Matthew Darbyshire 'Oak Effect' with TWAM anthropology collections

This weekend I had to chance to stop by an exhibition in the Bloomberg SPACE that I have been trying to get to for ages. The exhibition is presented by British contemporary artist Matthew Darbyshire, but includes social history and anthropology collections from the Tyne and Wear Archive and Museum service. Months ago I helped gather the anthropology collections to accommodate the artist’s main criteria – that he had similar ethnographic objects made of wood with examples from all the continents.

Unfortunately, that is a rather tight criterion for our limited anthropology collections, but that didn’t mean the exhibition demand didn’t take up a good part of my time for quite a while. I had blogged previously about the need for correct loan valuations of these important objects (here). Part of the loan requirements demanded the individual objects being loaned had the appropriate contextual labels so that even though they were being shown out of their ethnographic context, the audience looking at the exhibition could still understand something deeper than an artistic interpretation of the objects.

 

Baule carving of a queen, Fred Uhlman collection...In a shower!

I expected to show up and see the familiar faces of our objects interpreted in an artistic context ‘exploring a contemporary world of collisions between objects, ephemera, styles and epochs’. I found the faux EU standard housing interior I expected with the objects unsettlingly dispersed throughout the exhibition, but with the added surprise of two ladies dressed up in vinyl wood patterned suits doing performance art in the room.

I think they were mock acting out daily activities you would do at home just in extreme slow motion. I really wasn’t sure though. I think the value that performance art adds to installations such as the Darbyshire installation is interesting, but in all honesty I really didn’t get it. It was really funny though. There was a kid at the show who I believe agreed with me and went out of his way to follow the wood girls around and try to interact with them. It definitely made the room feel a lot more comfortable.

Kid trying to get wood girls' attention

The show ends at the Bloomberg SPACE on June 29, but will be coming up to The Shipley Gallery after that.

Wood girls taking a break

CAG on museums: Ellen Gallagher at the Tate Modern

Ellen Gallagher in her studio Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

I actually didn't know what to expect for the Ellen Gallagher show at Tate Modern, but I was pleasantly surprised. Gallagher's subjects ranged from textured wigs superimposed onto vintage newspaper ads to artistic representations of Herman Melville novels (which I particularly enjoyed).

Ellen Gallagher, Wiglette from DeLuxe , 2004-05

The oeuvre of Gallagher's work in the exhibition doesn't follow a time continuum, but really displays the diversity of her medium and artistic methods. There was a room of extremely large 'black paintings' and complex amalgamations of penmanship paper with inserted hand cut sheets of rubber called the Morphia series. These compositions were displayed free-standing in the room so one could see both sides of the paper which showed different images on either side.

Display of the two-sided Morphia series

Overall my favorite pieces were her 2006 piece Bird in Hand, which referred to Melville's character in Moby Dick, and an entire room of dark inked overlapping layered collages that included a video installation based on 'whale fall', "the scientific term for dead whales that have fallen to the ocean floor and are consumed by scavengers". I'm not sure I understood the point, but the words 'Polynesian reed mapping' and 'engraved coffin' were used to describe the installation and there was some cool jazzy music being played that is still stuck in my head. I really enjoyed the whole thing...

Bird in Hand 2006

An Experiment of Unusual Opportunity 2008

...especially the glorious Tate Modern bar at end.