Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Triangle Gallery, SPACE Studios, London
15 January – 15 February
Reviewed by: John Deller
Canadian artist Mathieu Beausejour’s new work, as part of the International Residencies Programme at Space, is an exploration of the politic of revolution. Set within three gallery spaces, we are taken on an intense journey that questions revolutionary agendas whilst flickering between agitation and apathy.
In the centre of the first gallery runs a film: a solo cellist plays a desolate rendition of The Internationale (1888), composed by Pierre Degeyter. Within the space are posters offered free to visitors containing the lyrics by Eugene Pottier (1871) as a call to unite.
In the second gallery, we are confronted by a black flag, limp and propped up against a wall. Mirrored tables offer free whisky. We are forced to reflect not only upon our glowing cheeks but also on that doleful tune as it echoes off the white walls. A couple of whiskies later, feelings shift between anxiety about what might happen next, and despondency of a lost cause; a despondency that is recapitulated by the text stencilled on the floor: “If I were to work 10 hrs at work I despised and hated, I should spend my leisure, I hope, in political agitation, but I know, in drinking.”
The third space intensifies those that went before. A derelict space. A menacing and violent space. Exacerbated by the whisky, it takes on a sense of non-place. An empty midnight car park. A redundant industrial estate. We are confronted by a scene from A Clockwork Orange as Alex and his ‘droogs’ malevolently saunter toward us. Being accompanied by a heavily distorted version of The Internationale only adds to the anxiety. Behind is a flashing neon ‘MAYDAY’ and, albeit half-arsed, anti-global slogans are daubed onto the brickwork. The scene is punctuated by an easily overlooked video of a black eye.
Writer detail:
John Deller is an artist.
Venue detail:
Space Studios
The Triangle, 129-131 Mare Street, London E8 3RH
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