after all

I very nearly didn’t go to see the Aftermath exhibition at the Nicholson Institute in Leek yesterday, but I’m glad I did.

All art can be analysed. Don’t worry, I have no intention of delving into deconstruction, semiotics or iconography, but a lot of contemporary art, by selecting from an infinite variety of media, provides more information than ever to pick over. It’s not strictly speaking conceptual art, since it depends on the physical presence of the work, but its emphasis on ideas and its deviation from traditional Fine Art techniques and materials mean that its success depends largely on how the viewer reacts. That, in turn, depends on his or her knowledge, experience, ideas and thoughts. I confess, then, that some of the art on show left me uninvolved, and that says as much about me as it does about the art.

I liked ‘OHP’ by Stuart Porter, one of the first pieces you see on entering the gallery: an overhead projection onto the gallery wall of a monochrome drawing of a hanging jacket. The light shines through gaps in the drawing, so the jacket takes on the colour of the wall, like a chameleon against its background, partly hidden, its presence in question, for of course the jacket isn’t there. It’s just a projection of light that bypasses shaded areas.

Other pieces were intriguing, playing with ideas – the reflections, transformations and parallels of Phil Rawle’s blackened wood and white-painted wood formed opposites yet weren’t, a yin and yang that didn’t contain the other and wouldn’t become the other. ‘Festival 86’ by Anna Francis was slightly creepy, with the distance of 23 years since the National Garden Festival (and the styles and ideas of the time) both elongated and foreshortened by the continuing existence of tacky souvenirs and seedlings growing in trays.

David Bethel’s pieces also intrigued me. ‘You are Starving Me’ consists of model houses placed in polystyrene and cardboard takeaway food cartons, surrounded by gardens and water made of jigsaw pieces, some assembled to provide pictures as scenery and others acting as parts of flower bushes or just the colour of leaves and plants. The boxes are interspersed among the other pieces in the gallery, some open, others shut (and who knows what might be inside those?). The juxtaposition of such disparate elements is interesting – subverted chocolate box tweeness in throwaway containers, a lack of nourishment that is more than just physical.

‘I Know You are Always There’, also by David Bethel, hinted at the separate existence of breath or words once they leave our mouths, twisting in the air like a game of Snake on mobile phones. Is the title reassuring or frightened? Was the frequent, muttered repetition of the word “breathe” over the headphones an attempt to calm down or encouragement to stay alive? Was the piece referring to the things we say on the spur of the moment then immediately regret but can never take back? Do we continue a form of existence in other people’s memories when we are apart? Through its display on a television screen or computer monitor, perhaps it referred to the continuing existence of ephemeral things on the Internet, cached in Google or other archives and beyond our control? Perhaps it was referring to the endless existence of the atoms that briefly make up our bodies and then take some other form once we die.

I recently worked with Katie May Shipley, so I may be accused of bias, but I found her piece, ‘For Losing Yesterday (3)’, to be the most moving in the exhibition. A piece of embroidery lies on a chair, with a bag on the floor beside it. Has the person working on it merely put it down temporarily while they left the room? The image on the embroidery is so abstract as to appear random, though it may just be unfinished. If that is the case, though, why is it the same as the pattern lying to the other side? Has the embroiderer abandoned the piece, or are they trying to create an image based on an imperfect memory? Why is the phrase ‘What time is it?” repeated on tape spilling out of the bag? Is someone unable to remember what the time is? Our pasts are nothing but memories, and if we can’t rely on them, how much do we have left? Is it better or worse to be aware that our memories are imperfect? My father had Alzheimer’s Disease for many years, and gradually became a shadow of his former quick intellect before he died, so, for me, these are important questions.

The notes supplied to viewers in the gallery provide more material for the process of analysis and understanding. They explain the theme of the exhibition, so loose a link as to be discernible only after the event. Some notes, such as those for David Bethel, are so terse and mispelled as to be unhelpful, presumably deliberately. Others are interesting, providing useful information, and some offer context for the artists’ themes.

In the end, however, the art that has the most impact is the art to which viewers bring their own ideas and emotions. Give me hints and suggestions, choose and place symbols in my mind, and leave me to make my own connections.

Tags: conceptual art