Rebecca Warren review – a creepy comic carnival on the edge of Cornwall

Tate St Ives
Warren’s sculptures are sensile, tactile and frequently terrific. But they seem strangely unable to fill the Cornish gallery’s uplifting new modernist extension

The sea and sky are the first rivals any artist exhibiting at Tate St Ives has to reckon with. A big, bold view of both fills its beach-facing galleries. In the spectacular new concrete-roofed extension that opens this week, there are no views, just lots of bright natural light streaming in from above. Then again, instead of views, there are the works of all the 20th-century artists who settled in Cornwall and created the strand of British modernism that led to this museum’s existence.

The airy paintings of Peter Lanyon and the organically orotund casts and carvings of Barbara Hepworth have never looked better than they do in the reborn Tate St Ives. Even for a sceptic like me, who doesn’t believe British abstract art ever rivalled the likes of Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollock, the union of this art with the seascapes that inspired it is compelling.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2ygHtbe