Double Agent at ICA

Double Agent at ICA

21 July, 2008
by: SUSIE

I could begin this review by berating the winklepickered, be-legginged and asymmetric folk who populate the ICA, but that would render hypocritical my morning snarls at the M&S clad drones which populate my sleepy branch of the District Line. Fashion may only be a relatively new bed-buddy of the art world but, along with commercial design and advertising, these days it is a far more relevant one than literature or dance, for example. A pensive people-watcher at the ICA bar might stumble upon some of the key issues that Double Agent raises: alternative lifestyles and social outsiders; the blurred division of artist and audience; the fusion of life and art.

Double Agent is a group exhibition at the ICA that features a range of media including video and live performance, but it is unusually tightly curated and genuinely focused. All the artists involved use other people as a medium, engaging with questions of authorship, reality versus fiction, and exploitation.

Dutch artist, Barbara Visser explores the tension between documentary and fiction with her compelling 20-minute film, Last Lecture (2007) which incorporates two previous performances (Lecture With An Actress and Lecture On Lecture With An Actress) in which the artist – unbeknownst to the audience – is represented by a hired performer, who performs Visser's words as received through an earpiece. In this latest incarnation of a work which has grown layer-upon-layer over many years, Visser herself is shown in silhouette, wandering around the screen like a Brechtian off-stage director.

In Them (2007) Artur Zmijewski invites groups of Christians, Jews, Young Socialists and Polish Nationalists into a workshop space to visually present their points of view. It is extremely absorbing stuff. The brief bouts of creativity/paint sloshing only serve to emphasise the lack of real artistry: we begin to search elsewhere for the artist's presence and ask how much of this has been staged.

Meanwhile, Donelle Woolford, presented by Joe Scanlan, is a young African-American artist, perhaps inspired by the likes of Rose Sélavy and the doll-like Claire. Her current work involves busying herself cutting and carving in a temporary studio in the Upper Galleries. But, does this constitute a hard day's work or a performance piece?

Dora García's fascinating Instant Narrative really crystalises the decentred approach that these artists take by demanding that the viewer becomes involved with the work, by choice or otherwise. Lines of commentary are projected onto a wall. As you read, more lines appear and then you notice a silent typist at a desk in the shadows, observing… you. I'm not going to reveal what comments and assumptions she made about me, but suffice to say it is playful, but also rather haunting. One decisive action on your part and the 'author' is flatlining (see Roland Barthes) or perhaps everyone is an artist (see Joseph Beuys). Allan Kaprow introduced the idea of participating in the Happenings of 1950s, not just viewing the pieces. These politicised and highly knowledgeable works place huge demands on the viewer, who is elevated to (or even surpasses) the level of the author/artist/creator.

My only attempt at negative criticism of the work on show at Double Agent is that the objects themselves are far less engaging than the concepts raised. There is a near complete neglect of concern for visual appeal, which seems dramatically distinct from the entirety of art history – this is pure conceptualism and it’s pretty exciting.

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SUSIE