INNterval 2-8 Feb 2014 compared with 'The Bridge' on tv.
This exhibition was held at the Halsetown pub, near St.Ives, in a week before they were to refurbish the upstairs rooms. Hence the witty title.,
Ilker Cinarel had this bright idea and organised it. He also greeted visitors at the preview which was very nice, and had provided a useful plan of the show and list of the exhibits with remarks about it from the artists. The preview was a very enjoyable occasion and most unusually for an art show had a large area for parking. We, myself and Pedyr, had eaten downstairs first and so went up to the show feeling quite cheerful and bright.
As often happens the meeting of people we knew and the chat was the most enjoyable part and the art came second. The reference at the entrance to some connection to the actor Henry Irving who lived near here years ago was not in any way connected to by the show, which was a mixture of all sorts. Maybe the connection helped them get a huge square inchidge in the local paper as a sort of nod to heritage.
My favourite work was two charcoal drawings of a pool table by Michael Broughton , not framed, just put up on the wall. Simply two good drawings with no attendant hype or pretension.
Unfortunately the room was dominated by an insanely bright light and I could not bear to look round the rest of it.
The rest of the show was dimly lit as for a party.
Ilker Cinarel had two walls of drawings of his father which looked good in that they were bold and varied. What he said in the text didn't mean anything to me but I could see he was working on something systematically and repeatedly.
Janet McEwan also had repeated images of people in red suits in photos, apparently a project of substance that could be referred to online.
Christiane Berkhoff had been embroidering, making a feature of painstaking handwork that takes a long time. You could have a go at this technique, but having a horror of painstaking craft I declined.
Liam Jolly had film of himself endlessly brushing his teeth in the bathroom, and other video and reflections, literally, using ,mirrors, but it needed some help to get the ideas and I didn't ask him about it.
There were some sweet smelling rotting apples and a dilapidated shopping trolley which had been part of a performance.
There were lots of other things of course, but after an hour or so of sidling round the crowded corridors and rooms, greeting friendly people and noticing who was there we wanted to get back and I was looking forward to the last part of 'The Bridge'
This brings up the contrast between film, the cathedral of our times in its huge work of collaboration, pursued with such excellent control of media, such wonderfully engaging acting, characters and plot, evocative music and moody night scenes, in which the fragility of our contemporary world, so complex, so easily terrorized by extremists, so in need of reform to save the planet from decadent horrors is combined with intriguing alterations from the usual male/female stereotypes, so comfortably watched from my bed with a cup of tea in complete concentration to read the subtitles, so immersive and amazing; and visual artists, so apt to present something that is only half worked out, struggling after something without anything being clear to the visitor who drops in, gains a few wild impressions, chats and leaves.
Artists are working without much money, no team of excellence to help like the film crew, and not having had to pass their ideas by powerful people who insist on pace and intrigue, on the work making sense and appealing to a wide audience.
So, the early evening's haphazard glimpses of fragments of peoples' earnest efforts to continue their addiction to expressing their visual ideas, is followed by the magnificently glamorous and adept film-makers seamless and beautiful production.
Two ends of the spectrum of contemporary art.
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