Blackpaint 434 – Creed; the Piles, the Cacti and the Suspense

Hayward Gallery – Martin Creed, “What’s the Point of it?”

This was reviewed on the Review Show (BBC2) and was described as “joyous” by Paul Morley; the others agreed.  I was astounded to hear that music was part of the exhibition, in the form of several soundtrack items – I was totally unaware of this; just didn’t notice it, I suppose.  In fact, the reviewers mentioned a number of items I missed; as always, sounded as if they were at a different show.

It’s packed with exhibits, mostly numbered not named – here’s my list, with the occasional comment:

• Swinging “MOTHERS” sign, nearly skimming the head, if your as tall as me (6ft 4in)
• Diminishing, or growing, stacks/lines of cacti, chairs, tables, planks, boxes, girders

• Pictures of stepped pyramids and staircases

• Stripe paintings on walls (horizontal, vertical, diagonal,  criss-crossed…)
• Film of rather small erect penis, gradually diminishing, on terrace
• Pointed tower of LEGO
• Rough portraits, duff portraits, freely painted, multi – colour abstracts (small)
• Metal nozzles, protuberances and er – intuberances (?) like bathroom fittings
• smooth white breast-shaped swellings, “growing” from wall
• Dark piano, each key of which sounded at intervals by attendant
• White piano, lid opening and crashing shut automatically at regular intervals
• Door, opening and closing
• Car, bonnet, doors and boot of which opening and shutting, lights on and off, regular intervals
• Line of metronomes, out of sync (when we were there, anyway)
• 1000 differently coloured and framed prints of a broccoli “tree”
•  A load of balls (tennis, basketball, football, etc.)
• Little ticky-tacky paint and tape pictures, quite nice
• Video of two dogs, wolf hound and chihuahua, wandering about and pursued by men
• Video of a young man and young woman, walking on into a white space and being sick on the floor.  The man is first, and accomplishes his puking with something of a swagger; hands on hips, I think.  The woman, however, outdoes him with about six consecutive large sploshes of thin red winey vomit – couple of bottles’ worth, I should think.  Well done!
• Separating the two vomits is a sequence in which a young woman comes on, hitches her dress up, squats down and proceeds to have a shit.  This is quite tense, as at first, she only manages a couple of little pellets.  She grunts a bit; obviously she thinks there is more to come.  I got a little annoyed at this point when a young couple came and stood in front of me – didn’t want to miss anything…. and then there it was – curling out slowly and finally achieving separation.  She stands and walks off; job done.

In the leaflet, it says “horrible vomit” becomes a form of painting, and shit – the first solid thing that any of us makes – is sculpture”.  This reminds me of the David Foster Wallace story of the man who shits out fully-formed “sculptures” like portrait busts of celebrities…

Saatchi Gallery – Body Language (cont.)

Couple more painters worth a mention in the above exhibition:

Dana Schutz

This one’s called “burnt Picnic”, I think;

And Andra Ursuta

“Vandal Lust”, a fantastical trebuchet (catapult) thing – sort of ramshackle Anish Kapoor, not working – with a couple of flattened, smashed bodies lying around, one of which appears to have been propelled into a wall, going by the damage to the plaster.

Denis Tarasov‘s Russian and Ukrainian gravestone C prints, showing the dead in their lives with their cars, cigars and champagne are worth mentioning too.

Days of 36, Angelopoulos (1974)

Made under the “Colonels’ ” regime in Greece, on a tight budget, this story of a jail hostage taking and the political intrigue behind the scenes is difficult to follow at times; whose is the body fished out of the sea, for example?  It does, however, have a scene which anticipates “The Shawshank Redemption”; music (a tango, it sounds like) is played in the compound – the inmates crowd the windows of the cells, overcome with emotion…

Burmese Days 

Re-reading Orwell’s book to compare it to Forster’s Passage to India.  Orwell’s is much more forceful, more angry, the language of the British violent and racially abusive; maybe it’s the 10 years’ difference between the books, as well as Orwell’s more radical (?)political outlook..  A couple of scornful remarks about Jews and homosexual scoutmasters from Flory, Orwell’s “hero” (sort of)…

 

Garden House

Blackpaint

14.02.14

Tags: Andra Ursuta, Dana Schutz, David Foster Wallace, Days of 36, Denis Tarasov, EM Forster, George Orwell, Martin Creed, The Shawshank Redemption, Theo Angelopoulos