Mark Wallinger: The Russian Linesman, Frontiers, Borders and Thresholds
Hayward Gallery, London
The Russian Linesman – or The Cabinet of Curiosities – curated by Turner Prize winner Mark Wallinger, is an intriguing, idiosyncratic mix of the odd and bizarre that is thoughtful, provocative and engaging. Wallinger, one of the most thoughtful of the young British artists – although now more establishment than revolutionary -– recently caught the public imagination by his Ebbsfleet Landmark, a project to create a surreal monument, a white horse sculpture soaring 50 metres high.
The full title refers to the continuing saga of what is known as “The Russian Linesman”, the occasion when the referee’s controversial ruling in the 1966 World Cup final between England and West Germany granted the winning goal to England, so changing the course of footballing history. It was the first and last time England were world champions. Just as the debate still rumbles on – English supporters asserting the wisdom of the referee’s decision, Germans questioning it -– so much of the work chosen by Wallinger raises questions rather than answers, whether about popular culture, high art, photography or politics.
Bringing us bang up to date is a life-size Tardis, from Doctor Who, the mythical box that provides access to an infinite four-dimensional world – not painted in regulation navy but coated in sparkling mirrored chrome that reflects and distorts our own image. While the remainder of The Russian Linesman offer no such flights of fantasy there is much to stir the imagination. A recurring theme is setting two objects/screens/sculptures side by side to question the ways in which we perceive art. Vija Celmin’s trompe l’oeil sculpture, for example, presents a rock alongside its identical equivalent replicated in bronze. Stare as we might, the two are indistinguishable.
Not so with Amie Siegel’s double screen presentation, Berlin Remake. This juxtaposes original official promotional grainy black-and-white film from the German Democratic Republic with modern footage shot frame for frame depicting the identical spots today. Eerily unsettling, Siegel contrasts a period of close supervision and control with the relative freedoms of today, but nothing is quite so simple. Time has brought its own changes – collars, ties and turn-ups have disappeared – but the proliferation of advertising and the architecture today has little of the atmosphere of Berlin under a different – and repressive – regime.
More obvious double ways of looking feature stereoscopic photographs seen through popular Viewmaster binoculars that create a convincing illusion of three-dimensional space. An early Roman double-headed marble bust of Dionysus and Silenus cleverly embodies youth and age, while a print by Albrecht Dürer pictures a device for rendering objects in two dimensions, suggesting that perspective is a technical trick rather than an art.
One of the darker aspects investigated by Wallinger is death and the grim reaper, a theme to which artists regularly return. A 17th century painting of a dead soldier lying on the ground beneath an extinguished lamp and by a skull and bones, once attributed to Velázquez, remains a powerful evocation of death on the battle field. Equally chilling is William Blake’s Death’s Door – of an aged, stooped man entering what looks like a tomb on top of which sits a naked youth emitting rays of light. The most salutary drawings are Ronald Searle’s sharply observed images of life as a prisoner-of-war in the Far East. The evidence of cruelty and malnutrition are unambiguous and leave little to the imagination.
Emmanuel Cooper
The Russian Linesman continues until May 4 before touring to Leeds Art Gallery and Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.
A catalogue by Mark Wallinger gives his response to his selection
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