Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
NGCA, National Glass Centre, Reg Vardy, Sunderland
1 July – 23 September
Reviewed by: Davy Smith
The exhibitions that make up the northern component of ‘North and South’ take place over three venues in Sunderland: the National Glass Centre, Reg Vardy Gallery and Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, and present thirty artists who examine what England in the twenty-first century stands for.
The work on display at the National Glass Centre comprises of newly commissioned installations, in glass and ceramics, which are in keeping with the venue. Particularly strong is Samar Asamoah’s piece R.O.Y.G.B.I.V. This installation consists of a series of large coloured glass windows that allow the natural light of the outside world to filter in and alter the gallery space as the day progresses. The natural foliage outside the gallery creates a frieze that is constantly in flux, and provides a striking contrast to the crystal sharp patterns on the surface of the glass, reminiscent of the tradition of English stained glass windows. The images Asamoah uses are developed from Islamic art, an interest that continues from her earlier work.
In contrast, the work on display at the NGCA is of in various mediums, including sculpture, installation and video work. On entering the gallery, you are faced with the sculptural work Generous Street by the group of architects AOC. They have converted a classic icon of Englishness, the Red K6 phone box, into an Airfix kit series of configurations that are as redundant in their use as the phone box itself. These reconfigurations of an iconic English object are a fitting introduction to the work at the NGCA, all of which is imbued with humour and absurdity.
The back rooms of the NCGA are dominated with documentation of the Space Hijackers’ practice. This collective of artists, architects and activists create unofficial demonstrations in public spaces. Their activities revolve around the re-appropriation of public space for purposes of entertainment, aesthetic delight, and political enlightenment. At once extremely humorous and pertinent, the work can be seen as sharing an ideology that is heavily influenced by the Situationist International and a popular concern for art collectives, for example the Nottingham-based Reactor Party.
The Reg Vardy Gallery, which has nine different artists on display, includes work by Andrew Dodds, Nick Jordan and Jacob Cartwright, Daniel Bligh, Susan Diab, Sarah Warden and Matt Hearn (Track and Place), Shaun Doyle and Mally Mallinson.
‘North and South’ has a vast selection of work over the three venues, and due to their different geographical locations around Sunderland, it is an exhibition that certainly requires a lot of inspection, but is as varied as the definitions of Englishness themselves.
Writer detail:
Davy Smith
Venue detail:
National Glass Centre
Liberty Way, Sunderland SR6 0GL
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