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rhythmaningI spent a morning exploring some festival fringe art. I started at the new Ingleby Gallery, their first show since they moved from the Georgian splendour of Carlton Terrace to the more grungy backstreets behind Waverley. They have moved into the building vacated by the Venue, a dark and dingy rock venue. The contrast with the new gallery is staggering: they have created a bright, open space.
The first exhibit is seen a long way from the gallery: an installation by Mark Wallinger on a billboard site on the side of the building. Protesting “Mark Wallinger is Innocent”, it created doubt in my mind – innocent of what, and why does he need to broadcast his innocent. I have my doubts – send the polis around.
(As an aside, can I just say that whenever I think about Mark Wallinger, I hear the music of this guy, too!)
The downstairs gallery isn't finished. Or so it looks. There are screws in the wall, empty rawplugs, dribbles on the floor and a broom leaning in the corner. But this is actually a series of installations by Susan Collis. The screws are made of precious metal – gold, silver and platinum (and hallmarked to prove it) – and hold sapphires and diamonds in their heads; the dribbles resolve themselves to be inlaid mother of pearl crossing the floor. The rawplugs are made from gemstones. It is clever – a neat idea perhaps – but aside from the mother of pearl splashing across the floor which I thought was rather beautiful – I just thought “so what?” I wondered what the cleaner who was mopping the floor of the upstairs gallery made of it; she too placed her mop against the wall: I don't think it was a statement, though. A rawplug for three grand, anyone?
You can see pictures here.
Upstairs was totally different: a series of simple coloured pencil drawings on white paper of words in block letters together with two site-specific wall paintings by Kay Rosen. These worked really well, the words punning with the titles, and their simplicity was quite beautiful. I particularly liked the wall paintings - Seascape (the words fog, sea and shore, painted in grey on a marginally different grey background) and Memory of Red, the word REMEMBERED painted in two shades of (wait for it) red. This work was fun and lively, and very enjoyable.
You can see pictures here.
I walked through Waverley and popped into the Fruitmarket Gallery. I didn't know what was on so I had no expectations; but if I had, they would have been exceeded. The gallery contained a series of installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and from the entrance to the gallery I was enthralled. The first installation was The House of Books Has No Windows (nb the video on this page contains “spoilers”). It was a house made of books, with no windows. And it was wonderful! A house of books: it was just magical. One for the bibliophiles amongst us. (The video on the web detailing how it was made detracted from the magic, so I would avoid watching it; however, it did say that all the books used were saved from being pulped, so the books have been immortalised, even if they are no longer readable.)
The Opera for a Small Room was a room full of record players and records, playing in a surreal sequence; psychotic opera. It was haunting and eerie – disorientating and a little scary. I don't really like opera. Most disturbing were what I assume were melted records, creating random puddles of vinyl.
Upstairs was an installation created with biaural recording and a film. I don't know how biaural differs from stereo, but the sound was very clear. Once more disturbing, the film and the soundtrack not always describing the same action, it was also entertaining.
The last part (one of the exhibits being delicate and unfortunately broken when I was there – I will have to go back) was Dark Pool, a room filled with apparently random objects and sounds, creating a surreal vision. It was hard not to pick up the books, to explore the art in detail, to play with the objects. Bizarre and challenging.
(I think this show was going onto MoMA in Oxford from mid-October until January, and I would recommend any Oxford-loving bibliophiles (or even Oxford-living bibliophiles!) to get down there. I might join you!)
At the College of Art was E-Cyclormama, by Sanford Wurmfield. I was expecting to be blown away by this 360° painting as it fades from one colour to another, covering the spectrum: I thought it would be like looking at Monet's Waterlily paintings – colour to drown in. It actually left me cold: it was pretty, and beautifully created – it seemed very “crafty” and clever – but it didn't involve me at all. I thought it would envelop me, the colour wash over and move me; but it didn't.
Maybe it was hard to follow the installations in the Fruitmarket.
The first exhibit is seen a long way from the gallery: an installation by Mark Wallinger on a billboard site on the side of the building. Protesting “Mark Wallinger is Innocent”, it created doubt in my mind – innocent of what, and why does he need to broadcast his innocent. I have my doubts – send the polis around.
...I don't think so...
(As an aside, can I just say that whenever I think about Mark Wallinger, I hear the music of this guy, too!)
The downstairs gallery isn't finished. Or so it looks. There are screws in the wall, empty rawplugs, dribbles on the floor and a broom leaning in the corner. But this is actually a series of installations by Susan Collis. The screws are made of precious metal – gold, silver and platinum (and hallmarked to prove it) – and hold sapphires and diamonds in their heads; the dribbles resolve themselves to be inlaid mother of pearl crossing the floor. The rawplugs are made from gemstones. It is clever – a neat idea perhaps – but aside from the mother of pearl splashing across the floor which I thought was rather beautiful – I just thought “so what?” I wondered what the cleaner who was mopping the floor of the upstairs gallery made of it; she too placed her mop against the wall: I don't think it was a statement, though. A rawplug for three grand, anyone?
You can see pictures here.
Upstairs was totally different: a series of simple coloured pencil drawings on white paper of words in block letters together with two site-specific wall paintings by Kay Rosen. These worked really well, the words punning with the titles, and their simplicity was quite beautiful. I particularly liked the wall paintings - Seascape (the words fog, sea and shore, painted in grey on a marginally different grey background) and Memory of Red, the word REMEMBERED painted in two shades of (wait for it) red. This work was fun and lively, and very enjoyable.
You can see pictures here.
I walked through Waverley and popped into the Fruitmarket Gallery. I didn't know what was on so I had no expectations; but if I had, they would have been exceeded. The gallery contained a series of installations by Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller and from the entrance to the gallery I was enthralled. The first installation was The House of Books Has No Windows (nb the video on this page contains “spoilers”). It was a house made of books, with no windows. And it was wonderful! A house of books: it was just magical. One for the bibliophiles amongst us. (The video on the web detailing how it was made detracted from the magic, so I would avoid watching it; however, it did say that all the books used were saved from being pulped, so the books have been immortalised, even if they are no longer readable.)
The Opera for a Small Room was a room full of record players and records, playing in a surreal sequence; psychotic opera. It was haunting and eerie – disorientating and a little scary. I don't really like opera. Most disturbing were what I assume were melted records, creating random puddles of vinyl.
Upstairs was an installation created with biaural recording and a film. I don't know how biaural differs from stereo, but the sound was very clear. Once more disturbing, the film and the soundtrack not always describing the same action, it was also entertaining.
The last part (one of the exhibits being delicate and unfortunately broken when I was there – I will have to go back) was Dark Pool, a room filled with apparently random objects and sounds, creating a surreal vision. It was hard not to pick up the books, to explore the art in detail, to play with the objects. Bizarre and challenging.
(I think this show was going onto MoMA in Oxford from mid-October until January, and I would recommend any Oxford-loving bibliophiles (or even Oxford-living bibliophiles!) to get down there. I might join you!)
At the College of Art was E-Cyclormama, by Sanford Wurmfield. I was expecting to be blown away by this 360° painting as it fades from one colour to another, covering the spectrum: I thought it would be like looking at Monet's Waterlily paintings – colour to drown in. It actually left me cold: it was pretty, and beautifully created – it seemed very “crafty” and clever – but it didn't involve me at all. I thought it would envelop me, the colour wash over and move me; but it didn't.
Maybe it was hard to follow the installations in the Fruitmarket.
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