CRASH – A Tribute to JG Ballard – Gagosian Gallery, WC1X

A road to nowhere: Dan Holdsworth's Untitled (Autopia)

It doesn’t seem odd that an international art-leviathan like Gagosian should seek to capitalise on the counter-cultural cachet of someone like JG Ballard. So it shouldn’t be a disappointment to find that they’ve created a sprawling, lumpy show that’s designed to show off their collection, loosely in keeping with Ballard’s axiom “Sex x Technology = The Future”, but overburdened with contributions by star artists that only end up detracting from one another.

Not that there’s nothing to see here – in fact, there’s loads. Most of the artists are veritable Titans of the 20th and 21st-century art worlds, (check out the list and some of the works at Gagosian’s website) and a stroll round ‘Crash’ would be a good introduction for the uniniated. It’s like the Renaissance galleries of the V&A, with dozens of masterpieces packed into very little space. So it’s pretty hefty, but it’s a recipe for disaster for the curators to try and tick off high-ranking members of the canon at the same time as trying to be nasty and uncompromising.

The tone is bleak and fatalistic. Gory pop art and straight porn nestle among photos of lingerie models in neck braces, and endless images of buildings and cities, all appropriately deserted and crumbling. Weapons, machines, mindless replications and sci-fi landscapes all put in an appearance, but instead of creating oppressive atmosphere with the coherence of one of Ballard’s books, they simply jostle. With such sensational subject matter, it feels like each work is screaming at you to take notice of it, and there’s no harmonious dread: just your curiosity flickering from piece to piece and the sense that this isn’t much more than a sideshow.

Eduardo Paolozzi’s reptitious, lurid prints are delightful, as is Dan Holdsworth’s double image of a road at night (above);a collapsed bridge on a gigantic motorway intersection, seen from the air; or Mike Nelson’s encapsulated foyer, that could have come straight out of ‘High-Rise’. And there are loads of other great pieces here. It’s just a shame the experience is so dreary: for the most part, you meander from gallery to gallery, bombarded by sensationalisms.

Gagosian Gallery, 6-24 Britannia Street, WC1X (google map, gallery website)