Visual Art
FILM INSTALLATION
BARBARA KRUGER - TWELVE Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 25 Sep 0000.
To be literally dwarfed by greatness, the sublime or
dilettantish posturings about art. Every subject is treated equally - and the uncomfortable realisation that
language speaks us rather than vice versa fills the
space, including your head.
genius in godless times is rare. Billboards, as facades of non-existent cathedrals, are the closest we get to God touching Man on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Barbara Kruger’s film installation Twelve at Tramway demonstrates that although God is dead (due to a lethal mixture of glibness and Nietzsche) something awesome and terrible has filled the vacuum — us.
In the hanger-like Kunsthalle, Kruger uses four projectors to split conversations and interactions between actors around the gallery’s four walls. The protagonists sit around unseen diner tables, at home
The pillars in the gallery block direct access to the pristine image, stealing some of the information that the projectors beam for themselves. This relates to Kruger’s previous installations where text is wrapped around every architectural detail in the room (her installation at GoMA, for example, which is an extension of this work). But here, text and faces as signs shimmer on the surface of the metal - medium and support in perfect, glittering harmony. Some complain that a few of the actors are ‘wooden’ - tell that to Warhol; send John Waters a postcard. These
PAINTING
ILIAS PAPAILIAKIS
Sorcha Dallas Gallery, until Sat 10 Sep 0000
There is an odd sense of distance at work in the paintings of llias Papailiakis, who works as if trying to escape the subject to which he is drawn. Men armed with spears grapple with a tiger, which isn't giving up without a fight. Dogs run down Stags. shown in the panic of the chase, or the last struggle, where gaping mouths and awkward angles blur the distinction between hunter and hunted.
While the series of hunting scenes depict moments of high drama, there is nothing immediate in them. Small, square and tightly framed in black, Papailiakis’ painted boards have the look of details copied from genre paintings, or confections of multiple hunting images, distilling cliches in order to both rescue and condemn them.
Papailiakis is not only showing us the hunt, he is showing us the way it has been shown. ln some of these untitled scenes. the bloody action is anaemic. closely cropped. as if only half a story is being told. In others, conversely, a chase is framed with dishonest perfection, mocking the way an iconic image can be teased out of untidy reality.
Either way. Papailiakis lays down a double veneer of distance, a wilful assertion of the artifice of painting made by painting paintings, real or imagined. This makes for an odd tension. Papailiakis is making work that seems torn between disgust and delight, taking the position of intermediary, a viewer reworking what he has seen for other viewers, without allowing himself the comfort of condemnation or celebration.
(Jack Mottram)
Detail from Untitled (Duck)
and in cafes, hurling declamatory statements at each other over the abysses between the screens. A ticker
observations only bring you back to the brilliant surface of the piece as text and image, and are distractions for
tape of information runs below each scene, like the
lesser minds. The work’s greatness lies in conceptual
translation of the operas going on in the subject’s minds. Discussions range from personal trauma to
SCULPTURE
JIST BECAUSE
Trongate Studios, until 26 Aug 0.
It's an odd exhibition, this one, as if David McCracken set out to make two entirely unconnected shows — one rather good. one not good at all — but was forced at the last minute to bundle them both into the gallery.
This means that the sometimes witty.
always stridently political sculpture on show is swamped by work that should have been left behind in McCracken's studio.
There is a series of wall plaques. each with a slogan running around its edge. The queen‘s head is ringed with the legend ‘Save Us From the Authority of Extreme Wealth'. another proclaims that ‘Real Wealth Is Your
36 THE LIST 18—25 Aug 2005
VI" 'ath‘a “WM,”
Physical & Mental Health'. On a platform in front of them sits ‘The Walk“. a refund, near-spherical Orangeman striding along with a flute in his fist. but with no head beneath his bowler hat. Beside the brainless
clarity and formal precision - in Kruger’s genius. (Alexander Kennedy)
marcher is ‘Govan Penthouse'. a dinky little model of a caravan, decorated with suitable props, from a miniature framed portrait of Rab C Nesbitt to a tiny Billy Connolly CD. The love-hate relationship with Glasgow continues with a series of mocked-up postcards from the city heralding its inequalities with grim views and grimmer pronouncements — ‘Welcome to Glasgow Cross'. says one, ‘Affordable Housing For Rich People’.
If only McCracken had stopped there. But he didn't. so the sculptures and postcards must share space with a dire sketch of John Lennon and some mawkish landscapes adorned with pebbles. That said, there's a decent show here, if you can ignore the noisy lesser works trying to hide it. (Jack Mottram)
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