A glimpse into a creative mind preoccupied with play, childhood, and imagination
Jack White’s new exhibition feels appropriately art-like, occupying the impressive spaces the Newport Street Gallery has to offer. The former White Stripes frontman presents a multidisciplinary collection that marries together furniture-making, sculpture, photography, and installation. It is an ambitious exhibition, one that attempts to translate the restless creativity of a genius musician into the language of contemporary art, writes Leo Dunlop.
The viewer’s first encounter is with the many iterations of Ukulele Joe, a figurine that White repeatedly reimagines through different artistic styles and historical periods. The works are playful and self-aware, though at times their repetition risks feeling more like an exercise in variation than artistic transformation (e.g. KAWS, Koons).
White’s The Red Tree is perhaps the exhibition’s most successful and arresting work. Stretching across two floors, it functions as both a visual centrepiece and a conceptual anchor. A recreation of his 2015 sculpture of the same name, the work gains new significance through its relocation inside. Grass becomes astroturf, birdsong becomes a recording trapped on a loop. What was once organic becomes simulated. The result is a work haunted by artificiality, asking questions about authenticity, memory, and replication. Its bright colours and theatrical scale ensure it remains visually striking, but it is the tension between the natural and the manufactured that gives the piece its weight.
Throughout the exhibition, White demonstrates a willingness to experiment with materials. Wooden pallets are repeatedly transformed through colour, texture, and intervention, becoming objects that sit somewhere between sculpture and personal relic.
Childhood emerges as a recurring theme. Like much of White’s songwriting, the exhibition is fascinated by the act of looking backwards. There is an undeniable childlike energy to many of the works, evident not only in their playful use of colour but also in their invitation for the audience to participate. At one point, visitors are invited to play a sofa that has been transformed into a strange, sci-fi musical instrument. You’ll also be able to see works from Damien Hirst and Ai Weiwei, who White has tasked with each designing their own amp that different instruments can then be played through.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, White’s strongest works are his pieces of furniture. Having spent years working as an upholsterer before his success in music, it is here that his artistic voice is most defined. The works manage to speak a visual language that is both intimately personal and technically accomplished.
These Thoughts May Disappear succeeds not because Jack White is now a complete visual artist, but because he approaches art-making with the same curiosity that made him an interesting musician, eyes wide and open to a whole world full of influences. The exhibition offers a glimpse into a creative mind preoccupied with play, childhood, and imagination, and each work possesses an infectious sincerity that proves difficult to resist.
You will leave with your head full of colour and music, wondering which of White’s thoughts might disappear next, and which will linger.
Newport Street Gallery. 1 Newport Street, SE11 6AY. Until Sept 13th. Free Entry.
Full details: https://www.newportstreetgallery.com/
