February 2011 – criticismism ii

February 27, 2011

Carey Young, Counter Offer (2008)

Not everything that gets hung on a wall purports to be art. Certificates, contracts, constitutions; all these have at one time or another been framed and put on display. Counter Offer is hardly an aesthetic statement. It comes across as a legalistic exhibit, a founding document of the type which…

February 23, 2011

Mary Kelly and Ray Barrie, Habitus, 2010

According to a 2003 book, there were 3.6 million Anderson Shelters in use during WWII. They must have been a common sight, as common as catching a glimpse of your parents having sex. Mary Kelly, b.1941, has spoken of the War as a political ‘primal scene‘ for people of her…

February 19, 2011February 19, 2011

Carey Young, Follow the Protest, 2009

Good news comes by phone, as the old adage goes. It has even been said more recently that it’s good to talk. So visitors to Carey Young’s show may already be keen to pick up this phone. In a gallery context it promises even more excitement. As Alex Farquharson points…

February 15, 2011

Cory Arcangel, Beat the Champ, 2011

This post, about art hacks, has almost nothing to do with cultural journalists. It has more to do with a visit to the Cory Arcangel installation at the Barbican and computer hacking. Arcangel has taken 14 games consoles and fitted a chip which allows the system to play itself. His…

February 10, 2011February 10, 2011

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard, File under Sacred Music, 2003

Since singer/songwriter Tom Verlaine cropped up in a recent post, it seems excusable to quote him with regards to the subject of this one: a re-staged gig by The Cramps. Both emerged from a scene based around New York venue CBGB’s during the mid 70s, but the gig in question…

February 7, 2011

Susan Hiller, Witness, 2000

Truth, it is sometimes argued, is an effect of discourse. And discourse in this case has given rise to a nebular, eerie-glowing alien life form. You cannot hear it, but it speaks many tongues. We realise almost at once this is a sound installation. Those are not tentacles and suckers…

February 4, 2011

Susan Hiller, Lucidity and Intuition: Homage to Gertrude Stein, 2011

What could be more uncanny than neat piles of books actually underneath a desk, if not neat piles of books on a decidedly uncanny subject? In this case, automatic writing. For Gertrude Stein, to whom this sculpture is intended as a homage, the books represent a return of the repressed.…

February 1, 2011February 2, 2011

Rory Macbeth, The Wanderer by Franz Kafka, 2011

Looking at art and reading can seem poles apart. Galleries are public spaces in which we move from one room to another. Reading is usually sedentary and usually in some way private. But The Wanderer by Franz Kafka, by Rory Macbeth, suggests otherwise. The title promises a mobile activity, while…