The Life W o rt h L i v i n g. A RT.
In ‘The Land Between Us’ art from the historical Whitworth collection is shown alongside recent and contemporary art, proposing that all is as relevant to our present understanding of landscape and culture. The Land Between Us hopes to capture a present understanding of landscape art by referring back to how depictions of it combine with representations of identity and culture. The point where the new and old meet and conflict is central to the strikingly beautiful photographs and films of artist Chen Qiulin. She often captures dismal city scenes, ‘the rapid and tumultuous urbanization of Sichuan’ depicted as crumbling cement blocks. Through this inhospitable landscape we see a path taken by workers carrying bunches of vibrant, pink flowers to somewhere unspecified, showing persistence in the face of uncertainty. The flowers are unsurprisingly artificial which somehow emphasises the incongruities between what lies ahead and how people and culture struggle to adapt. Her film ‘The Garden’, 2007, depicts an awkward and hazy cultural transition.
The Whitworth has a collection of 53 watercolours by J.M.W.Turner (17751851) all of which are included in this exhibition, depicting the sublime natural landscape and light with emphatic style. On first entry into The Land Between Us contemporary artist Olafur Eliasson quite literally demonstrates the sensation of light in the natural terrain by installing thousands of cut saplings to build an artificial forest in the gallery. The Forked Forest Path from 1998 is re-made in the Whitworth as an installation to stimulate human reactions to a natural surrounding, temporarily removing you from the room. ‘Handsworth’ films by Racial Black Audio Film Collective from the 1980’s are shown right next to the Turner paintings.The RBAFC were critical of how black people had been traditionally represented in cinema so their films aimed to dissolve racist ideas in order to delimit black film culture. The riots by black communities in Handsworth, Birmingham will make their first screening in the UK at the Whitworth, depicting something of Britain’s colonial past.
The Land Bet ween Us Whitworth, Manchester
Fo r The Birds Site Gallery, Sheffield
Joseph beuys Trade Gallery, Nottingham
Haroon Mirza’s work interrogates how we distinguish between noise, sound and music, one of many complexities examined by the current group exhibition at Site Gallery, Sheffield, For the birds. Mirza’s piece in For the birds is ‘SOS’, an installation of ‘mixed studio detritus’. A continually spinning vinyl record with a lit bulb attached to it by a bull dog clip, atop a small antique wooden chest, beside two speakers. A projection above the moving assemblage plays a film entitled ‘Adhãn Anthemoessa’ - Adhãn is the Islamic call to prayer and Anthemoessa is the Island of Sirens in Greek Mythology from where the song of the sirens was said to lure sailors to their deaths on jagged rocks. Mirza makes reference to the use of music as a calling device, and how this leads to greater controversy in religious terms. To follow religious rule can be perceived as a supportive and reassuring path, but negatively it is perceived to be a method for authoritarian social control offering an ‘emotional crutch’ to people lacking understanding or direction. ‘SOS’ is made up of everyday bits and pieces and these components are performing something familiar. The objects are as we expect but they are performing something out of the ordinary. The sound of Mirza’s piece can be heard throughout the gallery. In an exhibition with a focus upon the Western music world where historically tensions have arisen over inclusion, exclusion and participation, it seems an appropriate sensation to be drawn to one particular work which performs in a continual loop a perversely comforting routine. Mirza’s use of sound spill expresses the application and power of music in various circumstances, and that most importantly, there is a significant difference between simply hearing and actually listening. JF
Beuys is one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, and his work is very much visible in much contemporary practice today. Beuys’ seemingly lone reaction to minimalism in the 1960s and 1970s Interested in the artist as a performer, and the actions that might transform forms into meaningful things, this exhibition shows the documentation of Beuys’ most famous action. In 1974 he arrived
in the USA, and upon landing was wrapped in felt and transported to the gallery where he would spend the next three days. I Like America And America Likes Me was a gallery based performance in which Beuys lived with a coyote in the gallery space for 3 days. This exhibition shows the documentation of this performance through photographs and film, and is a rare opportunity to see this amazing work. 37