THOMAS DEMAND
Dundee Contemporary Arts. Dundee. Sat 21 Jun-Sun 10 Aug
Thomas Demand mostly makes photographs of sculptures of photographs. The process begins with a charged moment from recent history as filtered through the lens of the media; Demand then recreates his chosen image as a cardboard sculpture, removing a detail here and there. altering the emphasis; and then he records his physical remix in a final photograph.
For a simple process, the Demand method generates a storm of ideas, at once
questioning the status of photography photographs that have played a certain role, and I use that memory as found a means of tapping into the
as a representational medium, investigating the media’s role in memory, and even disrupting received notions of time and place. ‘I try to work with images that people are carrying around with them already.’ Demand says. ‘Like a painter in the 18th century who might paint a tree outside, I use media representations,
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VII)I oAiti VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE V Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sat 19 Jul .00
Round five of the f iuitmaike 's series of new commissions and this time it's happy hour at the /(i() for a couple of young ladies with a penchant for Video art. First up is Michelle Naismith: a blackboard and a bunch of household lightbiilbs which spell out the one Joke theme of her show. In Au li’ei/oir Mood/e Pom/t, the sole f3lll)](}(ll of the piece is a poodle called Mozart who is invested with the combined spirits of the little composer. Sv/iss psychic Anton Mesmer and Schopenhauer. Not that you would know any of this from the second room. which houses two TV screens: one shows Naismith talking nonsense about her poodle's tarot c'iid readings while the other screens Godardian outtakes of Naismith in a choral ruff bumbling round her house. It is all really silly and mildly funny but it doesn't really add up without the catalogue and gallery guides,
Upstairs is a better bet. Rosalind Nashashibi's lfimm shorts offer simpler pleasures. i'vi'idwest I200?) is an 1 I v minute portrait of a midwest American town. It shows some workers eating in a diner and a few traffic shots. Her use of axailable sound is endearing and oddly effective. IVi/dit/est: field is a delightful three-minute docushort that details a day spent in the company of miniature glider hobbyists ‘
l red \‘v’iseman eat your heart out.
Only the specially commissioned piece. Human/era. disappoints With its pretentious links to Thomas Mann's The .‘ii'agvt‘ Mountain, hospitals and car parks. Both shows
U suffer froina ; ? a,
. certain V
inaccessibility but these two must be doing something right: both haye been chosen to exhibit at this year's Venice Au Revoir Moodle Pozart by Biennale. Michelle Naismith (Paul Dale>
Given his sources, Demand's work is often seen simply as a critique of media manipulation, but his cold, stark interiors plough a deeper furrow. ‘I wouldn’t want to limit it to a discourse on the media,’ he says. ‘lt‘s more a way of finding out what we as
a society are doing. There are more pictures of the world than "world". there are more picture-making devices than any other machinery. How do you find yourself in this?‘
Take Poll, a work based on images of the dubious election of George W Bush. ‘The image is of the recount in Florida.‘ says Demand. ‘You see piles of polling cards. but without holes. and no paper has writing on it. I tried to make it open as an object, rather than a signifier for an anecdote, even if it is derived from an anecdote. I tried to remove it from the story, and see if there is some reality or pattern underneath that.’
It might be stretching it a bit to claim that Demand has
Gangway 2001
collective unconscious — configuring scenes destined to become archetypes, the latent memories of future generations - but somehow, his multilayered images work, even if the viewer does not recognise the reference. Powerful stuff.
(Jack Mottram)
Pym/(E I) '.‘E 1),? BECK’ FUTURES 2003
CCA. Glasgow, until Sun 27 Jul 000
Snce its nception :n I/‘fiiiii, t'i'ee out of four winners of Becks I utures haze been
(Elasgr -'t:ased art:sts. Iler'alded as the younger. finkie' :ersion of the Turner Prize. Beck's I-‘utures has already. become a fasttrack route to art stardom for both the brand and the shortlisted artists.
The ii‘asteimind behind Beck's involvement with (I()lll(3ll‘t)()litl‘, art is the advertising agency, Collet Dickinson Pearce. ‘-‘.’.'II(III steered Beck's UK marketing in the direction of the ‘largest growth :ndustny' of the 1990s, Beck's has been clever - the relative freedon‘ it affords artists who exhibit under ~ts banner is generous for a commercial sponsor and instead of .'.'{ll°LllIg for allegations r f exploitation and the evils of corporate art soonsorsnir) it pre en‘pts them. In Nr‘n disc/osme Carey Young has taken this to its Logical, contractual extreme. producing work that exrsts to guestion her benefactors poi'ier.
l'ron‘ a parochial ‘.l(3'.'.'l)f)l.'ll it's gratifying tr note that the Scottis ‘. based contingent comes out yer, well. Alan Currall and Dave Shem. do deadpan to perfection. exemplifying that ccnten‘poran. art does not haxe to be shoe-gazing to be flf}l)"lf3°l'fiil'.f3’l. Apart fron‘ Stitching. é work of undoubted (71?”"(f gen 1:31,. Sherri, 's documentary text t’or Advance/man? ir‘to Ref'ea.’ s a :: osel‘, obsen.’ed portrait of evenda; HUS‘JTOISTT‘ ill Glasgow on ~, rivalled b, David Brent's Slough and Alan Partridge‘s Non-sch
More shame in their appeal are Rosalind Nasnashioi's
affectng a":: subtii. brooding fliIT‘S. which tea the '.’lC’.‘/C’f with
Message to my Best Friend by Alan Currall
that same detacnect CU'TIGIV‘DIBIIYC feeling t"at cen‘es when you 'i ,«a' t"e (fi'l roar of loot traftc and l‘QCTiC street life from
the repose of a guiet recn‘. Air in al‘. you gotta hand it to them
"."C' RIOS 110-"? (2000. lSLlSétl‘lTéil‘. T'TC'T‘KJSOI
Art
SIMON PERITON AND GARY ROUGH Royal Botanic Garden. Inverleith House. Edinburgh, until Sun 27 Jul
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wxrw‘i .iri tut" atlllf‘. apt:
ti 'f.ir‘i«., ti ..: ...n.1?~i~.'.iith “(twill :; x'l' ll ‘ili .tll< )“lt it; ll‘.tf~lir'l‘.lll', retreated in llelilate piper patterns
I I’Mllll} .it tl‘i-se- patterns for "ll‘lJ is Iiki- the onset of sunstri )ki- with the '.ision lllrfi’)ll‘,lfl\) drunk in pulsing "’)l()lll‘;
As .’)ll tourney further into I’enton's ;uiigle y’tltl uncover nrore n‘otifs of lungle saxagen, as a large leaf turns into a voodoo mask and BeeI/ebub with poison tattooed wings waits to swoop on you as you turn to the final ambush of a large camouflage net waiting to gift wrap you,
Untitled (ifs, buts, ands) 2003 by Gary Rough
If you escape upstairs to Gary Rough's exhibition, then maybe you'll like it. Maybe seems to be the operative word for this exhibition: it appears TWICO in neon indicating that nothing has z determinate meaning. The wall of scooter mirrors is maybe a morbid memorial to crashes, the iriterriiission "HUGO is maybe interesting imaybe NOT). the discarded neon dOubts in the corner maybe Reugh's or y0ur own about what the exhibition means. The family album maybe a Clever reflection on how the same genes morph themselves onto different generations and maybe Rough's mantelpiece instead of being the u3ual suspended shrine to familial love is an alter where he pays homage to his drunken ego through his framed drunken SCribbles.
As a whole there are no maybes ab0ut this exhibitiOn — Just a must. (Isabella Weir)
19 Jun-3 Jui 2003 THE LIST 87