Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars

Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars

22 October, 2010
by: Jessica_dunn

Jess Dunn ecounters a massive dog in an art gallery.

'Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars' perfectly describes this exhibition, a load of dogs sitting quietly in cars. But there's also much more to it than that.

The exhibition consists of a series of photographs by Martin Usborne at Printspace on Kingsland Road. After the initial wow factor, you may have a moment's disappointment when you, like me, realise these photos are set up. Perhaps rather naively I'd assumed that Martin had simply stumbled upon these dogs with their night-time gazes. But that's not the case. The hint is in a small picture in a tucked away corridor which shows small slabs of ham being fed through the car window to three rowdy huskies, with a caption that reads, “the dogs were calmed only by Sinead O'Connor”.

From this revelation a new and personal meaning emerges and the results are spell-binding. The pictures themselves depict various breeds of dog in a variety of cars in unsettling and strange night-time scenes. Some of the dogs have a sadness, disappointment or even anger about them. But this is lightened for me at the Private View by the presence of one of the dogs – half-horse, half-dalmatian, it's a friendly creature that stands higher than me on its hind legs. I have photo evidence. It's made more amusing by the fact that he's been crammed into what looks like a Volvo for the photograph titled 'Alfie'. In this work he frankly looks pretty pissed off, but at our meeting he's wowing the crowds.

Other favourites include 'Peggy', a bat-like dog staring intensely from the framed car window, perfectly illuminated in her curiosity; 'Lottie', a droopy-eyed pup gazing nonchalantly from a claret coloured car; and 'Bones', whose ghostly stretched face can only be seen in the window's reflection.

In all the images on show, Martin manages to catch an almost human characteristic in the dogs. This is intentional, for the exhibition represents the loneliness and abandonment of humans and animals alike, something that resonates from his childhood when the artist was briefly left alone in a car. This led him to realise that you can be alone for ever, an emotion that still controls his life now. In that sense this project is the perfect representation of that emotion considering the sadness present in some of these photographs.

The 'muteness' refers specifically to animals in their inability to communicate their emotions. Owner of a schnauzer himself, it seems Martin is quite the animal lover and rather appropriately 10% of each picture's proceeds goes to Dogs Trust, so in some senses there's hope here too.

'Mute: The Silence of Dogs in Cars' is on at Printspace from Friday the 22nd of October until the 9th os November 2010.

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