- Venue
- University of Brighton Gallery
- Location
- South East England
If you live in Brighton, call yourself an artist and miss this then maybe you’re an idiot; John Goto’s travelling exhibition New World Circus that is. A secondary title is Portrait of the Artist as a Clown so maybe it’s okay to be one anyway.
Until the end of August this Focal Point Gallery initiated show sits at University of Brighton Gallery, the most substantial contemporary art space in Brighton ast it happens but taken-for-granted. Passers by are possibly enticed by the sensory overload on offer nearby, Palace/Brighton Pier, the (inappropriately named) Sealife Centre or drawn by the rhythm of waves on the seafront? Ceiling height, proximity to passing traffic, a large green space on one side and the quantity of glass window surround allows work inside to be seen from many points of view and from radically different distances. As a result what at first seems a simple exhibition space is deceptively difficult to curate.
In the case of Goto’s current show success has been achieved by keeping the layout simple, hanging in appropriate groupings: one horizontal line of prints is spread along the main wall of the gallery. Sequencing like this, story-board style, points to the artist’s stated interest in narrative but also makes sense in terms of the walk-through nature of the gallery itself which is in effect a long hall.
What about the content? Intermission is just one of the thirty ‘pigment prints on cotton paper’ (framed and behind glass) on display. Each picture has a name and crucial subtitle: in the case of Intermission it is shop shop. We are faced with an image of four actors including the artist himself performing (and doing it perfectly, with suitably animated facial expressions and looks of palpable intensity) for the camera, mimicking ubiquitous generic retail sales types but looking also like a group of circus-ushers from hell. The two characters in the middle carry quaint vending trays containing a selection of, on the left, petrochemical liquids and bottled waters and, on the right, a variety of pharmaceuticals and drugs. Logos for the brands Monsanto, Texaco, Nestlé, Evian, Thames Water, Bayer, Dow, Pfizer, Seven Seas and others appear. The female figure to the right wears a lab coat and also holds an oversized syringe in one hand and two fat joints in the other. Everything is mixed together; no discrimination is made between legal and illegal, prescription drugs and vitamin tablets, mineral water and petrol, the brands liberals hate and those they never question. The character on the far right flirts with us while presenting an Apple ibook G4 and also a logo-adorned vest (advertising mainly media companies like Sony, CNN, EMI, Disney, Nintendo and Virgin). On the far left of the picture John Goto, as ringmaster Pops McGovern, faces us wearing a US military helmet, carrying weapons and holding a highly decorated crucifix.
Heavy violet coloured curtains hang behind, five bright lights puncture the purple backed edge on each side and the characters stand on green circles. Colour, generally modified through lighting effects within the image, has been given serious attention and appears to be the result of acute insight or experience. Secondary colours or certainly greens, violets and indigos dominate and dampen the potential impact or distraction likely if more vivid hues were permitted to protrude. To the top centre above the performers’ heads a sign simply reads ‘sales’. On the floor, in the middle, stands a small artificial Christmas tree.
What does Intermission mean? Satisfaction possibly comes from a paradox: what is presented here does indeed communicate, does correspond to a distilled outcome, is the result of controlled effort, might be readable but also this is a picture and therefore it cannot be didactic, it can not tell us any one thing. Like much contemporary imagery this Photoshop-engineered montage is surreal, more likely to initiate thinking than close off possibilities. Goto, who in a text supplied for the show refers to Roland Barthes’ use of the terms Studium and Punctum, is clearly interested in the importance of disturbances to the equilibrium. In a sense the breaking of the line of prints (referred to above) with other clusters of images and a partition within the gallery has this effect on the higher level of the exhibition as a whole but each image also contains deliberate surprises and contrived sequences of suspense followed usually by non-comedic punch-line. Michael Young’s soundscape developed to work with the show integrates itself in this awkward way too, for periods mingling with ambient audio then piercing through, attacking the complacency as soon as it has been generated. Looking for clear messages in Intermission, one might produce the following list:
laughter and fool-acting take place in conjunction with destruction and self-destruction
the big corporations are similar to each other: they are part of the same world
capitalism is a visual language
comedy and entertainment mask something else
selling and violence go hand in hand
sales techniques imply falseness
selling is a form of entertainment
horror and light-entertainment can be combined
you, the spectator, can see through all this or participate in it
It would be easy to continue. Subversive stuff definitely, not all original ideas either (to any person who chooses to think and look around them at least) but by no means patronising. It is difficult to understand, considering this communicative clarity, why these images provide something so multidimensional. Each work is absolutely full. Within each rectangle no fraction of space is wasted or disregarded. For many reasons the experience is satisfying and simultaneously disruptive. The blatant propaganda aspect is accurate, corresponds to truth be it truth some might not wish to admit and this integrity, this refusal to be subtle is another reason why the work is so compelling. The clown traditionally crossed a space between performance and audience and in doing so undermined illusion, broke the fourth wall of theatre. What’s more, ‘the fool’ historically was given licence to spurt out truths of the type referred to above. If John Goto’s analogy is correct then, in the contemporary situation, this freedom to make frank observations has got to be the greatest privilege, and dare I say it duty, for artists.
