Minimalist Dreams: Grey Noise Gallery

No Light in White Light / Night's cartography 2013, from the exhibition "I guess that dreams are always there" by Charbel-joseph H.Boutros. Images courtesy of Grey Noise Gallery.

One of the reasons I love Grey Noise Gallery is that they know what they like and they stick to it.

The founder Umer Butt, clearly has a real passion for minimalist contemporary art and he does a great job of finding some exceptional aritsts in this field.

Their current show, which is only up for another week – I was a bit late getting round to seeing it this time – is I guess that dreams are always there by Charbel-joseph H.Boutros.

It was kind of confronting when I first walked in, just because of the large amounts of white space and very small installed pieces of art work but when I spent some time with it, it yielded wonderfully to my own personal interpretation.

Having not been able to attend the show himself, the artist has left traces of himself in the shape of pots containing his tears and a pair of shoes, placed in the entrance and with a thermometer inside them to indicate the warmth of their wearer.

There are also many pieces that reveal his clearly fastidious attention to detail. Three telephones placed in a perfect equilateral triangle, to represent a cross-continental conversation, a burnt cigarette protruding from the wall, its ashes somehow magically staying put and for each day of August, there is sheet from a desk calendar that has been faded by the sun of that particular day.

His process is methodical and its appreciation hangs greatly on the trust of the viewer – we are to believe that he really spent a whole month laying out those small sheets of paper on every single day. We are also to believe him when he tells us the piece, titled Dream Salt is really a pile of sugar mixed with salt and looking at the jars of his tears, I don't really see anything in there.

That is why this show is about faith, not necessarily the religious type but the type in something we cannot see or touch. Think about it for some time and you will realise that it affects almost everything we do.

Boutros, I think, is going for a theological standpoint, because he chose the words Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing, to be written across the gallery's top wall in neon lettering. But whether it is correct or not, it is up to you. Go and see the show and have fun making up your own mind.

* I guess that dreams are always there by Charbel-joseph H.Boutros runs until June 30. For more info call 043790764