Some exhibitions have a habit of dividing visitors into participant or observers – those who want to play and join in and those who are content to contemplate, which is the case with Move.
Choreographing You. The exhibition reflects the blurring of the boundaries between visual art, dance and performance. It is not a recent phenomenon. The starting point for this exhibition is the Judson Church Theatre and Allan Kaprow’s Happenings, in 1960s New York, which claimed to blend art and life. This ambitious crossover is looked at through a series of sculptural works and installations, some of which can be “activated” by brave visitors willing to swing on ropes or tip toe round a row of rusting pans.
One tough challenge to tackle is The Fact of The Matter devised by William Forsythe, the brains behind the Ballett Frankfurt. Consisting of a forest of 200 gym rings, about 30 feet long dangling some 10 feet apart suspended from the ceiling. The athletic participant is challenged to swing from one end to the other without the feet touching the floor, “a test of physical and mental agility which makes the user acutely conscious of their own body, its weight and its limitations”, claims the blurb. With its associations with the school gym, not many took part when I was there.
Not all are so physically demanding. In Walk the Chair by La Robot there is an instruction to visitors to pick up a chair and move it to a different part of the gallery. Each chair bears a slogan. such as Wittengenstein’s “Don’t look for meaning, look for use” or the simple instruction “Move”. For the spectator there is a programme of actors performing with the installations. Dancers from the Candoco Dance Company and students from Trinity Laban animate Trisha Brown’s Floor of the Forest, dressing and undressing as they elegantly weave their way through the free-standing sculpture threaded with clothing. Visitors can watch or participate or even discus the performance with the dancers.
Not all the works involve performance but do offer the daunting experience of fear and disorientation reminiscent of the surveillance society, interrogation and incarceration. In Tania Bruguera’s installation you enter a long black corridor and turn into a room to be blasted by a wall of brilliant blinding lights which switch off after a few seconds, leaving the retina with a series of after images that float around causing momentary blindness. It is relief to escape, but the message is clear.
Altogether more poetic is Isaac Julien’s multi-screen installation The Thousand Waves that mixes art, architecture, dance, sound and movement. Inspired by the tragedy of the death of the Chinese cockle pickers in Morecombe Bay, it interweaves this with two narratives, the Chinese legend of the goddess Mazu, protector of seafarers before drifting into scenes from the classic Chinese film The Goddess in which a young woman turns to prostitution in order to support her son. Incorporating the spectacular landscape of southern China and the metropolitan hustle and bustle of Shanghi, The Thousand Waves is a complex meditation on migration, physical and cultural dislocation. Different images, projected onto a number of screens invite visitors to wander round the 50-minute work rather than attempting to see it as a conventional narrative, an impression emphasised by the absence of seating. Beautifully shot, Julien’s film is both moving and salutary, making this hotchpotch exhibition well worthwhile.
