- Venue
- The Grundy Art Gallery
- Location
- North West England
Extra Ordinary
Approaching The Grundy Art Gallery the sound of “Champion the Wonder Horse” hangs in the heavy summer air. It is coming from the Catholic club next door. Andy Knight is hitting the “mighty cannonball” line quite hard as I enter.
Inside I hear birdsong from above and realise that apart from the gulls I have not heard any birds so far during our stay in Blackpool.
The show is punctuated by outbursts of laughter and broad smiles.
There are big names and new names but I don’t feel like mentioning names yet.
A beautifully slick video segues seamlessly between Harry Houdini’s feats of escapology and airliner safety instructions. I find straight faced airhostesses being chained up quite the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.
In another space are three sets of improvisational videos. A Woman climbs into a fur coat in a wardrobe and, with the aid of two balls of blue wool, turns herself into an amazingly convincing cartoon monster.
Next she squirms under a bed and proceeds to jiggle about until it looks like a piece of special effects from “Poltergeist” or “The Exorcist” (without the ectoplasm, blood or vomit) Two men come into the gallery after she has hidden herself and are fooled (perhaps). A tattooed man stuffs a duvet and pillows up his t-shirt and then lies down exhausted on the bed.
A little cardboard box tells us it is a box (it is quite philosophical about its lot). Next door, a giant box doesn’t really need to say anything.
Two enormous museum cases hold six colour pencil drawings. The meticulous drawings look beautiful and I am made aware of the huge empty space above them. I know what the objects are but I’m not sure it is important.
A conversation sparked by the drawings (the artist is surreptitiously recording it):
“Ooh I like that”
“He died of a stroke”,
“If I’d married him I’d have been widowed twice.”
“Suc des Vosges”
“French? I’ve been there.”
This part of the exhibition is quieter, less brash, but next door is a rollercoaster of a film swooping over a series of film posters. Mark Wahlberg flashes past but too quickly for me to ask him what the hell is going on.
There’s also a big boat made of old wardrobes which may have once contained monsters. Actually it is bigger than big, it must have come flat packed from Mr “you know who’s” warehouse.
I see two sights on my way back to the B&B
1. A man with axe in his head. It is one of those plastic ones, half bladed with blood like thick icing not even slightly convincing.
2. A man with a scar running from the top of his shaved head down vertically until it just bifurcates his eyebrow. Actually it is more than a scar it is a furrow, a deep groove. I am not quite sure how he survived the wound which looks to me like a blow from an axe or cleaver.
The world and this excellently paced show are full of wonderful things it is curated by Stuart Tulloch and the artists involved are:
Brian Griffths
Annabel Dover
Simon Patterson
Nina Könnemann
Shimabuku
Sofia Hultén
