Moths to / from a Flame; The Day Nobody Died

Moths to / from a Flame; The Day Nobody Died

16 September, 2008
by: Claireflan

What seems at first to be a resolute disregard for the restricted space of T1+2 Gallery – and thus an anti-curatorial presentation by Makiko Nagaya – is in fact quite the opposite. The works fill the gallery as though it were a stowaway box or treasure trove: ceramic sculptures and works on paper are arranged on waist-high tables or plinths, while the sound space is filled with a two-screen sampling of Scorsese's film adaptation of The Age of Innocence. Two story-board-type photographic works are arranged from floor to ceiling, and four very large paintings are not so much displayed as much as arrayed, making one overall work comprising of countless overlaid images and materials, within and without of each individual object.

To structure a show in such a way that it thoroughly defines the interpretation of the works beyond verbal or written explanations, and yet does not enter the boundaries of installation, takes the confidence of a talented curator. That Nagaya has trained as a curator, and proves to be as much a curator as an artist gives the game away. She manages to layer these two activities as successfully as the works themselves and this is very satisfying for the audience.

Sadly, there are too many individual works to discuss. However, one important conceit of the exhibition is the Rorschach psychological tests (or ink blot tests) that are used as a template for much of the paper work and the four canvases of sumptuous colours and patterns. The Rorschach tests have a profound symmetry with art: drawing on diverse life experiences, people see different things and subsequently find their conclusions to hold deep significance.

Life experiences of a profound kind are the subject of Adam Broomberg & Olivier Chanarin's beautifully simple 'The Day Nobody Died' exhibition, which is one step across the unmarked threshold between T1+2 and Paradise Row.

Delightfully contrasting with the hectic conquest of Nagaya's show, Broomberg and Chanarin's photo-film generated pieces are meticulously installed in Perspex aisles for our visual (and hopefully intellectual) consumption. The images were taken during the artists' five-day trip to Afghanistan during the bloodiest month of the war in terms of British fatalities. The artists then unrolled sections of the sizable photographic paper, exposing it to the sun for 20 seconds. Modulated by heat and light and the already existing bends and curls, the arbitrary results are subtle and complex patterns of variegated hues.

The artists deny the relative spoon-feeding offered up by photojournalistic reportage to the comfortably shocked and compassionate viewer. Here you are challenged to marry a knowledge of the works' origins with the abstract forms before you, to imagine the atmosphere the paper has witnessed, and question art's relationship with politics and morality as well as your own relationship with images of violence. There is no moral proxy or cathartic experience to be found at Paradise Row.

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Claireflan