What
Makes You And I Different
Until March 26; Tramway, Glasgow
It might look like a grammatical blunder worthy of Home And Away,
but theres more to the Tramways new exhibition title than
meets the eye. What Makes You And I Different is a sideways reference
to influential 20th century linguist, Émile Benveniste, who
identified the first and second person pronouns, I and
you, as fundamental clues to the nature of language.
These two little words, I and you, are empty
of any specific meaning except at the moment when they are used. Then,
at that moment, the one cant exist without the validation of
the other. Tramway curator Lorraine Wilson takes this argument as
the starting point for her show, gathering together a fascinating
clutch of lens-based art with one thing in common: each artist takes
up position in front of the camera.
If you read Wilsons baffling exhibition text, as I did, before
seeing the exhibition, you might easily conclude that the show will
be impenetrable. In fact, the opposite is true; it is elegant, surprising,
droll, and stunningly beautiful. Around the walls, every artist has
their own discreet niche, and through the dusky twilight of the central
space, Glasgows old tramlines lead your eye to the kitsch oasis
of Beagles and Ramsays Glitter Island, specially commissioned
for this show.
The international cast of artists boasts some big names, including
Matthew Barney, famous for his Cremaster Cycle, here represented by
three sumptuous stills from his latest film, Drawing Restraint 9.
Cindy Sherman contributes two of her legendary photographs from the
early 1980s, and YBA Mat Collishaw assaults you near the entrance
with his interactive Spitting Machine.
The Spitting Machine sorts out whos boss right from the start.
Standing in front of a mirrored cabinet, youre busy admiring
your lovely visage when gradually the artists image creeps into
the picture. He swaggers towards you in his vest, and he spits.
The phlegm oozes down the screen and you cant help but feel
taken aback. An image which is supposed to serve you passively has
fought back, subverting the conventional balance of power. While this
is the most overtly aggressive work in the show, it does prepare you
for a host of videos and photographs which refuse to submit to your
gaze.
None of the works are anything like self-portraits. Some artists,
following in Cindy Shermans footsteps, question our presumptions
about appearance and identity. Others, poker-faced, use their bodies
as pegs on which to hang universal ideas. Among the most striking
are those which remind us of the absurdity of human existence.
In their painfully succinct video, Wood and Harrison crash passively
against each other, as their office chairs ricochet around the inside
of a moving van. In his double projection, Peter Land falls continuously
down a domestic staircase, as the starry screen opposite roams through
the infinite universe. Both works capture the tragi-comedy of life,
made all the more poignant by the artists complete lack of expression.
In a typically absurd installation, Beagles and Ramsay lounge in splendid
isolation on a glittery desert island, dressed in vaguely 18th century
foppish attire. The pair have made countless grotesque self-portraits
over the years, from black puddings to ventriloquists dummies,
and this one is just as much a masquerade as all the others.
Not one artist in this show is particularly interested in conveying
any kind of true, inner self. Dealing with a host of subjects in a
variety of styles, if theres anything that draws the works together
its their resistance to interrogation. That little word I,
just as Benveniste suggested, is an empty void waiting to be filled
by you.
Catrìona
Black, Sunday Herald 05.03.06