- Venue
- Moot
- Location
MOOT gallery has moved to a new location within Nottingham and the new gallery space opens with a solo exhibition of work by established midlands artist Tomas Chaffe. His work frequently responds directly to the gallery space within which it is situated, Chaffe has developed a strong and impressive practice which often treats the gallery as a site. The show is very minimal and many of his works are made with an aesthetic that attempts to hide and blend in with the gallery.
The only obvious presence upon entry is a large white box scratched and gorged with a variety of awkward marks that we recognise from neglected walls or corridors where furniture has been moved several times. 192x1713x630mm (The Largest Possible Plinth To Enter The Gallery Space Without Altering The Fabric Of The Building) is a self-explanatory sculpture. Many of his works exist as objects formed from following a simple idea or motive. With this piece he has exposed the spatial limits that the gallery space imposes upon the possibilities of display through a menial task: that of measuring making and moving. The work produced is informed by and limited to, the extremities the exhibition space possesses.
Even with the list of works and map some pieces can be hard to find and the gallery as a whole appears unfinished or empty. These hard to recognise works embody the argument of the Gettier Problem beautifully. Considering that the gallery has just opened, the thought rests in the back of your mind that while it is unlikely, it is possible that some things may not have been finished quite as intended in time for the opening night, a context to which some of these works are enhanced by. Double-takes may only appear after an impressive amount of investigation because many of his works can appear much like something other than artwork, as things appropriate to the space but which have a slight awkwardness about them, as if they have malfunctioned.
He has managed in this show and in previous exhibitions to simulate and allude to an environment that we might not desire to inhabit for very long. In 2007 he installed a series of ceiling props at Surface Gallery (Nottingham) that appeared to be supporting the ceiling. The gallery was in the basement of a five-storey building and the evenly spaced props appeared to be retaining the strength of the building. They convincingly looked real and simultaneously insufficient to this purpose, thus making the space more than uninviting. Chaffe performed the unnecessary with extravagance and succeeded in misleading his audience; temporarily removing them from the mindset of being within a gallery.
Amongst this show of physical responses to the gallery space a few works want to speak about quantity, value and the monetary side of art. The Perspex collection box by the entrance Viewer Added Value (Artist Run Gallery) collects change from more generous visitors. It is not part of the gallery, but a simple device by Chaffe, which without much immediate urgency comments on the position money has within this environment. Losing Costs is an illuminated desk globe which sits on a windowsill and has its energy consumption highlighted by a wattage meter. It has been on from the opening night and left on up until the show closes. Progress Report; a bound paper book containing all the proposals for developments currently waiting for planning permission approval within Nottinghamshire, take our thoughts else-where and lead them away from the gallery. It is with a slight sense of relief that these works have taken a new direction; it would be unfortunate to see another artist become bogged down in making repeats or slight variations on finished pieces of previous work. I think that the work which is more traditional of Chaffe is more accomplished, but I am intrigued by these new avenues he is exploring and look forwards to seeing how they develop.
