- Venue
- Centre for Chinese Conetemporary Art
- Location
- North West England
Basing a piece of art, however flimsily, on another cultural product is not uncommon and fraught with problems. Sure, the artist can use the other piece as a hook to pull in people and provides grist for the PR mill, but it can invite unhelpful comparisons. One of Tsang Kin-Wah’s pair of installations at the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester references Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining”, while the second piece – in the toilets – stands alone. The two pieces are linked to one another, but the large “Shining” installation has the upper hand, being as it is in the main gallery and likely to be seen by more people.
In the gallery piece transparent vinyl has been stuck to the walls and then cut to shape letters which crawl up and down the wall, which makes it hard to read. The dim lighting means that the only way the text can be read is by moving the head until the vinyl catches the light. The text is revealed slowly, intriguingly. What we do read when we crane our necks is what I take to be part of Nicholson’s dialogue; stuff like “I would never do anything to hurt you” and “I love you more than anything else in the whole world”. Having seen the film, we know how hollow these reassurances are. There is also an audio element to the installation. The sound is a close cousin the film’s soundtrack which is electronic, slow and, in a very real sense, dreadful. Without it the words could be read as bland or, in the case of the more obscene texts, bawdy black humour, but by having tonal noise accompany the words means that this interpretation is closed off, forcing the viewer to read the text in a particular way.
Downstairs in the toilets is a piece called “I Love U”: the walls have been papered with a decorative pink floral pattern. On closer inspection the graphic flowers are made up of sentences such as “I Love Your Face” and, more cynically “I Love Your Credit Card”. The play of design against meaning is effective. The sentiment may not be the most revelatory, but coupled with the more sinister text in the main gallery the works begin to spark off one another.
Of course art can engage with or be about anything – why restrict it? – but by allying one’s own work with someone else’s is a dangerous game. This piece pulls details from a complex and satisfying piece of film-making and holds one element up for scrutiny. On the whole it works, but I suspect I would be less convinced if the piece in the main gallery had to stand or fail on its own merits. Coupled with “I Love U” in the toilets the installation begins to intrigue. One of the sad parts of the main installation is that the noise from the street is quite loud which doesn’t help the show. “The Shining” is, after all, a claustrophobic film and the ease of escape onto Thomas Street counts against the visceral effect of the installation. Perhaps if the pieces had been reversed a more disturbing effect may have been achieved.
