Visual Art
REVIEW PAINTING ALEX DORDOY: WINNER The Modern Institute, until Sat 17 Oct ●●●●●
There is something of a painting coup d’état happening here: an insistent need for objects to be perceived primarily through the physical medium of liquid substances – as if the artist sees paint before he sees structures. Walls, window panes, skirting boards and other surfaces exist solely for the purpose of holding paint. Painter Alex Dordoy exhibits new work which plays with the
reclamation of analogue paraphernalia, industrial detritus, broken technology and the sense of self. ‘New Voodoo (do you?)’ is a pastiche voodoo doll which overlooks the space – watching, protecting, embodying the spirit of what is at work here.
Sections around the walls of the gallery have been washed with inconspicuous colour as if a painting wants to break out and present itself in solid form. This functions as both a visual and conceptual switch that could be turned on to understand and appreciate paint as alchemy. Dordoy’s works are a medley of painterly substances which have been instantly matured into a well presented display. His aim is not to recreate reality by means of 2D representation, but rather to transmute reality into paint.
Humour abounds: ‘I need to return some video tapes’ is a large painting, which. like a retro black hole, has sucked in video tapes to become part of a whirl-winded painting. A series of mutilated trouser presses have been transformed into bold, visceral objects with depth, texture and chiaroscuro as a result of the artist’s slashing, painting and adding objects to them.
Quietly, yet with authority, a single object hangs in the middle of a large wall space. It is a painted mask of the artist’s face entitled ‘Forever for nothing’. This death mask pokes fun at the futility of its purpose, but again it is covered with delicate brushstrokes and becomes another power object in Dordoy’s conspiracy. One gets the sense that a metaphysical battle is being played out between the representation of reality and painting in itself and for itself. And the winner is: paint. (Talitha Kotzé)
REVIEW SCULPTURE & DRAWINGS LILAH FOWLER: IN TIME Corn Exchange Gallery, Edinburgh, until Thu 29 Oct ●●●●●
There are plenty of faddy terms to be bandied about in response to Fowler’s exhibition of sleek minimalist sculptures and wall drawings – neo-geo, retro-futuristic or techno- utopian, to name but a few. Essentially though,, these rather lovely works are all about the good, old-fashioned artistic concern of perspective. Sharp, angular and geometric, Fowler’s discreet forms present a muted labyrinth of optical illusion. Shifts and slips in angles give way to warps in colour, and a host of multi-dimensional mirrored surfaces toy with notions of flatness, and deliver little rest to the eye. Once lauded for her plasticine drawings and scaffolding structures, Fowler has
since refined the soft and sticky, and polished the rough, and in turn, this new body of work presents a mature selection of steel, mirror and fibre. Powdered pinks, blues and yellows fashionably clash with steely hues, and the continuous set up of floor, wall and site-specific sculptures encourages certain nostalgia for this type of smoke and mirrors illusion. You get the feeling, however, that Fowler intends for these pieces to work harmoniously towards greater effect than mere spatial trickery. The failure to present a choreographed unity lies not in the works themselves, but in their display. These sculptures are about space – our negotiation and understanding of it – but the lofty environment they dissect is unendingly distracting. Large balconies of office space shoot off from this foyer gallery, and Fowler’s struggling works, which themselves draw great attention to their surroundings, become merely decorative in the face of it. (Rosalie Doubal)
90 THE LIST 8–22 Oct 2009
REVIEW VIDEO & SCULPTURE DANI MARTI: INSIDEOUT 4 Parnie Street, Glasgow, until Sat 10 Oct ●●●●●
Spanish-born, Glasgow-based artist Marti has created new sound, video and sculptural installations which explore issues of gay men’s health, sexuality and disclosure as part of the Glasgay! festival. We may automatically sympathise with its subject matter, but it is difficult to evaluate
this show – is it art, documentary or political activism? Ending up outcast in a basement rather than the plush interiors of GoMA where it was initially earmarked to go frames the work very differently. Video pieces portray gay men – mostly Glaswegian, mostly older – talking de profundis about their experiences, relationships, sex, and HIV status, while the camera hovers over the bodily landscapes, careful not to appear voyeuristic and aiming merely to film those who agreed to talk while lying comfortably in bed and at ease in their own skin. We see sexual intimacy and emotional expression, but mostly we hear about people’s lives.
There is pathos here, as Marti implicates himself in each filming. He also discloses his own life, being HIV positive, his unconditional love for his mother, and tells of the first time he saw his father’s cock.
As viewers move further down the basement, the challenge to endure becomes more demanding – partly because of what you will find there, but mostly because of the damp smell, the cold, the dark and the loneliness. This setting had a much more profound effect than cosy GoMA ever could. (Talitha Kotzé)