Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth
20 January – 19 March
Reviewed by: Gabrielle Hoad
According to modern myth, if the entire population of China jumped at the same time, the force would be sufficient to shift the earth out of its usual orbit. In Der Gelbe Stuhl – an installation by Vienna collective Mahony in ‘Slow’ – a TV show attempts to initiate just such an event. When they have sold 1.27 billion of their yellow foldaway stools, they will alert everyone to jump from them simultaneously and the world will be changed forever.
This satire on TV shopping channels is also a fitting metaphor for the power of the slow movement. What began as a small protest in the 1980s against the opening of a fast-food restaurant in Rome is now a worldwide cultural shift that values a slower pace of life over consumerist frenzy and encourages a long-term sense of responsibility. When, or if, enough people live by the principles of slow, the world will be a different place.
The slow movement is just part of the vast territory this small show sets out to survey. Covering a wide range of contemporary concerns and practices, it’s a whirlwind tour when, given the title, I was rather hoping for a gentle stroll. Finding disparate works side by side, it takes a while to connect up the pieces. If nothing else, these odd juxtapositions give me pause for thought.
That said, Ernst Logar’s large-scale pinhole photographs Hong Kong 1996-1997 are an easy place to start. His long exposures create a point of stillness in the frenetic city by failing to register anything that moves fast. The process leaves images of traffic-free streets and a trading floor where only the ghosts of busy workers remain. Meanwhile Tim Knowles takes to extremes the idea of ‘being’ rather than ‘doing’, and surrenders his artistic control to natural processes. The diptych Plant Drawing – Ivy on Easel #2, finds him attaching a pen to trailing ivy and allowing it to make its own fragile, erratic, blotted drawing as the wind moves it against paper.
This contemplative mood is broken by the ethical drive of other works in the show. For example, Kate Rich practises what she calls ‘feral trading’ (feral suggesting a return to the wild from the tame). Goods such as Iranian sweets and Bulgarian anti-depressant herbs are moved through social networks rather than established trade routes. Passing items from hand to hand can be a slow process, subverting the mechanisms of bulk transit and mass production. Meticulous documentation of these journeys confirms that every commodity has a narrative, even if we choose not to think about it.
Inevitably much of the work is a critique of fast rather than a celebration of slow. Jemima Burrill’s film Cleaner is a reminder that busy, affluent lifestyles are often built on the exploitation of low-paid labour. A maid matter-of-factly licks a mirror clean, wipes the toilet bowl with her hair, sniffs up dust from the mantelpiece and polishes banisters with her crotch. It raises a nervous laugh – it’s funny but, in this context, suggests depressing parallels between domestic service and the sex trade, both common sources of employment for the displaced and the desperate.
So much that is touched on by the individual artists seems unexplored by the show as a whole. I feel as if I’m bobbing around between the tips of icebergs: there’s deep water here, but no chance to dive beneath the surface. However, as this is only the first in a year-long series of slow-themed events at Plymouth Arts Centre, I’m hopeful it’s an introduction rather than the final word.
Writer detail:
Gabrielle Hoad
art@gabriellehoad.co.uk |
www.gabriellehoad.co.uk
Venue detail:
Plymouth Arts Centre
38 Looe Street, The Barbican, Plymouth PL4 0EB
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