Feeling over function

Michael Samuels Tragedy of the Commons (2012)

I can't help feeling that Spacex's current show - This Was Tomorrow -  actually belongs 45 miles west in Plymouth. That city's status as the greatest built example of post-war planning and architecture seems a more fitting backdrop for these works by Michael Samuels, which look back playfully to the ideals of Modernism.

Housed in Spacex's converted 19th century warehouse at the more boho end of Exeter, the work seems instead to reference the local vintage and junk stores. Precisely constructed from fragments of modern furniture (lots of G-plan), along with speaker cabinets, anglepoise lamps, G-clamps and ratchet straps, the materials for this work could easily have been sourced from nearby shops.

While I try to keep my focus on the work's formal qualities, I'm actually feeling nostalgia. I'm seeing bits of my grandma's Formica-topped table and the dark-wood wall cabinets favoured by my ageing parents-in-law. Not to beat about the bush: these are sculptures made from dead people's furniture. It gives them a poignancy that is compelling, but possibly unhelpful in relation to the artist's clever investigation of formal, material and spatial qualities. Nonetheless, it's a wonderful show.

The largest gallery space, windows closed off to create a claustrophobic cave, is home to Tragedy of the Commons, a monster construction of modular furniture, which - exceeding domestic scale - becomes architectural in its impact. Its title refers to an ecological/economic theory which suggests individuals will inevitably destroy a shared resource. The UK's post-war legacy of run-down tower blocks, echoed here, seems to underline its truth.

Michael Samuels: This Was Tomorrow  28 July - 15 September 2012
Spacex, 45 Preston Street, Exeter EX1 1DF
www.spacex.org.uk