Tatton Park Biennial 2010: 2 of 2
David Burrows & Simon O'Sullivan/Plastique Fantastique
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.
David Burrows & Simon O'Sullivan/Plastique Fantastique
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.
Kate MccGwire: Evacuate
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.
Kate MccGwire: Evacuate
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.
Jamie Shovlin: Rough Cut/Cut Rough (Hiker Meat)
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.
Steve Messam: Lily (installation) / photo: Thierry Bal
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.
Clara Ursitti: Ghost / photo: Thierry Bal
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’.
Jimmie Durham: Spring Fever
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.
Tatton Park Biennial 2010: 1 of 2
Suky Best: The Flowers of the Mansion
The first Tatton Park Biennial in 2008 took me by surprise. I’d expected a pleasant if undemanding day out and found myself chomping through a brilliantly curated chocolate box of largely conceptual work that punctured the landscape and soaked through the prim, starched handkerchief of the Tatton estate, now sopping with art-berry juice. In short, it was a helluva debut. I became a loud and proud Tatton fan, trumpeting their achievement during beer-addled conversations and marking my mental diary two years hence, waiting for the Circus of Curiosities to return to town.
Paulette Phillips: Walking Fern
I couldn’t pick a favourite then or now, but particularly memorable were Nicky Coutts A Tower in the Minds of Others (Argos-inspired experimental architecture as stacked garden sheds formed a domestic pagoda), Heather & Ivan Morrison’s I am so sorry. Goodbye. (Escape Vehicle number 4), a Chestnut-shingled space capsule piloted by an elderly volunteer sat at an iron stove, or the impulse to scribble a Christmas want-list as I stared covetously at Paulette Phillips Walking Fern; a half-dozen kinetic, solar powered robo-plants that scuttled and twitched across the dry Rose Pool waiting for the clouds to pass overhead.
Heather & Ivan Morrison: I am so sorry. Goodbye. (Escape Vehicle number 4)
The gilded humility of Jo Coupe Rarefied (Phalaenopsis lobii), billed as a solid gold orchid located somewhere within the conservatories saw visitors attempting to hunt out a jewel encrusted triffid, most unaware that it was in fact a tiny, wilted corpse resting between pots, not much bigger than a wad of spat-out gum. Oh, and who could forget the deliciously creepy Nest of the Skeletons, a video work by Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels placed beneath a dripping canopy in the Paxton Fernery, a nasty, fictional document of malevolent fairies as they ripped apart wasps and harvested the flesh of the forest.
Tessa Farmer and Sean Daniels - Nest of Skeletons. Picture courtesy Tatton Park
Some friends and I struck out for the 2010 edition at the weekend, me sat in the back of the car banging on like a love-struck fanboy at the treats that awaited us. Having parked up and marched through the forest, we hastened to the gardens, our mind-pants moist with desire. First up, Justin Houldsworth’s 4m-tall Two Million & 1AD, an experimental ‘fossilisation machine’. It looked a lot like three big water tubs with a handle and no obvious purpose. As others drew near, a child asked her parent, “What does it do?” Not everyone is here for the art alone. That’s the beauty of outdoor exhibition, bringing content to diverse and wide-ranging audiences. Arrive for a picnic, leave with an appetite.
Austin Houldsworth: Two Million & 1AD / photo: Thierry Bal
“I don’t know love,” her Dad responded. They stare for a moment longer and move on. My friend pumps the handle for a bit and gets bored. This one is no easy-in, and although I love the idea it needs greater visual and conceptual transparency. Who knew you could make a fossil from scratch? What is the process involved? For that family, for many others, and for me, it will remain a mystery. We decide not to be too negative and walk on. Whoaa, Nelly. A giant, Harryhausen-scale Rocking Horse emerges from behind a clump of trees, mounted by two laughing girls, giddy with excitement. It is Marcia Farquhar’s The Horse is a Noble Animal.
Marcia Farquhar: The Horse is a Noble Animal
A woman strides over to them and tells the children to get off, dismount, it is not for touching. She says she would like to ride it herself but sorry, no, it’s for their own safety, now get off. The girls and their parents are acquiescent and shamefully climb down. They leave. perhaps back to their car. I sense tears. The woman strides off (we later find that she is an associate with a group of performance artists appearing that day), smug in the knowledge that she has intervened in protection of an artwork that positively yells TOUCH ME, as if some joker had glued a pound coin to the floor and a local bobby ticked off those attempting to prise it up for attempted theft.
Fiona Curran: This time next year things are going to be different
Elsewhere upon the trail, we find sheds. Lots of them. Nicky Coutt’s pagoda would seem to have begun and ended this route, but no. It was an ellipsis… more to come. Fiona Curran’s This time next year things are going to be different is a splintered residence reminiscent of Dorothy’s farmhouse that appears to have landed in the tree canopy. I liked it, but no lasting reason to dawdle. Jamie Shovlin’s Rough Cut/Cut Rough (Hiker Meat) promised a sinister dwelling with flickering light and sound of distress emanating from within. No such luck. We spied playback equipment through the window, but it wasn’t working.
Jem Finer: Spiegelei
Our hopes rose with Jem Finer’s Spiegelei, more off-the-shelf garden storage albeit punctured by a giant ball of stainless steel that offered an inverted camera-obscura. But then came Neville Gabie A Weight of Ice Carried from the North for You, one of the star attractions of the programme, two tons of ice from Greenland transported to Tatton and housed within a glass refrigerated unit that harvests power from solar panels. Instead it was boarded up with insulatory material, a sign explaining that the ice was melting faster than expected in the Summer heat and that it was only revealed once a day at noon for a short period.
Neville Gabie: A Weight of Ice Carried from the North for You
As we stood pulling sulking faces for the camera, another parent strode over confidently with his children, read the sign, chose to ignore it and lifted the padding away to let them look inside. We took the opportunity to peek too. The ice was significantly diminished, but there was still a decent sized block. I felt it would have been preferable to allow the work to melt and accept nature’s influence as part of the natural cycle of the project, instead of dishing up a measly and arbitrary viewing once per day. Display a puddle by all means, but wrapping it up like that seemed futile and failed to respect the generosity of the viewer. The fridge didn’t work! Come out with your hands up, smiling.
The Second Coming
The news is now out and the countdown has begun - 9 weeks - until Abandon Normal Devices Festival hosts both the UK debut of Midnight Mass and the International Premiere of the black comedy horror, All About Evil. Directed by Joshua Grannell whose alter-ego the horror hostess Peaches Christ is the star and dripping heart of Midnight Mass, it's a double-whammy for Manchester as we host this lewd, crude, participatory chunk'a B-Movie joy.
I was fortunate to head out to San Francisco earlier this year, home to the show and the cast, where Peaches is revered as a cult (movie) leader. Posters on the Muni system confirmed this! As producer of the event there are already some exciting collaborations lined up, with the first batch of tickets on sale soon.
Save the date - Saturday 2nd October. And if you think you'd like to get involved, then get in touch to become one of The Children of the Popcorn!
Purple Polly
Purple Polly is a proposal submitted to the Summer 2010 round of the Umbro Industries creative grants, who dish out up to 10k each quarter for innovation in Manchester across art, culture, music, fashion and 'other'. Heh. It's quite unlike anything I've attempted to pitch before, but why not ? During the last round I made the shortlist but didn't get invited to interview. I didn't mind - I was fortunate to find a partner to make it happen anyway. This one is a little different. I very definitely need to call in the professionals! More information and a project outline over at the official site where votes and comments (nice ones) will help, but are not essential. Hint.
Unrealised Potential
Unrealised Potential is a collaborative group exhibition instigated by artist/curator Mike Chavez-Dawson. The show aims to explore the creative potential of artists’ unrealised projects, blurring the lines between artist, curator, visitor and producer. Cornerhouse chose to scribble outside the boundaries further by allowing a workshop of volunteers to choose one of the dozens of unformed projects presented as rows of certificated (stamped, gilded and legally pimped) proposals - buying it on their behalf - to be realized over the course of only three days.
Len Horsey & Brian Reed, PLANTA DE ANODIZADO, 2010, image by Daniel Walmsley
I was one such volunteer. The group chose Manchester-based artist Edward Barton, the most flexible and least prescriptive of the lot (some going so far as to list the precise artworks to be curated, or in the case of David Shrigley, an impossible process of construction). Consisting of a single statement: ‘Please improve my work’, the disappointing lack of any great consensual desire to bring a single concept to fruition meant that I was left to tackle a response alone. That said, there was some pretty smart rumination taking place. Let's just say I'm looking forward to the Page 3 Panda.
Still, I’m pleased with the final result. It’s a tiny, disposable response, but the artists’ original brevity and humility warranted a fitting match. Choosing to interpret the work as both statement and paper certificate upon which the words were printed, I gave it form and structural integrity – a cube. What was illustrative now had purpose – a receptacle. And what better role has a box to play than that of a gift, using the remaining scraps from a single sheet. From me to you.
An unexpected outcome was a knee-jerk response in my purchasing the rights to actualize The Worship of Bacchus as re-imagined by comedian, broadcaster and artist Harry Hill. How did that happen? The paperwork says I’ve got two years, but first I need a nap. Then I’ll think about it some more. Then another nap is called for. Followed by a chat in the pub and a bag of cheese and onion crisps. Research, you understand... only this one will be a true group effort. Hit me up.
Soap gets in my eyes
Image: Rachel McHaffie
A couple of pics from last Saturday's Scratch 'n Sniff Cinema presents My Beautiful Laundrette at Hub Gallery and Innovation Space, Salford as part of Hazard MMX. More to follow. I didn't think I'd bother shaving hence looking like a member of The Ant Hill Mob from Penelope Pitstop. Or maybe I look more like Penelope in that shirt. My eyes are closed because they are spattered with detergent from the bubble machine over my shoulder. The things we do in the name of creative play! If you came along, thank you so much. Without an audience I am nothing. All in the right context of course, I mean, I don't want you following me into the bathroom.
Image: Rachel McHaffie