reviews poeticAL poLiticAL
Poetical
Political
Simon Lee, London
29 AuguSt – 29 Septem ber
claire Fontaine, Untitled
(Identité, Tradition et
Souveraineté), 2007, three flags,
poles, fittings, dimensions
variable, edition of 5 + 2Ap
The 1970s feminist mantra ‘the personal is political’ has possibly entered the varying ratios of red, white and blue, besmirched with mud and drooping
class of phrase that becomes meaningless through overuse. Meanwhile, a downwards, are blatant symbols of impotence or defeat.
creeping romantic tendency has placed much art firmly on an inward- Jordan Wolfson’s 2005 16mm film of a man in black tie deaf-signing
looking trajectory, with many artists retreating to interior realms of fantasy a soliloquy taken from Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940) is a
or grazing history like a buffet of shaped corn snacks. The result of this veritable uroboros of intent: the title reveals what could otherwise only be
complex compound of correlatives, and innumerable other factors, is understood by those conversant with sign language – a rousing address
that the political agency of art has been very much in doubt in recent to the people of a generation long since passed, and whose travails have
years, as the singular subjective voice of the artist is deemed at odds with already been consigned as a catalogue of mistakes. Wolfson’s audio piece,
contemporary political rhetoric, which tends to be coined in broader terms Day (2006) is more bewildering, however, as the sound of a match being
of demographics and movements. struck every few minutes is barely identifiable due to the gallery acoustics,
David Thorp, guest curator of this group show, identifies a possible and simply becomes an abstract intrusion. Olaf Nicolai seems to be making
fulcrum between these positions in ‘poetic conceptualism’, which he art jokes: a framed sheet of blue carbon copy paper immediately refers us
characterises as the output of an ‘individual in an art context that is to Yves Klein Blue, while his reproduction of a magpie looking in a mirror
subject to a political partiality involving personal feelings, experiences could be thought of as pointing up just such narcissism or even solipsism
and potential’. The technical sounding title, although claiming no formal of art – an idea that inflects Kate Davis’s drawings and structures that
thesis and presenting simply a framing device, suggests a more conclusive reference art history and feminism through such a personal filter that the
agenda than is the case. If the poetic is taken to be that which employs ‘poetical’ knob is turned right up. Quite where this all leads is not clear, and
both the aesthetic qualities and the meaning of a form or language, then whether poetical or political, the result is invariably all talk and no action.
few artists can dodge the term entirely, and its applicability is a matter of Sally O’Reilly
degrees. Indicatively, some of the work here is clarion, while other pieces
mumble more ambiguously. The collective Claire Fontaine, for instance,
show Instructions for the sharing of private property (2006), a long and
involved video demonstration of how to pick a lock. Similarly their three
tricolore flags, Untitled (Identité, Tradition et Souveraineté) (2007), each with
artreview 196
November_REVIEWS.indd 196 26/9/07 13:33:22
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