Reviews
VIDEO lNSlALLAl IONS DAVID CLAERBOUT Dundee Contemporary Arts, until Sat 3 Dec
ln the most literal sense possible. Belgian Davrd Claerhout rs a vrdeo artist. That's not Just to say he uses Video as a means to express hrs ideas. but rather. the processes of r'tx:ord;ng and drgrtal manipulation are embedded With technrgues that are central to the theme of the work.
In thrs respect. the large-scale 'Shadov: Prece' works as both a literal entrance to the exhibition ryou have to wark hehrnd rt to get rn. and as a more strarghtforwarrl vrdeo work. which introduces you to his aesthetic. A locked- oft shot of a monochrome office txrrldrng's foyer shows people approaching and rattling the locked doors: rt rs clear that a brave new world of rnodernrsrn 'ras failed to rnaterralrse.
The srrnple pent-making of this and 'Cat and Bird in. Peace' ~ Craerhom's cat and canary srt peaceftfb. ‘.'.'ft7'trr1 a foot of eacl‘ other and refuse to pla‘, to our r>reconceptrons of predatory rnaynenr — rs only one strrng to art; hoax: hox'xever. 'Krndergartep Antor‘so Sant'Elra. 1932' set/es masterful; >n nrs pr'edrlectror‘ for almost ;)l‘.()2(){}"£tl)l‘!(3 rr‘ertra: a st‘ll .rnage of pla\,rr‘g cnr‘drer‘, brought back to somewhat ,rnsettzrng lrfe by me digitally treated rnoxernen: of trees.
Although ‘The Bordeaux Prece' -- a surreal European short trim. that can he experrenceu mirth hot". anrprer‘t noise and; conversation. track through headphones — -n\.r:!es as to edge our own :rr‘aghatrxe reaping drstarx:e. ‘The Stack' is the most truly (la/Xl'rrg unork here. shors..'rg a >eaatr‘u! yet desolate space of earth under a Texz :1 freeway. lts \r’VarhoEran 'nsrstence on lléi‘."ll‘.g as .uatch essentralry nothing and renrarn rnesrnerrsed drspiays Claerhout's eye to"
crwstallrne rneanrng rn the least rneanrngfur
places. rDét‘JKl Pollock
mm r we ANl) cor- LAGl ALAN MICHAEL
Sorcha Dallas Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 5 Nov .00.
Alan Michael rs. perhaps. best known for rnakrng work that rs dense. il'l(‘,l\f;'~, and. for ‘.'.a'li of a better word. difficult. l-le tends to layer and synthesise source material dranrr iron: art history and popular culture alike. nruddyrng the ‘r'raters of reference. quotation and pastiche. leavrng an ordered tangle of possible threads for hrs \.'rer.'.'ers to unprck. l lere lvlrchael has confined himself to a single source rrnage. grvrng flight to hrs ellrptrcai rr‘durrres
rnto association. allusion and rneta-narratIves.
That single rrnage rs the distinctive cross and circle logo of the Posrtrxa record label. Michael begins wrth ‘Posrtrva'. In which the logo rs rendered thrice over In oils. rrr lull and closely cropped. overlaid and repeated. Next corrres a study. rn pencil and paper. '.'.rnrclr twrsts the logo rnto the not-gurte-anagram “pro vrta'. setting up the next \xerlral renrrx. 'Apologra'. The frnal canvas. and the frnal rendering of the earlier ‘Studfi, '. rs ‘liro Vita'. reworking the suggested phrase rnto a corwoluted iteration of circles. crosses and
SQUENOS.
Taken together. the four pieces unfold a nearnarrative. one that rrrrght lie. ‘.'.'rtt‘ its pro vrtas and apologras. a cynical appraisal of the chemically rnfused peaks and troughs « :i nrghtclul; culture. This new work matches the old in its open approach It) the cornrnodrficatron of quotation. and rn rts guarded refusal to ever full; reveal the rrrterrderr rnearrrng of those appropriations. ltlack M()iil£tllil
Visual Art
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INST/\l l Al ION. l’l l()l( >( El «TAl "r N. i Ll-b'x‘f. 3N ; BLINKY PALERMO
AND TAYTO ET TAYTO
Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Fri 21 Oct—Sat 3 Dec; Edinburgh College of Art, Edinburgh, Fri 21 Oct; Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Sat 22 Oct—Sun 8 Jan 2006; The Embassy, Edinburgh until Sun 30 Oct
Joseph Beuys once described his late pupil Blinky Palermo as an artist who ‘left behind a fragment in which one can nevertheless feel the impulse of an era’. And it’s Palermo’s buried fragment ‘BIue/Yellow/White/Red’ that has taken centre stage in an era where the exhumation and restoration of art and its surrounding controversies have become a choice delicacy for critics and exhibitors.
When the young German artist painted his four bands of colour onto the walls of ECA in 1970 for the palindrome-entitled exhibition Strategy: Get Arts, it provoked an outrage that anti-art such as this could exist in an art institution, and so the College quickly painted over it. The outrage is still fresh, but it’s now directed at those who dared to paint over the mural in the first place.
Artist and entrepreneur Richard DeMarco, who put together the 1970 festival exhibition, said that
Scotland wasn’t ready for 20th century modernism then. But maybe it is now, with a series of city-wide events for the Palermo Restore project, that will feature conferences devoted to the problems of temporary artworks and the possibility of restoring the work, as well as a show that revisits the controversial 1970 exhibition Strategy: Get Arts Revisited.
Also on display will be the Bonn Archive, which contains Palermo’s sketches, photographs and plans for the lost mural. Invisible art, particularly when it survives only in faded photographs, preparatory sketches and a romantic memory of a fast-living late artist, can’t help but seem beautifully mysterious, though this archive will, more importantly, serve as a backdrop to the talks and crutch to potential restoration.
As it not to let the extravagance of multiple worthy conferences and exhibitions get to anyone’s head, the Embassy is staging its own Strategic Art Getts, replete with a list of objectives: ‘communities of getts, diverse gettery, industrial getts with an emphasis on evidence based on policy making and the development of Scotland’s professional getts’. So whether you settle for the high brow impulses of an era, or its irreverent contemporary counterpart, neither is short of controversy. (lsla Leaver-Yap)
PH
‘\ THE LIST 93