Prepacked
geometries, measurements of contemporary reality?
easy does it
Aid & Abet, Cambridge
Friday 7th June – Saturday 6th 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
