities involving children. Does Tom teach Primary School? I really ought to research these things. Anyway his signature big brushy grounds slam around and his colour sense remains.... elusive. This one is called Yellow Harvest and is pretty big - 200 X 228cm. More care has gone into the figures than in the past, when they were more schematic or stylised. I haven't really worked out the agenda or programme here, but it's not something obvious or predictable so I'm going along with it. I never trust P-Releases or 'statements' anyway.

I regret not posting on this one earlier.

[CAP]

Okay so I did a bit of googling around on Eggsie, and Paley's PR says he was in Group Material in NYC (1979-82) and that he teaches at Harvard - so not exactly primary school. But the Group Material documents on the web strangely have no listing of him in any of their shows, so his 'participation' there was obviously a fairly low-key affair. Who even remembers Group Material these days? Old lefties I suppose. Also, assuming he was amongst contemporaries there, makes him a bit older than I'd imagined - probably mid to late 50s. Who am I to talk? I was in NYC around that time, I could sloped on down to Times Square and signed on with them I suppose. I could have met Eva Lake there! But I didn't. I went bowling with my mates - I'd never been bowling before, don't expect to again - did the rounds of the galleries and felt lovelorn about a certain someone. Everyone else thought The Big Apple was just It. Give me London any day.