Michael Wolf: Architecture of Density, Flowers Gallery - exhibition review

At first sight, the five large-scale images filling this gallery suggest abstract paintings constructed as geometric grids. But getting closer, they emerge as gigantic tower blocks; in fact, the tallest and most intensely populated in the world. Standing in Hong Kong, their colourful, repetitive designs are their signatures and for German photographer, Michael Wolf, a fascination with these megacities and the densely populated housing projects.

By cropping in on each building, Wolf removes any suggestion of context or scale, picking up on the palettes with patches of pinks and greys, scatterings of panels resembling Pantone charts.

A potentially depressing grey backdrop supports air-conditioning machines which resemble sculptural installations. That method of focusing close and at eye level to the buildings lends a dimensional effect particularly descriptive with #119, a building with a patchwork of multi-coloured patterns on the walls and the residents’ clothes and domestic items hanging outside. The many photographs are all purposely untitled to match the inhabitants’ anonymity.

Accompanying the main scenes, Wolf compresses the scale and presents small, beautiful images of objects found around the city, items making links to the everyday lives of apartment dwellers: gloves, floor mops and chairs hanging and lying in the streets, removed from the architectural forest of towers.

Until February 22 (020 7439 7766, flowersgallery.com).