- Venue
- Limoncello Gallery
- Location
so, as a recent degrees unedited blogger,i responded to the call to review the limoncello summer fete, a 12-3 event that appealed as a fun thing to pop along to on a sunny saturday. writing a review i thought would be an interesting step forward, and having just read joanne lee’s article on unprofessional development – in praise of the amateur critic, i feel slightly less awkward, hoping that my act of writing will ‘develop genuine and critical friendships, which support and challenge the activities of artists and critics…with sociability at its heart’.
here goes my less than 1,500 words…
so it starts with the promise of fun, boasting ‘a wide range of attractions: from ‘splat the rat’, tombolas, homemade produce, ‘sponge the gallerist’, to fortune-tellers, live music, treaties and crafts. More entertainment follows including a fashion show, jelly eating competitions and ‘pin-the-tail on the Wallinger’. expecting a loud hoo-haah, i was surprised to find the event lurking behind a quiet corner, with no signs of enticement from the street. the space was lined with foldy tables and wares displayed – turners tombola did appear to be a pastiche of everything you wold not want to take home with you on the bus without a bag, i had an urge to invest my 10pence in a ‘go’ but all i could do is stand and think about what i would do with an item if i had won it, and why on earth i still had a strong desire to play. sanders jones jewelry was desirable however, as was poppy”s prints, a selection of artwork, notebooks and cards, safias london wardrobe and the bric-a-brac (items individually priced) also bore no sign of satire. the timetable of events was listed and there was a mingle of fete goers milling. the band, rayguns look real enough, two fellas, one guitar and a tamborine with ‘all the best bits of all the best songs’ were very poppy-happy-fun’n fitting, injecting a smile and a tappy foot to all in the room, although my foot stopped for a bit when the popping of a balloon made me spill my fizzy pop all down my leg. the jelly eating competiton was the next event. four signed up and the wobbly red stuff was shoveled in to the sound of the encouraging onlookers, whilst i pulled a funny face at the thought eating wobbly red stuff quickly, and what effect that would have on the rest of my day. all this non-participation on my behalf stopped when the paper airplane competition was announced, i grabbed a sheet of a4 gallery blurb and started folding. the winer was the owner of the plane that stayed up the longest, and it did cross my mind to form a compact ball and throw it skywards, the second thought was to phone a son and get him to pass on his wining design over the phone. however, this did seem to me to be getting overly competitive and a bit sneaky, so i fashioned a vaguely aerodynamic craft out of jonathan griffin’s press release and lined up. the group run and launch produced a tie and one plane that went missing in action, lost without a trace. the fly-off produced a overjoyed winner and a bit of a glum face from the second placed. it was fun, simple and a bit silly, but fun like when you were 5 and things didnt matter so much. this was until the ‘sponge the gallerist’ where upon the interaction with a wet sponge felt very mean and not fun at all, a few threw but it did question motives and if those joining in were performing an act of rottenness or had in fact forgotten the gallery context and were really out to soak the organiser. now here it is, the thing that is supposed to matter, and what i have been asked to opinionate about,,, because it is in a gallery there is an arts context (?). the event reminded me of ‘one pound turbo market (you’ll have a good time) by surasi kusolwong at tate mod in 2006, a performance installation drawing from asian floating markets and thai customs of cheerfulness and hospitality, engaging the viewer in participating. accompanied by a dj the audience exchanged a pound for a piece of colourful plastic- hat/bag/mask etc. it was fun. we interacted, families, young, teens, mature and knowledgeable art goers too, and we knew it was art as it was in a gallery. there were no children or obvious day-outters at limoncello, the audience was made up of knowledgeable art-goers. had there been children attending perhaps it would have been different, i assosciate fetes with kids pointing, spending from a tiny purse and interacting, they happened to be absent. the arts context gave permission to the grown ups, we were allowed to play without having to give way to ‘the little ones’. we knew it was an arts event in a gallery, we understood how and what it meant to behave in a performative way. we were part of a community, not the ones outside the door – the un-invited of hackney, we were part of the arts community and this fete was a ‘happening’. we all knew it could be read in a wordy fashion with quotes from art theory and art history but does that really matter? perhaps what does matter is that it transported us to being 5 again, with our tiny purses, un-caring about the effects of eating a large bowl of jelly as-fast-as-we-could, not really caring what we won on the tombola , just being interested in the wining buzz and just having a bit of a silly time on a sunny saturday afternoon (in a fluxus sort-of-way, of course).
