Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Leeds City Art Gallery
28 June – 27 August
Reviewed by: Elizabeth Wright
Paranoia can take on so many guises: is it our own or are we subjected to other people’s feelings of paranoia? Curated by Predrag Pajdic, ‘Paranoia’ includes work by Rachel Wilberforce, Santiago Sierra and Doug Fishbone, among others. The exhibition presents multiple layers of fear, suspicion, delusion and mistrust in the gallery space. Sculpture, painting, drawing and performance are all represented, but film and photography are the dominant media. An audio and visual cacophony greet me as I enter the gallery: I can pick out the warning advice playing from a speaker: “Warning, you are advised to keep all belongings with you at all times...” Am I being watched on the security cameras? This is not a new experience; I am in a public space, but now my guard is up.
The galleries are packed full of works; there are too many for me to write about. Indeed, the show commands repeated viewings as the layers of paranoia take a while to become apparent: themes such as race and human rights issues, gender, sex and religion are consistently interrogated by the artists. Stories are told in the exhibition and it takes some time to read and digest them; there is plenty of material to challenge my established perceptions and understanding of the present socio-political climate. Christel Vesters writes in the exhibition catalogue: “We must contemplate our fears and carefully examine our attitudes. We must speak out.”
Reading Katarina Zdjelav’s text in Round Trip (2005/06), I was astounded at how a person’s life could be so dramatically changed by getting lost on the way to the city train station: to end up at the country’s border and not be allowed back into one’s homeland seems absurd. But it happens. The simple narration in English with grammatical corrections spoke to me in volumes, more so than many of the films in the ground floor gallery.
An ‘Artists’ Immigration Map’ is on the wall as you enter the first gallery and I found it to be a vital tool to help my understanding of the complex geography of where these paranoid artists are from.
Did I feel a greater sense of paranoia after visiting the exhibition? No, I didn’t. Perhaps this is because many of the works are film and photography, media that are open to being constructed and manipulated to emphasise, or distort, the truth. These works present a voice for people that our daily news coverage does not include. I say I don’t feel paranoid, but the exhibition has certainly made an impact on me.
The exhibition will tour to Focal Point Gallery, Southend (Oct/Nov 2006) and the Freud Museum, London (Jan/Feb 2007). For further information visit www.aionarap.com
Writer detail:
Elizabeth Wright
Venue detail:
Leeds City Art Gallery
The Headrow, LEEDS LS1 3AA
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