In
a fashion quite unlike me, I decided to have some company while viewing today’s
selection of art pieces, in the shape of friend and fellow performance writer
Mark Jones. My centre of attention today fell upon the exhibitions being held
on the university campus.
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| Douglas Gordon |
Starting in the Peninsula Arts Gallery, we found ‘Searching
for Genius’ by Scottish, Turner Prize winner Douglas Gordon, labelled a
‘reconsideration of genius, virtuosity, education, and skill’. The three
installations present were thus:
- ‘Self Portrait of You + Me’, a quartet of publicity photos
(Omar Sharif, Johnny Cash, Oliver Reed, and David Bowie) with eyes and mouths
singed out and mounted on mirrors. The idea here was the perception of
identity, recognising a famous figure without their facial features. While
familiar, even without his iconic eyes, Bowie looked nothing short of horrific.
Mark was able to see the funny side, remarking that it was literally ‘Ashes to
Ashes’ for Bowie, while Cash had fallen into an actual ‘Ring of Fire’. Perhaps
that was the idea.
- The glasses of artist Joshua Reynolds which were described
as ‘auratic’, embodied with his aura, and conveying his physical fallibility. I
saw it as depriving Reynolds of his eyes, just as Gordon had done with his
celebrity photos.
- ‘Feature Film’ – a ‘divorce between sound and vision’ –
consisted of an unseen orchestra with only the conductor’s hands visible on
screen, and beyond, a small television silently playing Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’.
In this instance I felt the actors had been deprived of their ability to talk
as with the photos.
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| Victoria Walters |
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| Jamie House |
Moving upstairs, we encountered ‘Edge of Collapse’, an
installation of art by placement students. Entering the room, we were
immediately confronted with a lamp-lit row of plants confabbing through microphones.
This was ‘Emergency Conference’ by Victoria Walters. Speaking to her, we learnt
she drew her inspiration from the work of German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys
whose interest in flora and fauna instigated the concept of climate change in
her work. It was an ingenious piece, reminding me a little of Alice in
Wonderland with its talking flowers. Her second piece ‘Groundswell’ was of
mixed media and gave a natural effect to otherwise unnatural materials, in
particular a set of candyfloss-pink polystyrene blocks looking like alien
driftwood. At the centre of the room was the singular ‘Seizure Drawing,
treatment 1, 2, 3’ by Jamie House, a sheet of rolled paper bearing a pattern
akin to seismic cracks or, to quote Mark again, ‘an aerial view of the Grand
Canyon’. This intriguing piece was in fact
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| Claire Thornton |
created by electrically charging the
paper and intended to visually represent electroshock therapy. The third and
final was ‘friends of magic | agents of change’ by Claire Thornton, a mixed
media piece where what seemed solid wasn’t quite so, and what looked liquid was
solid. In particular, a podium made of what looked like multi-coloured marble
was in fact foam.
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| Tim Mills |
Over in the Scott Building, there was a lot more work on
display than I had originally anticipated, with two exhibitions overlapping
each other. Due to this, I shall simply highlight my favourites. Of the ‘Media
Arts @ Plymouth’ exhibition by BA (Hons) Media Arts staff:
- Tim Mills: ‘Malaise’: This had the Droste effect about it,
being a series of photos of advertising boards at Bretonside, Plymouth, displayed
within themselves. Mills described this as a way to ‘fill a void within a void’
and confront the public’s general feeling of malaise – caused by the EU
referendum. The tiny points of interest in each shot gave them further
personality.
- Inés Rae: ‘Guards’: A varied series of sepia photographs of
gallery guards. Simple, yet complex in their variety, and taken at angles which
one might not have considered. It was as if Rae saw the guards themselves as exhibits.
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| David Hilton |
- David Hilton: ‘Along the Way’: Anyone who has
taken a panorama shot knows the potential for accidently splicing your scenery,
yet Hilton has used this effect to his advantage, including motion blur,
spliced vehicles, and colourful scenery in his set of London and country
photographs. They give the viewer a sense of motion, as if glimpsing the world
out of a train or car window.
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| Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry |
Of ‘The Forms of Possibility’ exhibition by graduating MA
Photography and MFA Photographic Arts students:
- Liz-Ann Vincent-Merry: ‘The Marseille Papers’: At first,
just a series of aged female portraits, but with some insight into
Vincent-Merry’s thought process, it became an attempt to create a ‘dialogue
between past and present’, penetrate the 2D photographic surface, and question
who they were. One face, central to the collection, was particularly striking,
her eyes looking right at you through time.
- Sian Davey: ‘Martha’: While this piece, as a photograph, did
not interest me, the idea behind it opened up a world of speculation. Davey’s
daughter features in it, on the cusp of adulthood, and thus neither a girl nor
a woman. She becomes someone ‘free of the weight of societal expectations’ and
thus not a person at all, a ‘nonentity’. Additionally, she is not identified in
the picture which only enhances the enigma and invisibility of ‘Martha’.
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| David Gibson |
- David Gibson: ‘Dark Light and Mist’: This small series of
misty black and white photographs was perhaps the most introspective of the lot,
leaving the viewer feeling almost isolated in the profound quiet of the pieces.
Each appears to be filled with fog/mist with just a hint of detail such as a
tree, allowing the eyes to sift through the layers and the mind to imagine what
lies beneath.
I think I have successfully covered all which piqued my
interest for today. All quotes are from the various leaflets provided. With day
two over, bring on the third and final day!
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