Gardens Gallery

Kate Dove, Fran Browne, Robert Goldsmith, Toby Moate and Freda Dusnic have put together an exhibition at the Gardens Gallery, which formally opened this evening. They only had a fortnight to prepare, but it all looks very professional. I particularly liked our neighbour, Freddie's photographs: she posed (a selfless perhaps?) in front of one.

Back to Meantime

15 months ago, I reported on a previous visit to Cheltenham's experimental visual art centre, Meantime. This weekend's "show" is if anything more perplexing than the last. In her residency, Felicity Hammond has put together "Constructed Reality: The Remnants of Ephemeral Art". In it, she claims to be responding "to the exploration of what it means to archive," and asks: "Do we lose even more authenticity through secondary representation?"

Meantime is on two floors. What you see in the ground floor is a display of architectural plans in two dimensions; and a short video depicting something going on down the steps in the basement area of the building - or rather the next door building, formerly the printers I used to go to, Hayman's. Upstairs, there is another video projected on the end wall of the gallery, with a third shown on an adjacent TV screen. Both these include images of the artist, doing things.

I only found one of the three videos of any aesthetic interest: the camera had been set up at night in the illuminated upstairs gallery, facing the full-length doors seen on the right of my photograph of the outside - the room had presumably been used as a storage loft originally. Felicity, dressed in black and I imagine wearing a black hood, then opened the doors slowly, so all you could see of her was her hands moving.

Her residency essay concludes, "The archive may echo the original performance in its content, but takes on a new reality and validity as being read as a part of our external, present reality." I ask, what is the use of such experiments if they do not result in an evident display of virtuosity?

the open west 2009

Caroline and I have been up to the Summerfield Gallery this afternoon (at the University of Gloucestershire's Pittville Campus), to see part of a new show, called the open west 2009. It's rather good.

As wide a variety of contemporary art as you could wish to find is well shown in a wonderful space. And it's not just a case of never mind the quality: feel the width, as the finish of most of the work is excellent.

In the background of my snapshot you can see Soo Jung Choi's "Romeo and Juliet", a charming and thought-provoking essay on a familiar theme (acrylic on canvas). (Foreground: the exhibition's hard-working organisers, Sarah Goodwin and Lyn Cluer Coleman.)

"Romeo and Juliet" rubs shoulders with Clara Clark's "train", a large, noisy, primitive-looking sculpture ("chicken wire, paper, sawdust, wood, motor, pulley"); whilst around the corner you find Jessica Harrison's stomach-churning, almost pointilliste "Monster" ("fly legs on paper").

Yesterday, I visited the other venue where the show is up, Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum. What impressed me there was the lyricism of Anna Bush Crews' film "Seapot 24 (the spout)", and the extraordinary concentration of Thurle Wright's paper constructions. Not that I would want to buy one.

You can catch the open west 2009 anytime over the next five or so weeks. By the way, some male artists have been selected also!

What a rare joy to find such ambitious displays in Cheltenham!