Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Nottingham Trent University and various sites, Nottingham
4 November
Reviewed by: Bianca Winter
Considering how few pieces directly involved sound, the ‘Expo 2006’ programme was notable for its audible qualities as the daytime events could largely be described as quiet and low-key. Near the Bonington Building entrance, Chris Dugrenier invited participants to rest their head on her breast in an intimate performance. A barely discernible sound piece playing on a concealed speaker competed for attention with the artist’s heartbeat. Karl Price’s performance was hard to find in the gallery foyer, suggesting a sense of privacy that contrasted with the artist’s exhibitionist attire. Price’s durational performance played out on a darkened stairwell; the artist occasionally attracted attention by spitting chewed paper down the stairs into the foyer area. These quietly audible landings punctuated a hypnotising vertically split screen projection of Laura Cooper’s Marking Time. The projection showed a limited view of two female faces, both having coloured ice cubes wiped over the skin between the temple and the cheek. Bonington Gallery itself had been utilised as a resource area for most of the day, and Sam Hasler’s silent proposals of work that would never be made blended seamlessly into the situation. Meanwhile, Joost Nieuwenburg enticed the audience with the smell of cooking onions emanating from the nearby Waverley building. Inside, viewers were confronted with a grey, waist high structure complete with swimming pool-style steps seemingly designed for those daring enough to climb on top. Here, the viewer would find a central metal grill, from which escaped the smell of cooking. Frequent but irregular sounds indicated that something was happening inside the structure, which could be discovered through a small side door. Nieuwenburg himself was cramped inside the structure, cooking onion soup in a durational performance lasting five hours. Ginny Reed’s gentle works were perhaps the quietest of all. Having chalked an area in Nottingham, a small part of numerous journeys were revealed with destination unknown as the chalk dust was transferred by passing feet. In Bonington Gallery, visitors were all too willing to add to lines drawn on a wall between two pots of pens, mixing an act of defiance with one of submission.
The unassuming and subtle programme can perhaps be attributed to this year’s call for work responding to the idea of intimacy and private spaces and the absence of an artist signified by traces and documentation. It is interesting to consider a private act as a performance, and even more so to think of a performance artist being ‘absent’: while ‘Expo’ as a whole did not demand an immediate response, it certainly had a lasting effect.
‘Expo’ continued into the night at The Clarence Hotel where, I’m told, the volume of the work increased considerably!
Writer detail:
Bianca Winter
hello@bianca.org.uk |
www.bianca.org.uk
Venue detail:
Bonington Gallery
Nottingham Trent University, Bonington Gallery, Bonington Building, Dryden Street, NOTTINGHAM NG1 4GG
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