Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Milton Keynes Gallery 12 July – 1 September
Reviewed by: Roy Exley
Rock music, through its evolution has become more and more of a social barometer. Its indicators of taste and orientation now bleed across the generations. Social classes can be divided into glam, metal, punk, goth, grunge or indie tendencies – amongst others – and the artists in this show prove that you have to be eclectic to resonate with the times. Ultimately of course, allegiance to certain music is an indicator of identity – style is all about identity and identity is all-important in our increasingly homogeneous, corporate-run culture.
'Air Guitar' celebrates subcultures whose adherents are self-driven and introspective, where groups are more defensive of their identities and where various rock vernaculars generate their own distinctive, self-perpetuating images.
Mods, skins, teds, punks and ex-hippies will all find their icons here. From George Shaw's pencil drawing The English malady, showing a mod, clad in a parka sitting on his headlamp-bespattered Vespa; Sam Durant's pencil sketch of Mick Jagger, Disaster dead; Bob and Roberta Smith's slogans painted in Peter Blake pop-style lettering, I believe in The Clash and I believe in Mel C; to Luke Caulfield's photo-real oil paintings of heavy metal freaks gone on the fantasies of their favourite death metal outfit whether that be Wanowan or the Ride to live / live to ride of Chopper heaven.
Scott King's Into the black is a poignant reminder that from time to time, rock's darker, more nihilistic aspect obscures its creative, innovative side. His three graphically identical pie-charts, link the corporate manipulation of musicians with their ultimate death, correlating the careers of Kurt Cobain, Ian Curtis and Richey Edwards – of Nirvana, Joy Division and Manic Street Preachers respectively – whose premature deaths are inextricably linked with that mandatory mayhem and madness lifestyle of the rock musician prescribed, or at least endorsed, by the music industry.
Dave Muller's coloured pencil drawing, A beginning is the first in a series documenting the artist's record collection aligned in neat a-to-z order, an irresistible invitation to guess identity on the strength of one man's album collection. Another artist who gives insight into ordinary lives is Seamus Nicolson, whose impromptu photographs of friends or acquaintances illuminate some of the unsung vagaries of rock culture. In Sam the titular character, suffering from a post-party alcohol overdose, slouches on a bed playing air guitar – a seminal image of a less-than-seminal moment.
George Shaw's Bags – rucksacks illustrated and emblazoned with the logos of punk and mod bands – work well alongside Bob and Roberta Smith's word paintings. As does John Strutton's 77 7", seventy-seven watercolour, gouache and ink drawings of records with their invented but symptomatic labels and simulated vinyl created by brushing ink onto paper attached to a moving turntable – all very generic and steeped in workaday rock culture. Other work, however, such as Scott King's diagrammatic documents of seminal rock gigs, Dot gigs and Sam Durant's elaborately titled installation Partially buried 1960s/70s: Utopia reflected; Partially buried 1960s/70s: Distopia revealed, 1998 and Sean Dower's very entertaining video Ronnie and Jimmy made in collaboration with Martin Shiel and Richard Wilson seem a little too conceptually contrived, and although engaging works in themselves, seem out on a limb and fail to gel with the rest of the show. Despite echoing the eclectic nature of the world of rock, one gets the feeling that at times the net has been flung a bit too wide here.
Writer detail:
ROY EXLEY
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