Killing Time
I
Twisted
brthers‘
WHO NARRATES THIS DARK FAIRY-TALE AND WHO COMMANDS THE NARRATION?
Where does one artist begin and another end? lsla Leaver-Yap follows the tangled thread through the new collaborative exhibition at DCA.
raham l‘agen and (iraham liatough make you
curious and curiouser. Attempting to decipher
the product of this pair‘s unique collaboration is much akin to chasing the white rabbit. falling into a warren of dead ends. traps doors and secret rooms. only to partially discover something infuriatineg ambiguous. Yet. even with this limited and fearful revelation. Killing llllH’ is undoubtedly one of the most compelling and exhilarating Scottish visual arts projects in recent years.
Splitting the gallery in half — one video projections. the other live stage sets — liatough and Fagen develop a strangely antagonistic and eerie division. Depending on which side the viewer enters the gallery. understanding the chronology of events may be entirely different. Certainly. this show‘s logic is not of the linear style. but instead a kind of fragile Mobius strip: every truth has a double twist. and nothing in its reality is inside or outside our comprehension. And. if this sounds baffling. then you might jtist be beginning to get the jist of the show‘s exceptional ingenuity.
To begin somewhere: the video room shows a man dressed as a harlequin — or conversely a harlequin dressed as a man. The life-si/e figure jumps from one projection to another. appearing through a series of curtains. walls and dumb waiters. finally walking off screen only to appear in a loop through the curtains once more. At the opposite side of the gallery are abandoned stage sets. and the performers lit theatrically. Things initially appear just as they did on the video. but there are near-imperceptible differences. Previously open windows are now boarded up. doors
92 THE LIST 21 Sen—'3 Oct 2006
are locked. and a gun lies next to a man playing the harmonica on a l’interesque set. Time. whether it is a concept or indeed a character in this game. has been killed since the action of the video. but the view er's intrusion into this twilit world has irrevocably changed the players. altered the plot and destabilised the place.
Name-checking everything from .l’lllllllUllll/lil l)l'll'(’ and l)iigvi/li'. to Beckett and ('hekov. Killing 'I‘inii' ventures into a mysterious purgatory with daring abandon. and then transgresscs that little bit further into something far more worrying: our own reality. Yet the show is not without its playfulness: the Beckettian nihilism this exhibition delights in is. of course. not without its hollow laughter.
The remarkable partnering of established \ isual artist (iraham l5agen and Suspect (‘ulture director and theatre provocateur (iraham liatough appears to have set about an unnatural alchemy. for which the l)(‘:\'s visitors are the most richly rewarded. Maybe puuling upon narrative is irrelevant. just as the judgement of nihilistic crisis misses the point. Instead. it might be more pertinent to consider who narrates this dark fairytale and who commands the narration. is our reality beyond the gallery any less artificial than that it appears inside'.’
The viewer will inevitably ask the questions “where now‘.". 'who now‘." and ‘when now'.". It is doubtful that these will be answered upon entering in the gallery. but hopefully someone will be brave enough to respond to them in time.
Killing Time, Dundee Contemporary Art, until 5 Nov
THE BEST EXHIBITIONS
1M
siting/.14-
Killing Time Graham Fagan and Graham katouqh collabomte on an excellent protect that brings together theatrical elements. installation, performance art and sculpture. The artists set up dramatic Situations that references plays by Osborne. Beckett. Checkhov and Pinter. creating a fluid narrative that move through past, present and future. See opposrte. Dundee Contemporary Art, Dundee, Sat 9 Sep—Sun 5 Nov 2006.
Torsten Lauschmann Why create bland Signature pieces when you can pull together sculpture, paintings. drawrngs and films that follow there own successful stylistic agenda? Glasgow-based Lauschmann's new exhibition at Mary Mary creates tenuous links between apparent opposites. shattering both positions into smithereens. See review. page 93. Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Fri 8 Oct.
Girlhood and Boypower Last chance to see this exhibition of paintings and prints by a large array of international artists, exploring the theme of childhood in Slightly unsettling works that fold nightmares into daydreams. The exhibition includes work by Herman Bas. Enrico David. Christopher Orr. Kiki Smith and Louise Bourgeois. amongst many others. Talbot Rice Gallery, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, until Sat 30 Sep.
Callum Innes An mini- retrospective exhibition of paintings by the Edinburgh- born artist, bringing together work that examines minimalist themes such as identified and isolated forms. repetition, resonance and what the artist calls ‘monologues' — terms associated with particular formal experiments within Innes' oeuvre. See preview page 93. Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, until 79 Nov.