- Venue
- surface Gallery
- Location
- East Midlands
After a full day studying I was cordially invited to tonight’s special viewing of a local exhibition at the Surface Gallery just outside the Lace Market (Process and Produce: Promotion.) By Hannah Florence Cresswell & Paige Ockendon Stepping into the awkwardly placed quaint little space, I found myself to feel a state of displacement with an awkward intimacy to the installations placed around me.
Unsure of what to make out as ‘the art’ it became hard to understand the relationships between each object, so they were simply just obscure. The set up seemed odd with a lot of empty space, as if the installations were dropped in without any consideration of the foreseeable crowds which would fill the space between. By any means the whole thing seemed reckless. And the space that the viewer needs to gain a sense of understanding was taken away.
But the highlight and frankly refreshing take on the night was the live performance by four performing artists. at a ‘pop-up’ stage of two tables together to create the illusion of a hand made conveyor belt. Bringing the exhibit together and giving perspective to which would otherwise be a seemingly rigid, awkward, cold and heavily controlled environment with dropped in art pieces randomly.
At first I didn’t understand the piece being performed live in front of me. Finding myself standing behind the crowd and me self-confessing to not reading the exhibit brief before I arrived. I was stumbling into the unknown, lost to the art. I questioned if there any point to what I was viewing and were we all wasting our time? Patrons were walking out the door at this point. Assuming they did the same as me and were lost in what they had become unknowingly immersed in, due to not reading the brief and assuming the worst on the seemingly drone like performance.
However after viewing a few scenes of the performances, split into ten-minute intervals, It becomes clear there is a meaning to what has been set up and how it is mindlessly repetitive. You don’t need to read the brief, the performance becomes powerful. Although I was still aware there is an underlying capitalist statement behind the piece, you gain an insight and understanding to the segregated works.
Posters pinned to the walls reveal secrets to the next performance approaching. I found myself unable to resist wondering what I would be experiencing next, and really enjoyed the irony on the play of a conveyor belt being pulled by a person. For me it seemed so ironic that the whole ‘person machine’ could function without any mechanical instigation in this day an age. When we reap the rewards of our technological advancement in the capitalist world we live in.
The actions which created the objects or even the objects, which were chosen to be created, did not matter. it was the idea that we can and will revert back to throwing anything together to show we can. For me anyway I was taken back by the realization of what we as a society view to be important, it is not mass production and how much money we can make. It is the idea factories we are all capable of being. It is how we view items or objects, and who or what gives anyone the right to put a value on anything. what is a treasure to one, is nothing more than a cheap relic to others.
This idea came to me after speaking to a colleague on an interval between the next performances. Where it was remarked… ‘so if tonight is the only performance night, what is in place for the rest of the exhibit?’ an interesting and important question. And at the end of the show it became clear the statement made were the pieces created on the conveyor belt by the ‘human machine’. The actions were the significance. That we possess the ability to value and put on pedestals what is important to us. This is the art. Created by the action of an artistic performance.
