DEAR NADIA
‘Semantic Neurosis’
DEAR NADIA: I am delighted. I
wandered into the Project Arts
C e n t re t h e o t h e r d a y a n d
experienced a work [Katya Sander’s
A landscape of Known Facts] that was
beautiful and inviting, rather than
the difficult and standoffish work
that is concurrently on show at the
Green on Red Gallery [Between
Sight and Sound]. I would love to
know what your thoughts are on
both shows.
DELIGHTED
★
DEAR DELIGHTED: I apologise
in advance for what I am about to
say, but I disagree with you on all
counts. I had heard what to expect
b e f o r e v i e w i n g S a n d e r ’s r e -
interpretation of a 19th Century
cyclorama (a circular room with a
360º revolution of a projected
video). It may have been the noise
and light pollution from the Art
Centre’s Cafe foyer, but I found
t h e m a ke s h i f t t e c h n o l o g y
distracting, rather than immersive.
Of course - or I hope - it was not
Sander’s intention to illustrate
archaic virtual technologies from
our past, but to setup a discussion
around counter-terms such as ent-
ertainment and art; science and art;
the communal tourist spectacle
versus intellectual self-reflection,
that was borne out of the
Enlightenment. It was mentioned
in the press release in the words of
John Ruskin: ‘the panorama was
considered “without the pale of Art
because its object is deception.”
Looking back, Édouard Manet’s
La Musique aux Tuileries offers
today’s audience more complex
dialectics without the visible
‘technological’ sleight of hand.
All in all, the holes in the staging,
against the box architecture of the
Project Arts Centre, combined
with the literal narrative disclosed
in the whispering voiceover, reveals
once again, the over-pronounced
and o v e r- u s e d theatrical
underpinning of the Project’s
Visual Art Programme.
Whether intentionally or by
default, the group of three artists
showing at the Green on Red,
offered more questions.
Emmanuel Levinas is the
scapegoat for art student
reflections on the other. Emanating
Part 2., July, 2010.
rewinding narrativity, that has
roots in James Coleman, Froment
allows for witty reprieve in the
narrator’s monologue..
Personally, Froment’s glass-top
table with inkjet prints turned
backside to the viewer, became a
too-literal signifier of the language/
image game that is an inherent by-
product of the artist’s practice.
C o n c u r r e n t l y a t K h a s to o
Gallery, LA, the same video work
by Froment is placed alongside
from this now clichéd ‘otherness’ is the ‘uncanny’ and Ryan Gander’s Best work EVER
‘haunted’ image, all related terms are cited regularly in EVER EVER EVER EVER, 2010.
artist statements. Standing for over eight minutes Over the last 10 years both artists
before Ronan McCrea’s projected slide installation with have played within and around
audio voiceover titled Medium (upsidedown), personally, e a c h o t h e r s p r a c t i ce s , a co l -
evoked Levinas’s ‘everyday other,’ rather than the laboration without the obvious
exotic doppelgänger of my student days. Levinas saw label. In this specific show tilted
‘transcendence’ as an interruption in everyday life. He Dark A%er A%er Dark, Froment and
termed it as an ‘event’ that was lived rather than Ga n d e r r e v e a l m o r e t h a n a n
dreamed. aesthetic commonality. Their
To avoid overindulging in the convoluted back-story mirroring conceptualism shows a
to McCrea’s Medium (Upsidedown), we are told in the shared affiliation with language
artist’s statement that a series of intertwining themes of play, without arts common sobriety.
gain and loss revolve around McCrea himself, a novelist Gander’s work ( which shares
in Rome, and the protagonist - McCrea’s own daughter; the same voiceover narrator as
w h o ’s c a s u a l l y r e p o s i t i o n e d i m a g e a c t s a s a Froment), shows a computer
superimposed layer through the duration of the 78 generated image of an idle DV
automated slide presentation. McCrea’s daughter is the tape floating in outer-space, with
protagonist; not a form of remembrance or ghost, but a a sticker label signed ‘The violent
solid presence. In the work she is a ‘live’ inverted figure, tapes,’ (a reference to the 60’s
interrupting a narrative that works off the infinite and 70’s conceptualist ar tist
circularity of art stor ytelling, a space where a David Lamelas, whose work, both
commitment to an end is never in sight. artists must have an affinity with,
In a semantically neurotic review of the same work in especially his proclivity for
Circa 122, Tim Stott says ‘the sequence also enfolds, h u m o u r ) . Yo u c a n n o t b u t
bringing distant bodies into proximity...’[p 99]. Stott’s question whether we are missing
reference to the body and proximity can be sourced in part 2 of the show at Green on
Levinas: ‘Transcendence is “anthropological,” a human affair, Red, without Gander’s work.
or it is nothing. Any philosophical translation of embodied Finally, DOT DOT DOT, New
concrete life must consider the human subject as it is constituted York, the inventive ‘Art Journal’,
through relations with others in a simultaneous occurrence of that was founded and is now
particularization and loss of self ’ (Prof. Bettina Bergo, officially published by the
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/ ). publishing collective Dexter
Through complex storytelling devices, McCrea’s Sinister (for which, coincidently,
work, in the context of the other works in the show, Ryan Gander has written short-
stands out as a success, when the viewer considers the stories for ), takes up a bit of wall
overarching theme of the inadequacy of language as a space at the far end of the gallery.
descriptor of experience, that prevails the group show. If you missed the opening night
Aurélien Froment, an artist who is usually in cahoots performance, all the viewer is left
with Ryan Gander (both of whom were part of the with is a “palimpsest caption” on
brilliant former Store Gallery, London) displays his 10 A4 pages. The disparity
usually confident brand of conceptualism in two works. between image, text and sound
The best of these, Froment’s Pulmo Marina, a video creates the fashionable “GAP,’
work with voiceover, shows a ‘screensaver’ view of a jell- that we have all become
yfish in an aquarium. Without a grounding element accustomed to in the art world.
such as a TV frame, text, or just an air-bubble, the It must be noted that both
image floats in infinity. Similar to McCrea’s method, D e x t e r S i n i s t e r a n d Au r é l i e n
Froment’s voiceover interrupts with american optimism Froment have had previous outings
and pronunciation; the French artist stamps the work at the Project Arts Centre, a seed
with comedic timing. Unlike McCrea’s unwinding and for the Green on Red show maybe?
PDFʼs at: http://dearnadia.wordpress.com
Contact: nadiaplease@gmail.com