Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
[enlarge]
Ivan Morison, ‘Fruit and vegetable stall’, St George Street, Norwich, 2002.
Photo: Dan Tombs.
Norwich Gallery, Norwich School of Art and Design
2 May – 8 June
Reviewed by: Natasha Soobramanien
On my way into 'Outwardbound' I see what looks like bunting strung between Norwich Gallery and the art school across the street – it's actually underwear.
'Outwardbound' presents four artists' projects that explore art practice outside institutional boundaries. The washing-line is part of Hello Dave, Melanie Jordan and Andrew Hewitt's latest collaborative project involving staff and students of the gallery and art school buildings.
Hello Dave sets up a communication between the two facing buildings, accented by a silent exchange of written messages pressed to the windows. This private dialogue changes daily, narrating the participants' evolving relationship with each other and the spaces they occupy. Inside the gallery, Hewitt and Jordan have installed two telescopic viewing posts, cheekily inviting visitors to snoop on the artists' exchange from the gallery.
"You're never alone with a Marlboro": In Ben Sadler's solo project Ma bro's country, his protagonist, 'ma bro man' is photographed alone, wandering the urban planes of Birmingham with only a cigarette for company. Sadler reappears in 'Outwardbound' with Phil Duckworth as juneau/projects/. Their Walkman/lake, created during their 2001 residency at Grizedale, sees a walkman playing Strauss rowed out into the middle of a lake and dumped overboard; the soundtrack deteriorates, made incoherent by its encounter with nature.
Ivan Morison's work documents his progress as a gardener. In the opening week of the show he sold locally grown vegetables from his barrow in the city centre. Within the gallery, a series of pencil drawings chart the growth of his 2001 crop of Red Flare cabbages. Here, Morison tries to impose emotional distance between himself and his subject – drawing on graph paper, numbering each image – but these only serve to point up the soft, smudgy lines of the drawings, which were clearly made with love.
Writer detail:
NATASHA SOOBRAMANIEN
is a writer based in Norwich and London.
Venue detail:
No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?
To post a comment you need to login
Back to top