Nigel Hall: My Choice | Annely Juda Fine Art
When I visited this exhibition, the artist happened to be there too. (This has only happened a few times over the years.) I was tipped off by the gallerist on the reception desk. Nigel Hall was with two women, I think his wife and a gallerist.
I was conscious of his presence as I looked at the works on show: sculptures of natural looped forms, sometimes in rusty metal, sometimes in shiny metal, sometimes in polished wood. The organic reworked by man, surrounded by the man made: the lovely skylit gallery space, and, outside, the city.
I was conscious of his presence as I looked at these works and took notes. He approached me as I went to leave and said: “Thank you for looking at them properly.”
I was very flattered by this comment, more than he could know. I hope he was satisfied by my answer, which I can’t remember but I’m sure was awkward. I’m always conscious as a visitor that I’m not looking at the works hard enough, not having the right thoughts, not making the right connections. I never feel like I’m looking properly.
This time around, I was on my lunch hour from the office up the road, and had errands to run. I can’t have been there for more than 10 minutes, which surely isn’t proper. But he thought I was behaving properly, or at least he told me so.
What did I see? Whorls of polished wood which made me think of David Nash. Rusty iron which made me think of Richard Serra. A memory of the Barbara Hepworth sculpture, just over the road from the gallery on the side of the John Lewis building on Oxford Street. Man-made forms suggesting natural forms.
I didn’t tell him any of this because I wasn’t confident enough he rated these other artists highly enough not to be flattered himself.
Am I looking properly? I should look more and hope to find an answer.
Nigel Hall: My Choice is at Annely Juda Fine Art (London). 12 March - 25 April 2026