- Venue
- Spectacle Gallery
- Location
What defines current UK sculpture? Is there any characteristic, theme or methodology linking artists working across Britain today?
‘Obstacle’ curated by Dan Mort charts a range of practices and interests, its strength lying not only in its diversity but also the way in which artists from vastly different educational backgrounds and far flung locations have been included. Mort has shown in this, his second curated show, the same applied research and skilled finish that is intrinsic to his own sculptural practice.
The work involved failure, fragility and rehabilitation through pieces by David Kefford, Joanne Dennis and Ian Rawlinson, and also the divide between nature and culture, vanity and transience with the work of Sovay Berriman, Michael Stumpf and Alastair Mackie. The single room space of Spectacle Gallery transforms into an assault course of ideas for the viewer to contend with.
The fragile humanity of Joanne Dennis’ sculpture drew an interesting contrast with the shoddy glamour of ‘When we slow down’ and ‘Cluster – Wichtel Welt’ by Michael Stumpf. All straps, buckles, disembodied letters and golden drips, Stumpf’s work is both incredibly pertinent to, and at the same time bitingly satirical of the cannon of current sculpture a la mode. Other standout works were ‘Mud Hut’ by Alastair Mackie, which flawlessly recreated Capitol Hill from manure and mud, embracing the inevitable demise of built space and the futility of the money and power invested in it, and also ‘The Intentional Fallacy’ by Mort himself.
In Mort’s own work a child’s motorbike is skewered by a spit which is as clean and precise as the bike is tawdry. Underneath, books and driftwood collapse on a bed of rocks which resemble formal modernist abstractions.
‘The Intentional Fallacy’ asks whether we can be objective in relating to an object, by tearing the viewer between sentiment and desire, setting memory and aesthetic purity against each other. Mort’s intelligent and considered investigation of the divide between sculpture and object is mirrored by the quality of selection and curation of the show as a whole.
Matt Roberts is an artist and Curator
