- Venue
- Tate St Ives
- Location
- South West England
The bright August sunshine gently infringes upon Tate St. Ives; as beach-wear clad visitors leave a scattered trail of sand they emphasise the move from brightly patterned tourist town to the cool, calm and contemplative interior of the gallery.
Adam Chodzko’s work discusses this relationship with site by using themes and symbols which recognise the gallery space and surrounding area while narrating in his characteristically fragmented style.
With a flurry of carnivals and fairs this work seems at home in the (fleeting) British summer – the events are hypothetical and dreamlike, and like a classic seaside postcard’s infectious jollity we can empathise with the artists’ ambition and feed into his hopeful, pleasure seeking subjects.
Projection spaces interrupt the sunny gallery, showing slide and video works which explore the alternatives of situations in an attempt to search for the perfect outcome. These pieces are a rebirth – the different time-based mediums corrupt our understanding of the narrative sequence while the change in light and temperature within the space disorientate the viewer and disengage them from St. Ives’ tourist atmosphere.
Chodzko’s references to stiles and pathways, animals and wanderlust-fuelled freedom are wry hints to his site specific piece situated on the Coastal path between St.Ives and Zennor. This large-scale poster follows his series ‘The Meetings’ and jars abruptly with the natural beauty of the path. Chodzko’s work attempts to get it all wrong – echoed in the wrong place and wrong season found in ‘Borrowed Cold Lodge’, where the artist borrowed cold weather clothing from local groups to create a quietly unnerving installation.
Whilst not an obvious choice of exhibition for a town whose galleries are drenched in seascapes, this exhibition gets it all right as Chodzko’s work humorously complements and eloquently converses with the Cornish Coast.
