ARTISTS TALKING

Gasworks Gallery, London 28 June – 11 August

Geoffrey Farmer's video work Boss log – the first and last piece seen as you enter the space – sets the scene for this show of work by three Vancouver-based artists. An episode from The Beachcombers, one of Canada's most exported TV programmes – and the source of the exhibition's title – Boss log shows a group of men attempting to earn a living salvaging lost logs on the British Colombia coastline. Like the characters in the programme the three artists shown here scavenge from the shores of popular culture for that which has drifted in from broader horizons.

Farmer uses Victor Hugo's novel Notre Dame de Paris as his starting point for Hunchback kit, 2000, the result of studied research about the infamous bell ringer – a ridiculously long thin case leaning from floor to ceiling containing everything needed to re-enact the narrative including make-up, light bulbs, books and videos on the subject.

Myfanwy MacLeod takes film and books as sources for her poignant line drawings. A cross between self-help book advice and newspaper cartoons these images, quoted from silent films, seem to address male and female stereotypes and insecurity in contemporary relationships – humorous but underpinned with anxiety. In a scaled down, three-sided version of Buster Keaton's crooked house, a prefab dream home for newlyweds from his short film One Week, MacLeod's shaky remake looks like it could collapse at any minute.

Using a scratchy, retro comic-book style, Brian Jungen's drawings address racial and sexual stereotypes. As impressive are his Prototypes for new understanding, where high culture and high capitalism are melded in north west Canadian native masks made from deconstructed Nike trainers. These pieces are as much about loss of identity as they are new understanding and, like all the exhibits here, seem to be seeking – beachcombing – for a route through the conflicting influences of culture, commerce and the media.

Simon Webb

SIMON WEBB
is an artist and writer based in Birmingham.