On Monday, the New Media Squad got a first-class guide through the Haywood Gallery’s retrospective on British art titled, How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art. I’ll be honest when I say that I had a hard time picturing British art in the past half century. I could only picture a collage of artists with different personalities and styles. Therefore, the tour was an absolute joy.
The show consisted of a smorgasbord of video installations, photography, painting, installation, and sculpture. I asked the guide why there was such a vast array of works, and was told that it was due to the gigantic collection the Haywood had amassed over the past century. The exhibit was the brainchild of two curators who selected 120 works out of 10,000. In order to include to most engaging pieces, the show became a random assortment of works: hence the vague title.
The exhibit showcased works by Lucien Freud, Bridget Riley, Patrick Caulfield, Gilbert and George, and Rasheed Araeen. If the last artist’s name doesn’t sound familiar, that’s because Araeen is from Pakistan. His piece Green Painting I was included due to its relationship to Britain. The piece consists of nine squares. The corners are plain green. The other five panels are brutal photographs of the blood drainage after a cow is slaughtered. Under the photos is a newspaper headline from Pakistan. What the piece does is play on stereotypes. The blood at first looks like human blood, which instantly makes the view assume it comes from suicide bombers. The newspaper headlines, unless you read Arabic, can be seen as statements that the blood is indeed human. Lastly, the read cross that is created with the panels mimics that of the England flag. The piece was conceived in the 80’s in the midst of civil unrest in the area. Therefore the work is a masterstroke of perspective. I instantly fell for the stereotypes utilized in the piece.
A similar Rasheed Araeen
Two video pieces by Gilbert and George is one of the more interesting works at the show. Two television screens are put side by side. What is shown on one screen is a portrait of Gilbert and George. The stand perfectly still and over the period of nine minutes, stare slightly left of the camera and smoke cigarettes. On the second screen, they sit in an empty apartment drinking Gordon’s Gin. Both television screens come with their own soundtrack, that of royal and imperial British orchestral arrangements. At first, the piece was a bit of a mystery to me, then after a couple of minutes, I figured out what they were doing. Gilbert and George live their life as if it were a constant string of art. Therefore, they are playing on the difference between life and art. On the screen where they stand perfectly still, Gilbert and George are stating that they are in fact no different than a painting, or a sculpture (save you cannot walk around them). On the second screen, they turn more to an anti establishment approach. The repeated saying of “Gordon’s gets us very drunk” is a play on the aristocracy of the sixties (when the pieces were completed). They portray a simple twentieth century portrait, sitting in from of the window drinking expensive alcohol, yet they are a looped video. Their life becomes the art because they say it does, and they make it happen.
A typical Gilbert and George Piece
How to Improve the World: 60 Years of British Art is absolutely the most successful show I’ve been to that maintained a vague approach to it’s conceptual theme. Perhaps chaos is the only way to Improve the World: perhaps not. But the works in the exhibit certainly helped to improve my knowledge of British Art.
- Aaron Colussi [for more info check out www.vicecoulter.com]
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