Prepacked geometries, measurements of contemporary reality?

 easy does it                               

Aid & Abet, Cambridge

Friday 7^th June – Saturday 6^th July 2013

Earlier this year ArtReview’s Sam Jacob described his fascination with the world of objects, asking us to consider a world before the concept of use and the things needed to fulfil this objective.  An intriguing topic, in which Jacob suggests that an ancient stone tool of around 1.8m years old, found in Tanzania was ‘from another world, a world before manufactured objects’,[i] a time when we were at one with the flora and fauna of our surroundings.

The latest offering at Cambridge’s ever growing kudos eaters Aid & Abet made it quite apparent that this eco/symbiotic age is well and truly over.  ‘easy does it’, curated by the Liverpool based artist Kevin Hunt takes it’s cue from a similar object centred fascination as Jacob, but here however Hunt focuses upon the act of making art with utilitarian detritus.   Not straying from Aid & Abet’s signature DIY ethos seen in the majority of previous exhibitions, Hunts selection from a very wide range of sources, including himself is both humorous and intelligent revelling in pattern, contrast, order and iconic shape.  Hunt kicks off proceedings with Placebo (2013), a stack of 12 light (domestic) pink melamine dishes, that balance on the concrete floor, as though created whilst visiting the bathroom and awaiting ones hands to dry – ‘Voila I’m Brancussi’.  Opposite the Scottish duo Littlewhitehead offer us something slightly more quizzical with Disciple (2013). Apparently facing East, (I didn’t have my compass to confirm) a mounted page from the Jehovah’s Witness magazine Watchtower lies again on the floor, with a supported magnifying glass hovering over the image, enlarging the religious heroic bearded figures of the picture when viewed from above.  Like some makeshift mini cinema screen Disciple through its magnification and staging forces us to view an image that would normally fail to grab our attention heading straight to the blue wheelie bin after falling through our letterbox.  Jo Addison moves away from the floor with Flap (2013), residing higher than the standardised 2D presentational height, the hand painted yellow-ochre disc, reminiscent of a badly executed toilet-seat lid defies the exactness of mass production, but remains rooted in domesticity the carefully placed symmetrical hinges and failed attempt to be round, forcing the viewer to fathom a suitable use.  Fiona Curran on the other hand seems to have geometry sussed, with her use of triangles or more to the point (no pun intended) ‘peaks’.  Curran’s The Horizon of Expectation (2012) explicitly brings to light the over riding geometrical thread linking all the works here.  The Horizon of Expectation, a wall based composition of mixed media relies heavily on the symbolic nature of the triangle, here seriated in blue needlepoint and fabric, and painted on boards (one sideward multi coloured the other rough aqua and black diamonds), with an acute scalene triangle in sickly orange perched on top.  Reinforcing the triangle’s association with pinnacle Curran gives us a mountain image and day-glow wooden baton that unashamedly shouts horizon!  Whether on floor, wall or perched between both, as in Jo Addison’s ceramic phallic pink pole Think Thing (2011), Tom Godfrey’s straightened crowbar Untitled (Hypotenuse) (2013), and Carwyn Evans’ Docked (2012) – large bespoke timber angles of precious Meranti wood trapping woolly lambs tails, each artist in their playfulness and ingenuity tell us that its not just objects that are manufactured to satiate need, but possibilities of transmogrification, i.e triangle – diamond etc.   Sean Edwards’ untitled (2013) MDF structure creates a very rigid, sprawling square based framework making me think of Clare Barclays Shadowspans  (2011).  Upon this he places his odds and sods upon, as my mum once did with cheap ornaments on a much smaller scale on her kitchen wall during the 1970’s.   Leo Fitzmaurice shows the bespoke geometries of moulded plastic, and the endless possibilities of Chinese uniformity in his re-jointed toy snakes used to construct Oroboro (2000-2013), which skirted round the right angles of the gallery wall.  Even the work which strayed away from the obvious Euclidean allusion, Hannah James’ A small squat mug  & performance (2013), which was just that (well, broken into pieces actually after her performance) or Tom Ireland’s I have seen more than you could ever know…. (2013), which consisted of several small to medium sized rocks equally spaced on the floor (rather Zen), creating a slight topographical illusion of islands minus the sea, couldn’t shake off the power they had to highlight our reliance on a set of rules governing objects and their shape (architecture and flatness included in Irelands case), namely utility, efficiency and a way to achieve this.  From Hunt’s revelry to exacerbate the manufactured geometries through agglomeration and rhythm to Jo Coupe’s video Phenomena (2009) of dancing magnetised cutlery, easy does it confirms Heidegger’s belief that ‘’The moment the jug (object) enters consciousness, through reflection, or in representation it becomes ‘an allegory of use. The moment it migrates as a symbol, it expresses something that does not belong to it.”[ii]  So, it could be added that its not solely ‘objects that make us human, as Jacob said, but the shapes that constitute the object.

Craig Need

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[i] Jacob. S, Art Review, Issue 56, January/February 2013, pg 43

[ii] Heidegger. M: ‘The Thing’, in Poetry, Language, Thought, Harper & Row, New York, 1975

ART AS A FULL TIME HOBBY, Aid and Abet, Cambridge, 1 – 30 July

Quite fittingly Aid and Abet’s encampment resides within a former railway maintenance unit, just outside the city’s bustling train station and neatly plugged in to the domestic circuitry of Eastern England. Co-founded by artists Sarah Evans, CJ Mahony and David Kefford, Aid and Abet isn’t so much the clichéd art injection, but more utilitarian wooden crutch – extremely effective in function and very honest in appearance.

The latest project, curated by Kefford and Evans, remained in keeping with core concerns for the outfit, as they bid to promote and support national and international artists from cross disciplines, whose approach to production and distribution are, (to paraphrase the website) – ‘self initiated and DIY’.This was made quite distinct as you entered the space, the exhibition creating a mis-en-scéne similar to the stage set of Steptoe and Son; stuff abound and nothing outstanding. This did give A & A a ‘squattish/car-boot’ feel, where activity was going on, but not on any permanent basis. Sitting centrally and spliced in two by some very unassuming sterling board partition lay the work of Martyn Cross aka Yatehead and Alex Pearl respectively, who were both afforded trestle constructs for their display cum workbench scenarios. The main draw for Cross were doctored magazine spreads (mainly fashion), which through a mixture of canny intricate and simplistic alterations took on a much more sinister appearance. Nostalgic and kitsch knitting advertisements (circa 1960-75) lured in onlookers, only to recoil in dark humorous guffaws on realisation of Yateheads subtle paper butchery.

Martin Cross: installation view

Martin Cross: Detail

Pearl on the other side of the divide continued the bric-a-brac theme, with a horde of curios strewn over table-top and floor. A conductor of Heidegger’s ‘Zeugsein’ - things that have lost their ‘equipmentality’, Pearl channelled this into hybrid curiosities, orchestrating delivery through sculpture, film and 2D imagery, which took on a very playful and surreal edginess. The video works, a large part of Pearls output extended this fun, with a cacophony of grunts, squeals and whirrs emanating from the various tv’s dotted around, displaying the artists improvised mechanical contraptions (apparently beforethey fell apart).

Alex Dover: installation detail

Adjacent to these was lone female contributor Annabel Dover. Her magpie treasures were of the same charity shop ilk, but for some reason appeared more linked, in a thought pattern sort of way. Cards featuring such things as disturbing ladies, dolls, empty baroque theatres and naff rock/mineral samples filled desk and wall. There was also live moth pupae and some clue-giving paper cuttings, which connected visually at least, but any needed blueprint explaining Dover’s logic had obviously been shredded and pasted back together inside the artist’s head, who had decided to carefully place them within her proscenium to create a somewhat personal encyclopaedia. The result more reflective and serious gave some insight to Dover’s thinking, and was no bad thing in relation to the boys things, juxtaposing slow burn next to quick flick.

Annabel Dover: detail

Finally displaying their wares were Craig Atkinson and Gareth Bayliss. I make no bones for inferring commercialism here, as both drew heavily from commodification of artworks, subsequently putting livelihood and ‘making a butty’ on the exhibition agenda. Atkinson a very accomplished artist/illustrator showed his naïve drawing style within his readily available zines and other accoutrements. The work did lend an existential coolness akin to eternal adolescents David Shrigley and Ian Stevenson and was all in keeping with the flavour of AAFTH, but didn’t reach much beyond displaying the communicative powers of paired down drawing with a twist of dry savvy wit and promotion.

Craig Atkinson: detail

Bayliss displayed more of a rhizomal quality and like a contemporary version of Greek Key his motifs of arrows, vectors and other geometric knitting meandered across his posters, stickers and drawings. These were over-laid with a range of quirky colour choices that both pleased and jarred on the eye. Visually appealing, these reminded me of Bomberg’s In the Hold (1913) or Mud Bath (1914), for they followed rather Vorticist traits of heavy line, flatness of plane and strong colour, in true B L A S T from the past fashion.

Gareth Bayliss: detail

So what about the hobby, does this word describing a favourite pastime still ring true in this post-modern context? The main thing driving a hobbyist, is the fact that he/she cannot pursue this activity on a full time basis and therefore gives the subject hard fought ‘quality time’, concentrated and energy filled under candle-light, restoring the missing portion of self, lacking in ones humdrum existence. These artist’s however are on appearance extremely confident and ‘full-time’ hobbyists, contradicting the notion of an hobbyists number one commodity, ‘spare-time’. AAAFTH clearly showed through each artists approach and the host’s facilitation, how work and spare time boundaries have blurred. Where once reliable demarcation markers of start/finish have now become fluid in response to an environment always ready to receive. As a result the hobby environ or more precisely work-space was also questioned, with artist working not only in situ in order to make, but also agitated interest by constantly communicating to audience/other using internet sites/artist portals and a rolling programme of live events initiated to (for want of a better phrase) ‘keep it real’. The dematerialising the site as stand alone gallery space, in the tradition of institutional conceptualism (Hans Hacke, Daniel Buren et al), created more of an art fuelled ‘service station’ where artists/vehicles were accessible during the trip

Using these strategies, evidenced in work so far, Aid and Abet continue to question, commodity and production values within art and their subsequent aesthetics, bringing in debates on site- specificity, location and communication as major drivers for contemporary practice and audience reception. If Foucault believed that ‘we are at a moment…when our experience of the world is less that of a long life developing through time, than that of a network that connects points and intersects with its own skein’1, then Aid and Abet seem to have the ability to plug in their very own efficient pace-maker, that’s ticking over very nicely.

Craig Need

1. Foucault. M, (essay) Architecture-Mouvement-Continuité, (1984),

Taken from Mirzoeff. N, Of Other Spaces, chapter within publication The Visual Culture Reader, (2002), pg. 229, Routledge.

Sweet Sweet Galaxy - Pip & Pop with John Kassab. Smiths Row, 22nd Jan - 26th Feb

I found it hard to define reality in one corner of East Anglia this January.

When arriving at Smiths Row, Bury St Edmunds newly named gallery space, you find it in total keeping with its surroundings and like this quaint historic English market town Robert Adams Georgian affair is visually pretty, compact and bijou.

The institutes’ main gallery however provides the audience with another, if a bit more ramped up idyll. This time there’s green and orange sand dunes, rainbow coloured trees, day-glow glaciers, acid pink waterfalls and other topo-popsicle features on a polished wooden floor, all looking sweet enough to make a gallery visitors’ fillings fallout at the sight of it all. This toxic landscape aberration is the work of Australian artists Tanya Schultz and Nicole Andrijevic, who with fellow antipodean sound buddy John Kassab have created their Sweet sweet galaxy, a large floor based installation of approximately 4M² constructed from found objects, cake decorations, coloured sugar, sand and origami. Kassab infusing the whole with his synthetic soundscape of digital pulses and reverbs.

Schultz and Andrijevic, better known as Pip and Pop have since 2007 primarily worked together in their home country receiving modest critical acclaim for their work, encompassing installation, drawing and photography, whilst Kassab a Melbourne based sound designer and music composer collaborates with the pair for the second time, his last being back in 2008. Coming into this exhibition on a typical non-descript grey mid winters day you are immediately taken aback with firstly the colours on display, a mixture of cheap acidic toy merchandise and Japanese Harajuku Fashion, the latter unsurprising with residential visits and shows within Tokyo in the past few years.

However it’s the placing of Sweet sweet galaxy that intrigues. Situated just under a large Georgian window that dominates the wall, you step into a space of miniature, with the aperture having an almost biblical presence in relation to the sweetie parade below. Added to this is the scene beyond the glass; a series of period building rooftops, a noddyland, of timber beams, pargetting, rustic clay tiles and handcrafted chimneypots forming a backdrop. Having such a surreal juxtaposition only adds to the overall mise en abyme effect of an outsider looking in…then in again and in this respect Sweet sweet galaxy slightly mimics what lies outside (‘Pams’ sweet shop is adjacent to the gallery). Putting the town within a national context size can be seen as linking the two; a mirror of miniature cuteness that Pip and Pop’s intervention highlights successfully.

Gaston Bachelard stated that like Bury folk ‘[he felt] more at home in miniature worlds, which for [him] are dominated worlds [that] helped [him] to resist dissolution’¹, thus experiencing hyper-kitsch rivers and ravines lined with intricate multicoloured flora and fauna could be the results of recreational experimentation gone awry, and after viewing Pip and Pops Lilliputian lollypop landscape in a town famous for its sugar refinery (which the artists used) and still possessing several butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, the dividing line between reality and construct becomes very, very fluffy indeed.

1. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, Beacon Press, p. 161