Angela de la Cruz's deadly art goes on show

Crushed and crumpled, the canvases of Angela de la Cruz show the Spanish artist breaking ties with conventional art forms. But, wrecked though her works may appear, they make for a timely comment on the so-called 'death of painting', says Guardian art critic Adrian Searle.

After is the first survey of De la Cruz's work in a British institution, and is at Camden Arts Centre in London until 30 May 2010
Angela de la Cruz: Self
Self (1997)

In this work – half painting, half sculpture – a painted canvas crams itself into a seat to stare at another painting hanging on the wall opposite
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Self Flat Ashame
Self Flat Ashame

Crumpled and distorted, the seated canvas invites us to see paintings in different ways – as both objects and beings
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Ready to Wear (1999)
Ready to Wear (1999)

The ripped, wrecked nature of the canvases seem to embody the precarious nature of art
Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Nothing (1998)
Nothing (1998)

A finished work? Or just nothing, as its title suggests?
Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Still Life (Table) 2000
Still Life (Table) 2000

De la Cruz sometimes incorporates old furniture into her works, as in this sculpture combining a lumpy canvas with an old studio table, its legs sticking out at angles
Photograph: Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Homeless
Homeless

This huge, dirty-white monochrome seems to come as a retort to whiter-than-white paintings by artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Piero Manzoni and Robert Ryman
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Superclutter
Superclutter

'When I first knew her,' writes Adrian Searle, 'De la Cruz worked in a studio so small and cluttered, it was hard to tell where her work began and ended'
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Flat Stuck
Flat Stuck

In this, one of the most recent works in the exhibition, a waiting-room chair sprawls on the floor, as if having collapsed under someone's weight
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Hung
Hung

Another new work, a white rectangle with dark border, seems to 'stare back at you like a face, another self', says Searle
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk
Angela de la Cruz: Stuck
Stuck

Sometimes folded, sometimes sagging or sprawling, De la Cruz's works have been described as a retort to the talk of death that grips the art world every now and then. See these, and more, at the Camden Arts Centre in London until 30 May 2010
Photograph: Ione Saizar
Photograph: guardian.co.uk

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