- Venue
- Cell Project Space
- Location
- London
Review of a show I haven't seen
On the way to London I saw the wife of a friend at Ipswich station. I had a sudden horror of having to make conversation all the way to London, of there being signal failure and being stuck for hours in a stifling carriage. The horror wasn't born out of a worry that she was boring but more that I was boring and I would be embarrassed by my lack of social grace. Suffering from severe performance anxiety I ducked my head rapidly and scooted along the platform.
My plans for the day involved meeting Sue Jones in a Cafe and then going on to Cell Project Space to catch "Look! no Hands" a group show involving: Athanasios Argianas, Kim Coleman & Jenny Hogarth and Simon Faithfull. The premise of the exhibition was that each artist used video to mediate performance.
I arrived way too early for my meeting, but not early enough to go somewhere else or do anything useful. Undeterred I filled my time drinking coffee and checking my emails until I realised that most London cafés don't seem to have toilets. After that I moved on to tea. I had texted Sue and, although we had met before, I thought it best to use the blind date technique of telling her I would be wearing a red jumper. The cafe we had arranged our rendezvous was blisteringly hot and by the time she arrived I was sheeting sweat and attracting worried glances from the waiters. I was now suffering from imminent bladder failure coupled with severe dehydration but I don't think she noticed. My biggest fear (apart from wetting myself) was that Sue would ask me to develop some sort of performance for Whitstable but she didn't.
After the meeting I set off for Cell swankily using my iPhone to guide me. I had checked the website but had been unable to find out if it would be open. I won't go on but it wasn't and I turned away with a small smile. (I've since found the opening times in very tiny print)
I had met Simon Faithfull some years earlier on an Arts Council junket to Berlin (I was an unfunded hanger on). He had been very nice and had talked ultra earnestly about his work. I had said very little and drunk steadily. Since the meeting I have made conscious reference to his Antarctic residency by applying not to go and tracing photographs of icebergs, penguins etc from the British Antarctic Survey's website. I was really looking forward to seeing some of his video work partly because of its subject matter but also because he seems to set things up and just let them go. The video in the show of him walking away from the camera and leaving it to sort itself out sounded interesting and disappointing at the same time.
I think I've seen either Kim Coleman or Jenny Hogarth in a show at Studio Voltaire. I was hiding from my work which was in the other room and enjoying their subtle and slightly awkward video projection of changing light reflections, I think one of them may have been standing bravely opposite. While watching I remember being slightly irked that an occasional hand would appear amongst the slightly seventies patterns. It seemed like carelessness but that didn't stop their video being one of my favourite pieces in the show. I was looking forward to seeing more in which their presence was more blatant. On the Cell website they are pictured looking like amateur cat burglars.
I had no clue about Athanasios Argianas so that would have provided an interesting new experience for me. "Look! no hands" is open Friday Saturday and Sunday. I highly recommend it.
