Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Phil Toy, ‘Things Beginning with B: Beethoven's bucket’, found objects, 45x50cm diameter, 2006.
Hotbath Gallery, Bath
5-25 September
Reviewed by: David Trigg
For this exhibition Phil Toy presents a collection of works in which a diverse range of objects have been cut up and reassembled. Through these “transformative interventions” Toy creates assemblages that juxtapose seemingly random elements to produce new meanings and connections.
The show’s name reflects the artist’s fascination with ordering and categorisation; the titles, along with many of the work’s constituent parts, all begin with the letter ‘B’: Bath salts, Brazil nuts, shrapnel purporting to be from the Bosnian conflict and a postcard of the Brandenburger Tor all feature.
The majority of works are displayed on white plinths, their traditional appearance particularly fitting alongside Bath’s neo-classical architecture visible through the gallery’s windows. On one plinth a decapitated wooden camel is suspended in a Perspex box, its head replaced by another box containing sliced pages from Vogue magazine (for some reason Vogue features heavily throughout the exhibition).
In another piece, a black bucket has a vinyl record wedged in its mouth and a picture of a bat stuck to its side. On top sits a small bust of Beethoven. Toy is keen on using texts to ‘explain’ the work and here he informs us that “[Beethoven’s] work, Piano Concerto No.2 in B flat major may have been inspired by the Pipistrelle bat... Had Beethoven lived longer, he could well have become a ‘previous owner’ of this bucket”.
Toy’s deliberately ambiguous and highly idiosyncratic work requires viewers to construct interpretations informed by their own frames of reference. Some pieces combine a playful mixture of elements where associations and relationships can be made fairly easily whilst others are frustratingly baffling.
‘Things Beginning with ‘B’’ reflects our “fragmented world of endless networks and gaps across which images fly and from which we somehow create meaning”, but rather than transcending this situation it presents us with yet another set of visual conundrums that test our already overworked deciphering capabilities.
Writer detail:
David Trigg is an artist based in Bristol.
Venue detail:
Hotbath Gallery
City of Bath College, Hotbath Street/Beau Street, Bath BA1 1UP
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