Alexandra Christou at Sadie Coles
Art history loves to mythologise the 'self-taught' artist. Excluded from many cliques and institutional validation of art school, when one looks back at the work of self-taught artists, their work can feel more grassroots, authentic, and motivated by something other (and more urgent) than art school and traditional museums and galleries. Similar to writers, activists, and thinkers who are in the thick of the subject matter they are studying and producing work on, there is a sense that the self-taught artwork becomes a means of conveying a pertinent message or experience, secondary to something more practical, such as ethnographic work or activism.
Of course, not all self-taught artists are the same; there is a great range of work, whether classified as 'Outsider art' or not. Collectors and curators alike often pounce on self-taught artists (usually after they have died) like a rare species, desperate to tell a story that is more authentic, sometimes fetishising a culture or life experience that is otherwise excluded from in mainstream channels. Basquiat has been one of the most lucrative modern examples of this, where his value was designated under the Othering Western white male gaze, steering the art market during the height of his fame in the 1980s, and showing no sign of slowing (Basquiat's painting Untitled sold for over $110million in 2017, making it one of the most expensive paintings in the world).
Alexandra Christou worked without much fanfare during her life, without the excess of attention and glamour that followed Basquiat's life as a muse. Christou was a self-taught artist who documented scenes from her life between Athens and the island of Astypalaia. This already will be of interest to an audience from the UK; as a nation, we are fascinated by the Mediterranean way of life, from al fresco dining, simple and fresh gastronomy, and the warm azure oceans. There is not a lot to argue with, on paper, when pitched against the perennial greyness and sadism that is rife on our isles.
Showing in Sadie Coles' smallest outpost on Bury Street in Mayfair, Christou's work tells the story of her home towns, but with a somehow unexpected melée of darkness and subjective truth. Much like the reality of a graveyard shift in hospitality, canvases are filled with an array of forlorn faces, elbows on tables, and thoughts racing through the minds of people sat around a table. A sense of claustrophobia is met with the warm hues of the Mediterranean. Christou's paintings are set in coffee shops and bars, places that are both tourist spots and essential third spaces for local communities.
Christou's women are arguably the most fascinating figures in her canvases, appearing like something of a sociological study in and of themselves. The casual pain, ennui, boredom and low-level despair are of interest to a contemporary audience. Despite the fact that the artist passed away in 2009, the expressions and gestures remain deeply relatable; life feels busy and crowded, public spaces either deserted or filled to the brim. Although the gallery space is small, there is a satisfying number of works, all conveying group relations in intimate settings. The faces that look back towards us might be exhausted, bored, or exasperated, but they very much reflect undesirable thoughts and feelings back around the room. In being undesirable and non-aspirational, it does not make them any less real. In the technological world that feels a million miles from Christou's universe, we are bombarded by content and opinions that coerce us into forming opinions where we may not have them, nor do we need to. Christou's paintings bring us back to the fundamentals of social reproduction, how we get to being who we are, and how we share our time and space with others around us, all in analogue.
