Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Patrick Jacobs, ‘The ortho rooms’, dandelions, two 12.5cm glass lenses, paper, concrete, plastic, paint, glue and lighting, 2001.
Arnolfini, Bristol 6 July – 8 September
Reviewed by: Emma Maiden
The second of two consecutive shows which take painting as their starting point, 'View Finder' sets out to explore representations of the landscape and notions of the picturesque in contemporary culture. The more adventurous visitor will find it impossible to resist playing with the props of James Ireland's installation How and why. By rearranging the plastic flowers, mirrors, holiday magazine backdrops and coloured light bulbs we discover exactly how Ireland created his wholly convincing, if clichéd, landscapes projected onto the far wall. Mirrors make marvellous lakes, and the reflected mountains look unquestionably real in the sunset glow of a hidden pink light bulb. Landscape as construct may be a familiar concept today, but back in the eighteenth century it dominated landscape painting, and Ireland casts a wry historical glance back to the way those fashionable consumers of the picturesque viewed the natural world. Very often it was through a Claude glass, a convex, tinted lens that framed a section of landscape and bathed it in idealised light, recreating a Claude Lorrain like aura. Hence the title of this exhibition, 'View Finder', which of course more obviously suggests to contemporary audiences its modern counterpart, the camera. Unsurprisingly, film plays a big part in the show, with ten out of the seventeen artists using some sort of photographic process to explore the pictorial aspect of landscape.
At first glance the photographs by Gianni Motti evoke idyllic rural scenes, with pockets of mist hovering amongst timber houses and trees. But it is smoke not mist that shrouds these landscapes; they are documentary pictures of the war in Macedonia and Kosovo that Motti has appropriated from news agencies. It is a stark reminder that our desire to make a view correlate with our personal vision is often far stronger than our ability to really see what is actually there.
Some artists eschew reality altogether; Virgil Marti's Landscape Wallpaper presents an imaginary vista of violet rivers and luminous green forests that scream out under UV lights. A tripping Day-Glo paradise or hell, complete with dado border of magic mushrooms. Melanie Carvalho taps into a similar fantasy realm with her over painted collages featuring magazine images, a comment on advertising's manipulative love of the picturesque. If landscape through the looking glass is beginning to feel all too remote, Forty below, a DVD by Claire Langan re-engages the senses with a mythical arctic dreamscape full of plunging surf and underwater sound effects. Of course it is no more an innocent portrayal of landscape than its fellow exhibits – hand-painted lenses provide much of the emotional resonance here – but in seeking a sublime and poetic experience of landscape it seems closest in spirit to that original view finder.
Writer detail:
EMMA MAIDEN
is a sculptor and freelance writer based in Bristol.
Venue detail:
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