Gold Teeth of Despair

The memorabilia matchbox

By BROOK DAVIS

BA students often surprised me this time they surprised me with their innocence.

The Gold Teeth show is flawed in many aspects; there are no single descriptions of the artists involved or about their works, with the understood final result that the whole show is a single installation.

But if he is, many mistakes were made. Or the installation would have to be examined from the outside through the door or a window (non-existent), not allowing the interaction of the visitors or, they would have to create a different layout.

By allowing the entry of the viewers within the installation, it transforms himself from a three-dimensional object to a two-dimensional abstract object, losing the entire context and leads the viewer to individual interpretations of each piece but if so, again, where are the title of the individual pieces and the name of their authors? In other words, the installation becomes disconnected.

Big Brother

Curiously walking in the installation takes us through a surreal world full of innuendos and misunderstandings, foreign travels, movies, music, hobbies … In fact a disconnected world.

However, if as a collective being the installation fails, at the individual level, some of the works live alone, especially because the connotations that we (the viewers) can assigned.

Three of them made me remember interesting situations; a globe attached to a beam in the ceiling, leading to its axis is to be inverted, reminding us of the eminent December 21, 2012 and the reversal of the earth axis. A brilliant installation with glasses on the top of a tower and in is feet a row of pigs confronting a row of sheep at an impasse of immobility, giving clear George Orwell references from 1984, all-seeing omnipresent Big Brother and Animal Farm, the fighting among pigs (ruling class) and sheep (work class). And last but not the least, a set of memorabilia consisting of matchbox arranged as a pennant leading us to a question whether it is just a display of memorabilia or be a flag pro/against tobacco.

Analyzing the whole is an interesting show, and some of the artists have future.

Want to read more? Writings from my Head

Gold Teeth

I really liked this show. I almost loved it but was held back by a slight feeling of jealousy. When I entered the space I thought, ‘shit, this is probably better than our show’. This often happens when I go to see BA work, they lack the fear that MA students seem to have and the work , or the way they use the space, is often better for it (not always though). MA students know too much about what they are doing, this drains the work of excitement. Anyway, I felt excited about the stuff on display this evening. That was my initial reaction. As I moved through I started to feel a little hemmed in, there was too much going on. One student told me he felt that the concept overshadowed the work, what concept? I thought. The concept of a flea market, a vintage shop? There was so much going on it was hard to find a unifying theme, there wasn’t enough irony for it to be ironic, but it was smart, I could sense that beneath the clutter. The concept, if there needed to be one, was overshadowed by the stuff. There was architecture, geometry, collections, display, nostalgia, and a globe clamped to a beam. Too much. Although from the doorway, with no-one else in the space it all came together as a kind of pictoral illusion of a 2d composition. It was beautiful. The care that had gone into the arrangement suggested that the viewer hadn’t been planned into the installation. Maybe they should be kept out, left at the door to view and not disturb. I began to edit, sub-curate within the show. The glass image of the family enjoying the Lake District set upon the foam plinth worked well with the spectacles and the plastic animals. This could stand alone as an installation. The framed text piece ‘he said she said’ with the piece of wood delicately placed leading the eye up toward the angle where wall meets ceiling, I thought was lovely…simple. These two by the two separate artists could have been the group show. Instead what I sensed was an invasion. If my older sister asked me if she could exhibit her work with mine, on my degree, in my final year…I would have to say no. I understand how hard that can be (lucky for me my sister works in recruitment), but Linny should have said ‘NO!’ the work went together like oil and water in this space, the contrast wasn’t drawing attention to anything, the texts were like someone shouting and interrupting our conversation. Linny’s work has a sensitivity and subtlety that could be just amazing, given the space to breathe. It really doesn’t need  a big sister breathing down its neck.