www.list.co.uk/visualart Visual Art
REVIEW SCULPTURAL INSTALLATION CARLA SCOTT FULLERTON: LINES HAVE EDGES/ HEATHER COOK Ten till Ten, Glasgow, until Mon 3 May ●●●●●
In contrast to the white walls of its neighbour Mary Mary, Ten till Ten’s project space retains signs of its original use as an office suite. Woodchip wallpaper and a coordinating carpet form the backdrop for an exhibition of new work by Carla Scott Fullerton and the first UK outing for Los Angeles-based artist Heather Cook.
A strong contribution to Glasgow School of Art’s 2008 MFA exhibition
highlighted Fullerton as an artist to watch, yet while her new work has its moments, it sometimes seems a little adrift and still in the process of development. Fullerton’s jointed multi-sided metal sculptures, often covered with different types of steel mesh, are left bare to show patches of rust or painted with purple or black gloss. These are solid works, but her acid-dipped etchings – white voids surrounded by strong textured black marks – are a promising development.
Cook tacks her fabric works to the walls in other rooms. By spraying jersey
fabric with bleach, she creates a shadowy effect of waves and folds. This material is layered with tartan and other types of cloth to create the finished piece.
While Fullerton’s collective work is separately titled and the gallery literature presents the two artists as discreet entities, this is an artificial division. Although it might reflect the wishes of the artists, it is through the juxtaposition of their work that the show really comes alive. Consideration of the entire presentation as the exhibition results in a much stronger impression. (Liz Shannon)
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REVIEW INSTALLATION DOUGLAS GORDON: 24 HOUR PSYCHO BACK AND FORTH AND TO AND FRO Tramway, Glasgow, until Mon 3 May ●●●●●
‘If I was alone in here,’ one visitor is overheard to admit, ‘I would touch myself.’ Perhaps the exclamation is a little loud, and extreme, but there is undoubtedly something unendingly seductive about Gordon’s characteristically dark presentation. Revisiting polemical 1993 film work
24 Hour Psycho, this redux version presents two co-joined screenings of Hitchcock’s horror flick, both slowed to play out over the course of one day (two frames per second) – one forwards, the other backwards – so that the action meets for, and mirrors, the central murder scene.
Installed in the Tramway’s
domineering main theatre space, for which Gordon’s original installation was created, the piece has a heavy sense of the ceremonial. You could view Gordon’s presence at Glasgow International as nostalgic – it is the first time he has exhibited in Scotland in a decade and he has made a seemingly straightforward re-visitation of a past work. Yet, 24 Hour Psycho Back and Forth and To and Fro features an immediate and glossy onslaught of references – time, light, death, sex – all the good constant and universal stuff, but changed, adulterated, and fresh.
At the back of the space three monitors comprise menacing second work ‘Looking down with his black, black ee’. Squawking ravens teeter on the roof of a medieval church, conjuring localised literary and historical references, but most notably heightening the prevalent sense of foreboding emanating from the silent, slowly pacing central screens. Suggestive, erotic and evil, this is a rare treat. (Rosalie Doubal)
REVIEW INSTALLATION CHRISTOPH BÜCHEL: LAST MAN OUT TURN OFF LIGHTS Tramway, Glasgow, until Sun 18 Jul ●●●●● Swiss artist Christoph Büchel’s new work at Tramway shows timely poetic serendipity with the volcanic ash floating through Western Europe’s empty airspace. Büchel has blown up a defunct aeroplane to set up a fictitious scenario imagining a futile attempt to put the plane’s pieces back together again. Surrounding a forensic investigation within an archaeological wasteland, you will find an abandoned prison environment housed in a labyrinth of shipping containers. The inmates were seemingly allowed plenty of time to play football and to drink in two segregated pubs – one for the boys in blue and the other for those who prefer green. Like an episode of Lost, the clues, however, do not all add up, but the engrossing effect is in line with the artist’s usual captivating work.
prison or a disaster film set. But it is more than this. It is a hyper-real environment set up to circumvent image saturation, and instead guides us in a very material way. Absent is the stench of an enclosed masculine quarter – we know that no one has ever showered, slept or cooked here.
Call him a prankster (and you might feel compelled to do so before or after your visit), but Büchel and his crew go out of their way to cook up a storm for their viewers. What is on offer here is made with painstaking sweat and tears. Confronted in the flesh by heaps of triviality and embellishment, you do feel cared for.
Other recent projects have included a blown up bus. Earlier this year the artist invited a local swingers’ club in Vienna to hold orgies in the Secession Hall where he also displayed related paraphernalia as a nod to Gustav Klimt’s famous Beethoven Frieze which caused outrage and media attention in 1902. Similarly at Tramway, the parallels drawn with current
Once you look past the literal reading of a crashed plane, you become enchanted by the simulated experience of walking inside a video game set in a
affairs in Scotland and abroad, and the exhibition’s apocalyptic title might just be too close for comfort. (Talitha Kotzé)
29 Apr–13 May 2010 THE LIST 89