Mind the gap
‘I LIKE TAKING EMPIRICAL STRUCTURES AND SHOWING THEY MAY NOT BE UNIVERSAL'
Jack Mottram finds there are old routes to be travelled, new lines to explore and connections to be made with SIMON PATTERSON’s show of work past and present
imon Patterson makes work about cleaving. in
both senses of the word. Taking existing
systems. categories and taxonomies. whether they‘re football results. the QWERTY keyboard layout. or lists of Hollywood stars. Paterson cleaves together seemingly unrelated sets of information and. in the process. cleaves apart the certainties we see in ordered sets of data.
High Noon. twinned shows at Ikon Gallery. Birmingham and Edinburgh‘s Fruitmarket. offers a chance for viewers to do some cleaving of their own. with new work by Patterson set alongside old.
providing an opportunity to review the practice of perhaps the most consistent. least tabloid-friendly of
the artists lumbered with the YBA tag. ‘Some of the work is only a couple of years old. some of it goes right back to the beginning. “Richard Burton/ Elizabeth Taylor". for example. was made in 1987. and shown at the Third Eye in Glasgow in I989. and it‘s quite nice. bringing that back to Scotland.‘
As well as his text portraits of movie greats. Patterson is set to show two of his best-known works. ‘The Great Bear‘ and ‘General Assembly". which led to his Turner Prize nomination in I996. The former. famously. takes the London tube map. replacing stations with canonical lists of explorers. magnates. scientists and celebs. The latter is an installation. half typewriter. half auditorium. referencing a game of football between peacekeeping forces and Sarejevo players. placing directors general
102 TNE LIST 17 Feb—3 Mar 2005
of the UN alongside locations lifted from Gulliver's Travels. So. is Patterson attempting to wreck our preconceptions or build new connections'.’ ‘lt‘s both.’ he says. ‘Hopefully new meanings come out when I do these combinations. but I do quite like taking these absolute empirical structures and pointing out that they may not be as universal as they seem.‘
The two newa commissioned pieces confirm that Patterson isn‘t signalling a shift in practice with this not-quite-retrospective. but also demonstrate that his long-running fascination with disordered ordering continues to prompt new ways of working. There is a wall drawing. merging archeological maps of the ancient city of Ur with circuitry from a television. and a film piece which gives the show its title and follows ‘Escape Routine‘. a past video project crossed aeroplane safety demonstrations with Houdini's escapology instructions.
‘This is almost the opposite of “Escape Routine".’ Patterson explains. ‘A short. sweet work. with close up shots of watches and a soundtrack of athletes breathing while they're exercising.’
On the face of it. the new work sounds more subtle than Patterson's prior practice. and for viewer and artist alike. High Noon is a chance to trace connections. both within and between his work. past and present.
Simon Patterson — High Noon, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 26 Feb-Sun 1 May
Hit
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
* Andy Warhol: Soll‘ Portrait: The face that launched a thousand screenprints. Warhol's mug is revealed in its early incarnations and traced through to its ever—obsessive morbid visage in the only UK showing of this substantial show. Scottish National Gallery of Modem Art, Edinburgh, until Mon 2 May.
* Suck on Solonoo — Michael Fullerton John Peel posed for Fullerton last year just before he died. The portrait and many other paintings, prints and installation works are assembled for the Glasgow-based artist's first major solo show. See review. CCA, Glasgow, until Sun 13 Man II: Oralg Mulholland Exciting new, focused work takes over the basement where viruses are spreading through badges and oornmercialisrn is critiqued in sculpture and installation. See review. Transmission, Glasgow, until Sat 26 Feb.
I: Slmon Patterson Old and new works including the transformed tube map, ‘The Great Bear’. and giant typewriter keys of ‘General Assembly: 1994'. See preview. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Sat 26 Feb-Sun 1 May
it David Olllandoro Striking photographs taken over four years visiting Besprizorniki - ‘neglected ones' — forgotten children in the former Soviet Union. See picture. DGP, Glasgow, until Mon 28 Mar 3 Mat Colllallaw Last chance to