PHOTOGRAPHY , BECKY BEASLEY - DECORS DU SILENCE! UBU Gallery Off-site, Glasgow. until Fri 7 .July.
It will now only be a matter of time before Glasgow's Trongafe becomes known as the 'artist's quarter'. with a gallery or five on every block. scooping up the cultural flotsam and jetsam that already bobs around King Street and the Salt Market. In the next few months Richard Hopkins Will open another space called UBU in this locale. In the meantime. he has deCided to kick things off With an off- site project in a tenement at 507 Alexandra Parade. featuring the work of photographer Becky Beasley.
‘I have been familiar with Becky's work for about 18 months now She invited me to her studio to see her work. and her practice instantly resonated with me.’ says Hopkins. 'I always find myself unable to articulate why her work affects me so strongly. I like that inaccessibility.“
Beasley's work will OCCLipy two large rooms in the tenement. where she WI“ install photographic and SCLilptural works that respond to the interior decoration and the everydayness of the domestic space.
Hopkins has been involved in Glasgow's art scene for the last 3 years after finishing his BA in painting: he curated ‘lnSIde Out' at Glasgow School of Art and then joined the Market Gallery's committee. Before the opening of each show he will invite 12 (are there really 12?) local art world luminaries to dinner in the space. There is no such thing as a free lunch. but clearly there is such a thing as a free dinner. BYOB. (Alexander Kennedyi
Visual Art
Review
MARK NEVILLE — THE JUMP FILMS Street Level Photoworks. Glasgow. until Sat 3 June 000
The three 16mm ‘Jump Films' on show at Street level comprise simple, stupid actions (falling, dropping and jumping), bringing with them an expansive history of art that covers performance, body art and the problems of documenting actions in relation to themes of futile expression, failure and masculinity. In the first film Neville jumps out of the cupped paw of a digger in a post-industrial landscape, while two figures demolish the roof of a factory in the background. Neville falls like the meteor of a metaphor, lands on the tarmac, crouches as if in prayer and appears to kiss it like a safely deposited pope, before rolling over like a stuntman.
Slow motion always adds profundity, making us question notions of mortality, but here the ‘super-slow-motion' presents us with an excess of information. We have enough time on our hands to reflect and examine the connotations and formal properties of the medium. In the second film Neville falls backwards into a Monet- esque pool, crawling out of the primordial maw as the water laps at his body and fertile spring verge. The film stops when he lifts his undulating hips onto the grassy bank, like one of Lawrence‘s heroes humping nature. The unbearable lightness of being is made almost bearable by trapping its capriciousness in light and flickering celluloid. (Alexander Kennedy)
DRAWING. eAiNiiNe 2. SCULPTURE GROUP SHOW -
ALL DRESSED UP WITH NOWHERE TO GO Sorcha Dallas Gallery, Glasgow, until Sat 24 June.
in continuing her galleny's international program. Sorcha Dallas has inVIted New York gallerist Anke Kempkes from Broadway 1602 to curate the work of eight artists: Agnieszka Brzezanska. Friederike Clever. Ryan Doolan. Michael Hakimi. Edwin La Lid. Nick Mauss. Ana Mendieta and Seth Price. Dallas Will be exhibiting the wOrk of Alex Frost. Sophie Macpherson, Alex Pollard. Claire Stephenson. Henry Coombes and Gary Rough in the NY space in late June.
Inevitably. the press release to accompany this local manifestation of the exchange does little to explain or introduce the work. No uniting theme is given to offer admittance or insight into the workings of this cabal. but the concluding over-reaching sentence sets a high standard. Indeed. we are told that this work will be ‘an introduction to an alternative realm of expression'. We shall see.
What can glean from the statement of intent. and guess from the title of the show. is that fe works will examine those exhilarating moment when the private becomes public. the psychical and phySical preparations that are made before bursting on to the scene. already a legend. The exhibitors Will make an exhibition of themselves in this sense. With the artworks as expreSSions of nerve, the jitters and the facade worn during the daily social performance. Brzezanska's ‘Agony of Abstraction (pictured) examines some of these issues. where personal sensations and expreSSion within the artwork rub up against each other, with figurative works by Doolan and La Liq examining the elegant art of posing and the care of the self. iAlexander Kennedy)
25 May—8 June 2006 THE LIST 89