Modern Collections is proud to present Twentieth Century Estates, a survey exhibition of paintings from Keith Coventry’s iconic ‘Estate Paintings’ series. Throughout his career, Coventry has engaged with the lugubrious side of urban life, finding his subject matter in the overlooked: drug abuse, litter, vandalism and murder. Beginning in the early 1990s, these paintings embody the pointed satire that has come to define the artist’s career. Taking as their starting point the schematic plans outside south London council estates, the paintings lay bare the impersonal nature of social housing and the avant garde legacy which underpins the daily lives of the people who live in it.

Coventry’s work deftly combines a strong interest in the broader history of Modernism with a critique of underlying cultural values. In the 1990s, as the Modernist style of much of the housing came into vogue once again – fodder for architecture buffs and design students – little thought was given to the reality of the residents. The ‘Estate Paintings’, employing the visual vocabulary of Malevitch and El Lissitzky, show that the utopian ideals which led to the creation of widespread social housing are shown to have their roots in abstraction. In these stark and compelling paintings, Coventry contends that the ultimate failing of the modernist project was to make real space for human living.  

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Glossary

  • Abstraction

    To abstract means to remove, and in the art sense it means that artist has removed or withheld references to an object, landscape or figure to produce a simplified or schematic work. This method of creating art has led to many critical theories; some theorists considered this the purest form of art: art for art’s sake. Unconcerned as it is with materiality, abstraction is often considered as representing the spiritual.

  • Design

    The arrangement of elements or details in an artefact or a work of art.