Visual Art
REVIEW SCULPTURAL INSTALIATION MATTHEW SMIT Mary Mary, Glasgow, until Sat 8 Nov 000
It seems as though Mary Mary has executed a bit of a coup by getting Matthew Smith’s work to Scotland for this new exhibition. Smith’s CV includes solo shows at cutting-edge galleries such as White Columns and Rivington Arms in New York, and he was included in last year’s East International exhibition, all of which serves to reinforce this artist’s air of promise. The installation shots of Smith’s work look interesting - it appears that a treat awaits us - but sadly this isn’t borne out by the work on display.
Smith adopts a sculptural vocabulary that consists of wooden spoons, a broken red plastic utensil, a futon mattress, pieces of white laminated chipboard and dyed towels. In the first room a latex-covered wooden spoon balances on the edge of a pen-marked piece of white laminated chipboard, while next door two wooden spoons, one fresh and unused and one encrusted with grey concrete, lie on a concertinaed futon mattress.
While he is obviously influenced by minimalism - visible through the exhibition’s exactingly spare installation and the use of coloured towels pinned flat to the wall which variously recall minimalist paintings and ‘windows’ - the written commentary that accompanies the show emphasises Smith’s complex conceptual interests above all else. Unfortunately, the exhibition doesn’t seem to deconstruct or transmit the semiotic meanings with which Smith’s work is apparently engaging, and the more intriguing and playful aspects of his work that have been exhibited elsewhere are sadly absent from this show. (Liz Shannon)
REVIEW MOVING IMAGE INSTALLATIONS LANGLANDS 8: BELL: FILMS AND ANIMATIONS 1 978-2008
Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, until Sun 13 Dec 0000
Reflecting on Ben Langlands and Nikki Bell's ]()IIII career since first collaborating at Middle-sex Polyt >chnic in the 1970s. this show tracks a continuing assessment of Visual culture in the moVing image. from Super—8 film to digital animation.
Probably the pairs most famous moving image work is ‘The House of Osama Bin Laden'. a Turner Pri/e-nominated and BAFTA—winning series from 2003. created during their time as official war artists of the conflict in Afghanistan. 'Ihe eponymous centrepiece is a computer model of the house Bin Laden lived in before going into hiding and its surroundings. which the viewer nawgates with a Joystick. Resembling a console game. the work converts this minor historical landmark into a kind of hyper-content;)orary pop art. while also seeking to place the Viewers perspective within the actual location as far as possible.
It remains. IlkC‘ 'I'he Artists' Studio'. an electronic tour of the pairs own workspace. a hold yet somehow tentative experiment in new media. Far rats/er in its power is 'Zardad's Dog'. the controvers‘ial filmed account of a militia leader being tried in an Afghani court. where the disorienting hubbub of proceedings is only broken by some slight narration. As further demonstrated by a range of other filmed works — including the 22—year—old but still timely “Borough Market”. which shows the somehov.’ organic scenes of the South London market against the r.gid order of the City to the north and the arterial commuter trains rumbling incessantly overhead Langlands and Bell capture ways of seeing places which allow the viewer precious space for interpretation. i’DaVId Pollock)
94 THE LIST 30 Oct 113 Non/12008
REVIEW SCULPTURE MONIKA SOSNOWSKA The Modern Institute, Glasgow, until Sat 8 Nov 0000
While Polish artist Monika Sosnowska's architecturally-cmicerned works can often be playful in tone. the pieces on display here are masked by a kind of bleak austerity. In this regard. Sosnowska has taken inspiration from her home (:in of Krakow. and in particular the grey concrete and steel of the ugly. prefabricated buildings which rose upon the sites of World War II destruction.
Of course. this 20th century cycle of ra/ing and regeneration will be familiar to most other European cities. and Glasgow has seen the worst of it. It seems fitting. then. that Sosnowska's main piece. an untitled assemblage of two steel bars rising upwards and parallel with each other from the centre of a volcanic mound of fresh-dried concrete. should sit in the patch of waste ground next to the gallery. Caged in by a rusty fence and set amidst a weeded and partly-\r-Aralled patch of cleared ground (none of these surrounding items are part of the installation‘i. the work is both camouflaged and contextualised by its position. The steel and concrete thrusts from the land itself. a natural result of the inevitability of human progression.
Indoors. Sosnowska's work is perhaps more subtle. A single right-angled corner of painted metal bleeds off into seemingly melted lumps. the surety of the structure undermined. while two plastic crates (Barr’s drinks crates. which may or may not be a conscious cultural comment) lay filled With set concrete. which sen/es to somehow commodity the material rather than what it might create. Elsewhere. a web of steel poles grows outward. filling a room and burrowuig into the walls and ceiling. further coinciding these inanimate materials with something organic in our minds. (David Pollock)
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