REVIEW: Andrew Lim 'First Step', Chinese Arts Centre

Published: MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS, CityLife, 15th June 2009

"Function is made Aesthetic in Andrew Lim's 'First Step' Installation"

SITTING on a shelf above you as you descend the toilet stairs of the Chinese Arts Centre, Andrew Lim’s ‘First Step’ is conspicuous. ‘First Step’ does not shout ‘installation art’.

It waits, merging into and becoming part of its environment, until you realize the everyday objects you are looking at are not at all in their usual setting, or fulfilling their usual function.

This is, somewhat surprisingly, precisely the point and aim of the work. Using objects that are linked to the construction and maintenance of the site, Lim creates art that connects and communicates with its habitat.  

Using a set of rules devised for each installation out of which the artwork grows to its logical conclusion, Lim’s work is literally produced by the space it fills.  

Self-determined structure  

The result is unknown till construction, when the limitations of the location and the nature of the materials join to produce a self-determined structure.  

In ‘First Step’, Manchester based Lim choose his materials based upon the technical aspects of changing over exhibitions; the storage, re-decorating, hanging and assembling of work.  

As such, First Step is an artwork made up of objects formerly used to put together and arrange other artworks.  Function is made aesthetic.  

The artwork itself, made up of ladders and headphones, is simple and effective. Silver ladders curve around the space, spine like. Their rigid and straight lines joined to make a soft, organic form incongruous with their individual appearance.  

Noise of construction  

Headphones hang from the ladders, evoking the noise of construction, and the previous artworks they made audible.

‘First Step’ comments of the side of art exhibitions we as viewers don’t get to witness and does so with subtle eloquence.  

It is a shame it is not placed somewhere that might draw more attention. For it’s staircase location, along with its discreet appearance, means it could be easily missed if you’re not on the look out.

Until September 9.  

Chinese Arts Centre,  Market Buildings, Thomas Street, Manchester, M4 1EU (0161 832 7271)Mon-Sat 10am – 5pm and Sun 11am-4pm

LINK: http://www.citylife.co.uk/news_and_reviews/reviews/10016616_function_is_made_aesthetic_in_andrew_lim_s_first_step_exhibition 

REVIEW/INTERVIEW: Jessica Tsang at the Chinese Arts Centre

PUBLISHED: Manchester Evening News, CityLife, 15th June 2009

JESSICA Tsang, the new Breathe artist in residency, sits working on a metal frame the shape of a palm tree as I enter.

The live in studio space of the Chinese Arts Centre is filled with the work she made while away at The European Centre for Ceramics, in The Netherlands.

When talking to Citylife about her work, Jessica Tsang told of her present fascination with 2009 as the bicentenary of Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his seminal work 'On the origin of Species'.

How this year, the public receive a not only “a moment of saturation of information but also a re-presentation of his work”.

Glazed coconut

It is an interest that becomes very clear when looking at her work. ‘Earth Rising’, a large ceramic dome on a metal stand, dripping and part covered with glaze, presents (or re-presents), the earth as it is seen from space.
The dark glaze like the shadow that falls over half the earth at any given point; the glazed coconut that hangs mid air symbolising the ever-rotating moon.

As Jessica said, the image of the rising earth “was the first time man saw, and was able to understand, earth as a whole entity”.

Darwin’s theory of survival of the fittest is also present in Jessica’s art, though it should be noted that Darwin is not the driving force – rather a dialogue that ‘pulls together’ the theories and thought processes behind her recent creations.

Models of rabbits

‘The Universe where Rabbit versus Fox’, a personal favourite of mine, depicts 3d ceramic models of rabbits and foxes, on a flat clay shelf made up of a spectrum of coloured circles.

Jessica explained that the “colour in the piece, comes from a scientific model of how genes flow through a population”.

The animals, on the other hand, can be understood to symbolize the prey and the predator, the battle for survival between species. 

In her other work, coconuts feature heavily, as the “plant equivalent to the animal side of the work”.
This is because, as Jessica Tsang notes, “coconuts are the most successful plants in spreading between countries and across continents… they span 26 degrees north and south of the globe, thousands of miles apart”.

Saturn's ring system

In ‘Coconut pile’, they stand upon one another like a totem pole.
Made by filing the coconuts with glaze and burrowing them in sand; the glaze then “exploded out and made rings of coloured sand”, which surround the shapes like Saturn’s ring system. 

This touches upon anther theme within Jessica’s work: the dialogue between sculptural forms and the painted surface. The glaze literally paints the coconut and sand. It is a piece that arises out of experimentation and is self-determining.

During her residency, Jessica wishes to take upon a more research-based approach to her work, and ideas are already beginning to take formation.

Animal stampedes

Documentaries on the South Pacific, and Easter Island’s tribal and sculptural history, have prompted thoughts of filling the studio with sand.
While a sequence of small images, potentially depicting human objects and animal stampedes, might take shape, furthering her exploration of “migration and movement within nature”.

Whatever amounts from Jessica’s residency, it is sure to be both interesting and aesthetically arresting.
I enjoyed the simple yet fragile quality to her work, and her experimentations with materials, surfaces and the boundaries between sculptures and their frames. It is an Open Studio to look forward too.

Chinese Arts Centre. Breathe Artist in Residency May 21- August 21.  Open Studio August 13-21.
Mon-Sat 10am – 5pm and Sun 11am – 4pm.

LINK: http://www.citylife.co.uk/news_and_reviews/reviews/10016617_jessica_tsang___breathe_artist_in_residence_with_a_passion_for_darwin_and_coconuts_

REVIEW: 'The Social Lives of Objects'

Published: MANCHESTER CONFIDENTIAL, 3rd June 2009

 "The Social Lives of Objects: Thalia Allington-Wood is disturbed by the mermaids at Castlefield Gallery"

Walking into The Social Lives of Objects is like entering a curiosity shop. Objects from around the world, unexpected and delightful, stand on shelves, tables and plinths. Manipulated, adapted and skewed, the sculptures and multimedia images of this exhibition are simultaneously comic and disturbing.

The artwork playfully examines our relationship with material objects by distorting them and provoking our expectations. Two brushes are placed together and initially look like a set of false teeth, a tennis racquet is filled with gridded glass, another re-strung to have a circular hole in the middle. The objects are everyday yet utterly surprising in their new forms. Their associations are altered, their signification changed.

All the objects used by artists Hilary Jack, Lisa Penny and Dallas Seitz have been found, whether in charity shops, skips or on eBay. None of them are new, they each have an individual past, a previous life, and it is this that the works seek to explore and articulate.

Hilary Jack’s wonderful ‘Centaur Departs Damaged Herd’ comprises of carved Kenyan springbok, standing upon a variety of salvaged wooden tables. Protruding from their bare heads are gnarled and forked branches, antler like. The composition of wood in its natural form, joined and moulded to the manufactured products it serves to make, tells the story of the sculptured springbok’s happening. Once tree, now sculpture.

Dallas Seitz’s work is far more disturbing and uncomfortable. He mutilates objects embedded in family history (taxidermy animals, bones, teeth, a voodoo bust taken from his grandmother’s bathroom) into ominous, mythical and gothic sculptures. Rather than replicate and explain the objects' histories, Seitz creates new ones that maintain respect for their past. The most off-putting element is the pleasure they give the viewer.

In one, a mermaid skeleton is created with the tail of a fish, goat bones and a modelled human head. This mermaid has in no way emerged from a beloved Disney flick. Another, ‘Voodoo Princess’, shows a, now politically incorrect, plaster sculpture of a beautiful black woman. Her eyes are replaced with those once belonging to a doll, teeth are hung around her neck and within her hair, coral earrings adorn her, their aesthetic mocking and highlighting the grotesque nature of her other appropriated accessories.

Seitz’s work creates strong emotions if nothing else; horror mixed with fascination, fear with admiration. They highlight our love of the strange and obscure, our interest in all that is opposed to the norm.

Interspersed among these is the work of Lisa Penny, whose collaged pieces reiterate the repetition and borrowing that takes place within history, trends, and object associations. By placing images together, removing them from their original context, or cutting out part of their composition, Penny forces us to look at them in a new light. Like all of the artists in this intriguing and clever exhibition, Penny challenges and reorders the meanings of individual objects and in doing so highlights the associations that fill our daily discourses.

The Social Lives of Objects, Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, Manchester, Wednesday-Sunday, 1pm-6pm, until 19 July, free, 0161 832 8034, www.castlefieldgallery.co.uk

LINK: http://www.manchesterconfidential.co.uk/Culture/Architecture/The-Social-Lives-of-Objects