Say Parsley

I finished the last entry rather abruptly and shall now resume where I left off discussing the Arnolfini in Bristol and the rather intriguing second exhibition - Caroline Bergvall and Ciaran Maher’s ‘Say Parsley’. The seeming innocence and playfulness of this title belies a most disturbing concept behind the installations displayed. The exhibition guide reads, ‘The background to the title is a biblical ’shibboleth’; a brutal event where language itself is a gatekeeper, and can become pretext to massacre. The pronunciation of a given word or letter exposes the identity of the speaker. How you speak will be used against you.’ These sound pieces were not only conceptually fascinating but had a real visual strength in the subtlety of design. Playing with language seems to me rather trendy at the moment, certainly at art school the joy of the laser transfer for the ‘text piece’ was never far removed and, to my rather bias eye, always felt a little like cheating. Typography itself is a fascinating subject that should not be dabbled in lightly, it is not just the words but the font too that can be both manipulated and manipulating and must be treated with caution. ‘Say Parsley’ is a tutorial in decision-making. The white light of one particular text installation projected onto the wall rendered the whiteness of the wall itself a totally different, muddier deception of white. The exhibition tied in remarkably well with a book I bought at the shop, Chromophobia by David Bachelor, discussing our obsession today with whiteness. Both book and exhibition reminded me of how hard it is to make decisions today. A single decision can seemingly be argued to reference everything or nothing ( as I have done in this very entry linking unconnected book and exhibition by sheer chance). Bergvall and Maher know this of course, informed decisions are made accordingly; a meticulous assault on the senses.

Me Myself and I

Post degree show I had no inclination to do anything, least of all anything art related. Two weeks on however I found myself in Bristol waiting for a friend to finish work with no money (the show cleaned me out) and no coat (I wrongly assume that the sun always shines south of the boarder). I found myself caught amongst a stampeding group of school children in the Arnolfini which in fact turned out to be a rather lovely gallery with an even lovelier book shop and reading room archiving all passed exhibitions alongside relevant critical and contextual material. The building itself is an old tea warehouse on Bristol Harbour renovated most recently in 2005. There seemed to be two exhibitions currently running (although their separation, or lack of, seemed a little vague - the only indicator as such being the two information guides). The first one I came to was Otto Zitko and Louise Bourgeois ’Me Myself and I’. Zitko’s work runs along the ground floor in the form of monumental brush strokes onto aluminium plates spilling of the plates as they reach the door and overflowing onto the walls, climbing up the stairs. The strong blue of the paint intensifies in colour as it moves from the aluminium to the porous wall and envelopes its audience as they move up the building. While this was, in my opinion, not quite the right location to show Zitko’s work, acting more as a prelude, or some kind of preparatory experience for Bourgeois’ drawings, his work has a strength which is somewhat location-reliant and the wonderful archive gave this fascinating artist more justice than the Arnolfini. Zitko’s wall painting led upstairs to the smallest gallery space in which Bourgeois’ drawings were situated. I was intrigued to discover that the room layout and arrangement of the work was a distant collaboration between the gallerist and the artist, prior to her death. Bourgeois always uses the same frames for her work - float mounting then a card mount surrounding this. The drawings are two sided - sketched through the long nights of an insomniac, all entitled ‘je t’aime’ alluding to waiting for something or someone. However far from being melancholic, these drawings are frantic, energetic, crowded together on one wall of this tiny room, overpowering in both their arrangement and confidence. Each frame can be turned to reveal the other side of the paper yet it was Bourgeois’ decision as to which side should be displayed. On the other hand it was the gallerists’ decision to show these later works opposite one lonely drawing from the 40s. This tentative, frail drawing forms a contrast, a dialogue with the brash later works, emphasising both her growing confidence in the marks she made but also the intrinsic instinct throughout her career.