- Venue
- The Wellcome Collection
- Location
- London
The Wellcome Collection’s last exhibition, Dirt: The Filthy reality of Everyday Life (24 March – 31 August 2011), takes you time travelling through some of history’s most dirt obsessed cultures. The exhibits range from paintings, films, found objects and sculptures; to Antonie van Leeuwenhoek’s 17th century microscopes and Santiago Sierra’s 5 Anthropometric Modules Made From Human Faeces. The space is jam-packed with exhibits as you are overloaded with information, memorabilia and historical artefacts all concerning the grimy reality of life. However, it is hard to believe that this exhibition is being presented in an art gallery, as I would consider it more appropriate in a history museum. One review on the Telegraph website stated ‘As an art exhibition, Dirt is disappointing. There is little by the way of visual impact, which feels like an opportunity missed… it relies too heavily on some quite mundane and random objects (a urine flask, a laundry basket, dust)’. However, the one piece that I consider intriguing is the most mundane of them all.
Waltzer 2007 by Susan Collis is an old paint-splattered wooden broom, presented leaning against a corner in the first room of the exhibition space. At first glance, it does not appear to be special or distinct in any way; an implement seemingly left behind from a previous exhibition. Yet on closer inspection what appears to be casual paint splatters on the broom is revealed to be carefully inlaid mother of pearl, turquoise, and black and white diamonds. By using these precious materials, Collis transforms a monotonous broom into a treasured object to be looked at and yet not used. The precious materials she uses have no symbolic value but raise the status of this everyday object. ‘I want the viewer to have a pleasant surprise in discovering that what they are looking at isn’t what they thought they were looking at.’ Collis successfully combines opposing terms to describe this one piece of work; throwaway yet precious and random yet meticulous, which makes the viewer confused and almost uncomfortable; it forces them to increase their perception, open their eyes and discover a wonder in the finer details of ordinary objects.
What I like about this piece is its simplicity, its modesty; however, its manufacturing could not be more complicated and time consuming. Labouring for many months on a single piece, Collis consciously celebrates both the humility and discipline of making something impeccable. In one sense, the artist bestows amazing value on this everyday object as she touches it with precise detail and skill. However, in another she is undermining the very worth of her own labour and expensive materials. This is the reason why I find this piece so fascinating, yet frustratingly it is not the reason why I believe Collis’ work does not realise its full potential.
I celebrated the seemingly bare, mundane unambiguousness about Waltzer. I contemplated the irony as I saw people walking straight past the broom that leant against the corner of the room, dismissing it thinking that someone had accidently left it there after the removal of the last exhibition. The crowded exhibition space forces the broom to be hidden away and really emphasises, what I believe, to be the sole purpose of Collis’ work. I believe it is not the physical molecules and particles that is the broom, nor the painstaking effort and craftsmanship that has gone into transforming precious stones into splatters of paint, is the art. It is the act of the viewer, not realising they are a viewer, disregarding the broom as ‘just a broom’. This one unassuming act sums up the intention and conceptual thought behind the art piece entirely. It demonstrates people’s unconscious reaction to the common everyday objects in our society; our generalisation, our predetermined ‘knowledge’ of what we have seen before and will repeatedly see again and again.
However, the only way visitors to the Wellcome Collection knew Collis’ commonplace object was an art piece was because of the ghastly green tape that ran in front of it on the floor. Visitors saw the tape and only then did they see the broom; therefore becoming a viewer to the art piece. This raises the issue and question of what art is, how we perceive art and how we behave in art galleries. The green tape is there presumably and most probably as a security measure; to make sure nobody does mistake the broom for ‘just a broom’ and remove it from the exhibition. However, is that not the point? I would love to have stayed at the Wellcome Collection’s exhibition until closing time in hope of witnessing an unassuming cleaner take the diamond and pearl inlaid broom and use it for its customary purpose, oblivious to its newly enhanced value. Surely, this would validate Collis’ attention to detail and confirm her success in making one thing look like another. However, does it in reality just reiterate society’s unwillingness to question the everyday and consider the finer details? However, this interesting notion cannot be realised because of the way this piece has been presented in the gallery space. I believe Waltzer would have been much more successful as an art piece if it was not presented as one. It would almost be an interactive art piece, though the audience would be not interacting or reacting to it at all – that would be the art.
