Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Cutup, ‘Untitled’, reordered bus shelter advertising poster in light box, 257x127x9 cm, 2006.
Seventeen, London
1 December – 14 January
Reviewed by: Rebecca Hunter
Cutup, a collective with unashamedly political intentions, aim to “introduce disorder into daily existence”. Usually working directly in the street, this exhibition was an opportunity to reflect on the group’s practice in a gallery setting.
On first impression it looked like curating Seventeen’s tight space had been a struggle. Cutup’s trademark advert works – glossy posters diced into mini tiles and collaged into a new image – were reduced to bland pixelations. Despite their careful mounting in light boxes, echoing real ads in the street, it took a lot of squinting to find more than a ghost of the council blocks depicted. A large wooden cube filled the centre of the gallery, making it impossible to step back for a better view of the work on the walls.
The cube housed a film projection documenting the destruction by fire of a model tower block, reminiscent of blazing bins, burnt out cars, familiar ASBO motifs. A sound installation rattled apathetically in the background, like radio channels constantly flicking.
Cutup’s processes brought to mind anarchist groups such as Adbusters, who routinely work in a Situationist vein, creating ‘subvertisements’ that manipulate the raw materials of advertising to communicate a punchy, anti-corporate message. More depth is required, however, for a group of artists working in the same territory.
A Catalogue of Events, a neat, zine-like pamphlet which seemed to be an active part of the show, began to clarify Cutup’s position as artist-insiders as well as activists, thoughtful about the status of their interventions as works of art. The booklet included theoretical essays, photographs of street works in progress. Stimulating and articulate on the collective’s sceptical position, it offered clues to help make sense of the exhibition.
A tiny slideshow at the back of the space bore witness to the illegal act of a huge hoarding being painted merely black. Working with a different purpose to Adbusters, the recorded act seemed to meditate on the worthlessness of trying to fight one visual value system with another.
The formless conclusion of the billboard ‘black painting’ suggested a strategy in the blankness and awkward placing of the advert and sound pieces. As the burning of the tower block destroys an artist’s ‘sculpture,’ so the corralling of outdoor interventions into a gallery renders them impotent. It seems as though Cutup staged a deliberately disappointing exhibition, highlighting the possibly powerless position of a gallery artist.
Through this, Cutup hold out a challenge to artists. Most obvious is the challenge to remain politically engaged when it is easy to just switch off. But more important for artists who make objects of any kind, is to take on board the forceful proposition that we and our work are helplessly inert, and try to prove it wrong.
Writer detail:
Rebecca Hunter is an artist living in London.
Venue detail:
Seventeen
17 Kingsland Road, LONDON E2 8AA
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