Celina Teague, 'Organ Theft'
For their 2007 interim show, the fine art students from St Martins put themselves into the hands of the curatorial students from Goldsmiths. Together they booked a three-day inclusive slot (26 - 28 January) in the bargehouse space of London's Oxo Tower complex. The team of young curators led by Yannis Arvanitis were initially stumped as to how to order and arrange 120 works by 65 students. They gave up on thematics, on what they describe as 'accidental' criteria such as 'colour, shape or material', and decided instead to turn to mathematics and proportion for inspiration - the proportions of the students that is - not the works - and more specifically their height (width proportions were deemed too sensitive).
The curators didn't want to expand too much more on this except to say that they made some exceptions for the sake of art, but roughly speaking, the works in each room were made by people who shared the same height - and often little else.
An amusing take on some of the more bizarre approaches to 21st-century curating it might be, but it turned out to be more successful than one might imagine, and strangely, while the works might not have shared a formal sympathy, for the most part they didn't jarr and neither did one work completely overwhelm another. This said, the exhibition was noticeably balanced towards video and installation, although there were intriguing works to be found across the various disciplines and sculpture was particularly strong.
Kasia Kwiatkowska
Kasia Kwiatkowska toyed with pain and pleasure in a series of six delicately beautiful pencil drawings depicting a suite of various arms being fed by intravenous drips, the blood moving up and down the tubes like phrases in a musical score.
Francisca Aninat, 'Untitled', 2007, floor painting, constituted by
fragments of prepared and unprepared canvases that
have been hand sewed together
In terms of painting, Francisca Aninat produced a fragile looking floor painting, created by sewing together fragments of prepared and unprepared canvases whereas Celina Teague's naïve-looking 'Organ Theft' was one of the few, large-format wall-mounted paintings on canvas in the show. A macabre compilation of skulls, insects, a mound of bodies and various carrion and vermin, the work had a rhythmical sense to it, the images spiralling round from the top left hand corner to the centre.
Craig Cooper
Craig Cooper's large sculpture consisted of an up-turned table balancing a neon tube between two of its legs. Cooper stands by the maxim that it is 'a trust in the encounter and not the expectancy (that) creates the flat form on which I build my practice', hereby upturning the viewer's expectations of form, order and normality literally on their heads.
Leo Babsky
Leo Babsky's 'Untitled (Dam)', a wall-mounted sculpture of wood, rubber and hardware used the power of association, created through symbols, signs and evocative placing of material to engage the viewer's attention and elicit a response. In this instance, the folds of the black rubber rippled onto the floor like unstoppable waves, all the energy of the piece directed down the wooden support, save for a small rectangle inadvertently pinned against the wall - a last-ditch attempt to halt gravity in its tracks.
Tariq Hussein
Tariq Hussein's 'Archemdosaur' - a combination of inflatable toy and plastic water bottles - mixed humour with maths and functionality. Hussein worked out the volume of the toy by filling it with water in a bath and then proceeded to translate the equivalent volume of water into bottles which he attached to the toy until it stood upright. The absurd site of the inflatable toy kept upstanding by these bizarre ballasts could be read as a metaphor for keeping afloat outmoded systems, often referred to as 'dinosaurs'.
James Burke, 'Neurotic'ism' and Contradiction'
James Burke's practice is no less interesting visually, but far less political and plays into the current fashion for'design art'. His interest in the tensions created by the contradiction between the established aesthetic or ideological dictums that accompany sculpture or painting, versus the practical demands that need to be met when creating a product result in iridescent works that lie somewhere between painting, sculpture and photography but are also suggestive of windows or seating. Formed from digital prints, Perspex and foamex, the works were some of the most visually arresting in the show.
Szu Han Chen's video installation possessed a greater degree of subtlety than Burke's but was no less powerful. 'Seeking the Truth' involved a video performance of Chen sitting before a table, legs akimbo, slicing up carrots and candles. Placed in front of the video was a small table set for dinner, a candle in the centre (the intention being that the viewer place themselves there and instead of being presented with food, they 'consume' the video). According to Chen, 'The process of slicing objects is a metaphor of my desire to seek the truth, especially in relationships. Choosing carrots and candles which still look the same after being sliced, indicates sometimes there is no truth at all.'
Other strong video pieces included Louis Dijon and Jennifer Schwartze's film 'Run Sissi Run' which reached the final round of the Ohne Kohle Film Festival in 2004 and centred on what they describe as the fading cultural conditions in Austria, and Wei-Liang's animated film 'Body language' that aims to present the intricacies of a couple's relationship solely through the use of animation techniques, omitting all speech and sound.
Jane Neal
Jane Neal is an Oxford-based freelance journalist and critic. Her special focus over the past year has been the developing art scene in Central and Eastern Europe. She contributes to a wide variety of international art publications.
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