Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
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Unknown Writer, ‘Some one or Something (the trouble with emancipation)’, 2003.
Courtesy: Jeffrey Charles Gallery.
Jeffrey Charles Gallery, London
22 March – 19 April
Reviewed by: Len Horsey
Nestled in the aromatic splendour of the east end of London lies the non-commercial, artist-run Jeffrey Charles Gallery. The press release for this current exhibition declares an interest in "the process of making art, rather than expressing a deliberate message or meaning". As with the rogue landlord, manipulation of space is a constant consideration for the artist, whether it is to utilise a mass or disrupt the volume. This exhibition is presented in or on a six-by-eight foot rough-cut plasterboard box, or on the artificial walls. Manoeuvrability and viewing is controlled by the placement of the box and the intensity of other gallery visitors, guided like slow moving pinballs.
Dave Smith exhibits three ink and paint drawings, Der Treue Heinrich, Satan's Eyebrows and Cleaning Woman. The process is obvious, from the draughtsmanship planning for the bold text, to the montage layering of image. In each drawing, the written and visual narrative is naggingly overshadowed by a crude, green painted manifestation that offers an omnipresent disruption to the whole.
Joe Tonetti's clean and simple frameless photographs offer a clarity of intention. The process of photography enables us to observe other processes: in Worker, a pneumatic drill-wielding grafter is destroying stone steps; Roman Arena reveals construction and craftsmanship in Roman architecture; and Underbelly/Brooklyn Bridge is a functional monument to the process and beauty of metal configuration.
Peering through one of the torn out spyholes in the box at Kev Smith's, Someone or Something (the trouble with emancipation) is a polygonal structure covered in pasted childlike scrapbook images of paint tins, animals, the countryside, geometric shapes, etc. An image of the young Buckminster Fuller experimenting with his Geodesic Domes comes to mind. Looking at the structure from this side offered an A4 photocopy of a face (somebody famous?) with a striplight thrust through the mouth with the word 'harvest' emblazoned across its glass. Going around to another side of the box, a horizontal gap appeared and from this position I could take in the whole structure – was this a model church for latter-day artists?
The bottom half of the box contained Southbank by Tim Ellis. A reduced scrappy, plain MDF version of London's Southbank split symmetrically on the horizontal, making, what would've been a water reflection, physical. The whole structure sits on a yellow bucket (nice touch).
The gallery's intention with this show is "to compromise some of the autonomy of the individual art object and make it function as being subservient to the intentions of the whole show". It succeeds in this without being detrimental to one's own experience or knowledge of visual language. Georg Baselitz or Mike Kelley?
Writer detail:
LEN HORSEY
artist
Venue detail:
Jeffrey Charles Gallery
34 Settles Street, LONDON E1 1JP
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