Bren O’Callaghan A Runaway at the Media Circus!

Tatton Park Biennial 2010: 2 of 2

An ill wind continued to rustle through the trees. Over at the The Mercury Pool, we waited with only a handful of others for a live performance to begin alongside the ‘alien crash site’ of David Burrows & Simon O'Sullivan/Plastique Fantastique The Visitation. A form of Dionysian ritual, we watched as a victim – sacrifice – host for (I’m guessing now) an inter-dimensional entity was ceremonially exorcised by tying him up, tipping a bag of flour over his head and generally appropriating the guise of a hazing ceremony at a frat house. The spoilsport horse lady took pictures, frequently blocking our view in her desire to document.

At the main house it wasn’t much better. We shuffled along with others in silence, a human ghost train that let out an occasional whimper when someone was admonished by the staff roughly every 5 minutes for something, anything, it hardly mattered anymore. A brood of giant oils clung en masse across the walls, Helen Maurer’s Light Landing all but invisible in the dim murk of an atrium, itself but a skinny, diet-lite shadow of the original, blooming Modernist chandelier that hung in Manchester Airport during my childhood.

But then, respite. Kate MccGwire’s Evacuate bursts with alarm from an oven door in the kitchens, a physical, tangible spillage of feathered scales, snake-like, holding real substance and suggestive of a composite creature formed of countless birds cooked and consumed on site, now making a magical and Phoenix-like escape. We linger, warming our hands at a work that we know is good and right, realized with stunning effect and obvious skill, able to please the art tart and casual visitor alike.

Dispirited at the lack of thought to presentation of the other works and the frankly appalling visitor treatment dished out in the main house, we sat waiting for Clara Ursitti’s ‘art taxi’, Ghost, offering a commuter ride in a rusted Nissan Sunny deliberately perfumed to emulate the lush upholstered interior of a Rolls Royce. Scheduled at weekends on a loop between the main visitor centre and the Knutsford entrance, we took our position at the labelled rank and waited. And waited. And waited. There was no car.

It was a weekend, within the dates and times of operation. If the car was broken and had been consigned to the crusher, then fair enough, but no one had thought to offer any additional signage to this effect. So we gave up, deciding to walk and exit the estate via Tatton Mere where our map assured us we would find Steve Messam’s Lily, ‘an installation of scores of floating red lilies... visible from the ground and planes flying overhead’. Well, we looked. Of giant red plastic lily pads reminiscent of Victoria amazonica, we found none.

So let’s recap. Four sheds, one broken, one boarded up. Five if you count the horse box cinema. Children scolded for clambering atop a giant polished rocking horse. Poorly executed interior installations, from drab presentation to muffled audio. An art cab that didn’t turn up. A mystery blight decimating oversized artificial flora. A tired, odorous house cluttered with chintz-encrusted crap, akin to sucking up the contents of a hoover bag; a dry boke of dead skin.

I hold no beef with the artists. The majority of work would have benefited from better maintenance, improved display, greater variety and the decision to admit a natural conclusion earlier than planned if appropriate (ice melted, car scrapped). Signage was either lacking or contradictory. At the Perspex bureau of Breda Beban’s The Endless School, a stack of participatory comment cards – the pen long since pocketed – sat before a nook stuffed with sharpened pencils beside a sign that read ‘Do Not Touch’.

I have a suggestion to make. For the next edition, pour thousands of gallons of clear resin through the chimneys to preserve the interior indefinitely, and include the attendants. Their sour-lemon snarls preserved as they float spread-eagled against the moulded ceilings. Lay off any more sheds, period. But ultimately respect the desire of a public audience to respond to unfamiliar lumps of aesthetic artifice in outdoor space and allow them to lick, kick, climb, poke, squeeze, twist, stroke and piss against them if they so desire.

Tatton Biennial, there was something between us but it's time to move on - in every sense. Let's remember the good times. Perhaps we can be friends, in time. I'll drop your CDs off soon. You can keep the duvet cover and cutlery. Let's meet two years from now and see how we get on.

Look after yourself.