reviews spectre vs. rector
spectre vs. rector
the residence, london
1 novem ber – 1 decem ber
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In the lugubrious nether regions of East London’s art zone stands St Mary of priest’s outfit and leather gimp mask, prowling the gallery as if outraged
of Eton Church, erected in 1890 by a missionary school established by at the violation of his beloved collection by a barbarian art crowd (many of
Eton College to bring charity and godliness to the impoverished denizens whom were the artists themselves).
of Hackney Wick; next door is the Verger’s Cottage, latest incarnation of Passing a banner promising ‘Bingo and Car Boot Sales’ in illuminated-
the Residence gallery and resonant setting for a supernatural-gothic show gothic script (Adrian Lee) – a work that suggests the degenerately banal
of 100 artists. Its title is taken from the 1979 Fall song Spectre vs. Rector mercantilism of the nation’s collective soul – one enters through a corridor
– a horrible tale of demonic possession which summons the spirit of M.R. into a darkened room. Black plastic sheeting lend a creepy sheen to walls
James, the Edwardian author of ghost stories and, as it happens, provost of onto which artworks are hung claustrophobically from floor to ceiling,
Eton. If these convoluted connections were designed simply to guarantee making the space a cross between an old-fashioned salon and a squeaky
this exhibition’s site-specific credentials, the result would be both tenuous S&M dungeon. The excessive theatricality paradoxically brings each work
and meek; as it is, they ground the supernatural conceit in a rich cultural to life in a much more effective way than the conventionally ‘respectful’
and historical context, channelling the ecstatically multiplying associations hang. Weird apparitions await detection, from Jack Duplock’s macabre
– witnessed in the motley collection of artworks – back down to earth. skull painting to Harry Levene’s tormented pope; from an awkward
The exhibition is simultaneously and productively a large group animation of sinful seed spilling (Anthony Gross) to that seedbed of the
show and a single installation. Marc Vaulbert de Chantilly pursued the British establishment, Eton College, rendered as a Disneyland haunted
role of curator as visionary, hunting down artists who would respond to the castle (Rachel Potts). The exhibition is even host to its own ghostly parasite:
various nodes the Verger’s Cottage had grafted in his fevered imagination. Planchette, curated by Peter Suchin, is a mini show-within-a-show, with
In one sense this makes him master, but as he’s not in control of the myriad works presented on pages which revolve uncannily inside a display box. In
directions the otherwise authored artworks would take, it points to an general the obsessional approach of the outsider or folk artist is adopted not
interesting collaborative ethic beyond the standard sense of a group show as in a naive way but as a model for a practice antagonistic to the stylistic and
an arrangement of disconnected egos. This tension was highlighted at the conceptual niceties of the professional. This, along with the relationships
Halloween inauguration where, amidst the Babel of mini-performances, de set in motion by the intense curatorial method, makes this spectral show
Chantilly played the possessed Rector, dressed in a perverse combination curiously alive. Dean Kenning
Artreview 114
JAN_REVIEWS.indd 114 4/12/07 15:27:48
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