Centre of Gravity review, 23.10.20
Centre of Gravity is a series of site responsive installations over 5 floors of a semi derelict department store in Bristol, Gardiner Haskins. There are about 60 artists involved, many of them lecturers at Bath Spa or UWE or are part of well established Bristol-based art collectives. For the building alone it’s definitely worth a visit; it’s a labyrinth of intriguing spaces, full of memories of bygone shopping experiences and atmosphere. It’s open for a month and, as some works change over time, it’s worth a second or even third visit. I have been 3 times so far and I have found that each time I’ve been I’ve seen pieces I missed before and appreciated some work differently the second time I saw it. It’s a huge space and there’s a lot to take in!
The art is varied, both in terms of medium and, in my opinion, interest. Some of the artwork is site responsive in terms of the subject matter and some seems to have little or no connection with the place. There’s sculpture, drawing, participatory installations, and many films. Much of the work is geared towards the community and social engagement. There’s a space on the ground floor with a number of participatory installations, the third floor is dedicated to the community (it’s called Facility) and on the top floor there are another couple of participatory projects. There are spaces for workshops (print and wood) and conversation. There’s also a plant exchange and reading room. A number of events have been organised in Facility and elsewhere in the building– with weekly performances, a Resilience Reading Circle etc. There are also several specialist online symposia scheduled connected to the exhibition.
Some of the work has a COVID-19 slant, but most doesn’t. Some of the participatory projects have inevitably been affected by the issue of contamination – it’s hard to invite people to participate in these strange times – but I thought in most circumstances that was managed well. One project, Sew Yourself, for example, had planned to invite people to stitch a self portrait in the space alongside others but, because of the pandemic, instead did a callout for people to bring a stitched piece to add to the collection. The artist will then stitch them together. A large scale, walk-on Bristolopoly game was initially interactive, but by the end of week 2 this was sadly, changed. Another participatory piece invited visitors to wash their hands using slivers of hand made soap.
I have to say that after almost 7 months of not visiting an art exhibition, being able to see so much art in such an amazing space has been wonderful. With such a large selection of disparate works, however, the curation was, probably inevitably, quite strange. Just one floor, the 4th floor, was cohesively curated and was consequently much easier to view and understand. For the most part, in my opinion, the rest of the exhibition was too much of a sensory overload and seemed to be a series of disconnected pieces. Maybe though, in this kind of project, with so many people involved, there is an inevitability about that? I’m not sure how it could have been successfully curated differently. I do know that Arts Council funding was involved, hence, possibly, the emphasis on the community and socio-political engagement. Also, the organisers had initially planned to use the whole building but had to scale downs their plans - both in terms of the space they used and the number of artists involved - because of the virus. Maybe if they had used more space, the works would have had room to breathe, but conversely it would have been harder to invigilate.
Centre of Gravity brings together a large and diverse selection of works in an astonishing space. It has been an ambitious project and I would say that, overall, it has been successful. It’ll be interesting to see what its legacy will be…
Centre of Gravity is a series of site responsive installations over 5 floors of a semi derelict department store in Bristol, Gardiner Haskins. There are about 60 artists involved, many of them lecturers at Bath Spa or UWE or are part of well established Bristol-based art collectives. For the building alone it’s definitely worth a visit; it’s a labyrinth of intriguing spaces, full of memories of bygone shopping experiences and atmosphere. It’s open for a month and, as some works change over time, it’s worth a second or even third visit. I have been 3 times so far and I have found that each time I’ve been I’ve seen pieces I missed before and appreciated some work differently the second time I saw it. It’s a huge space and there’s a lot to take in!
The art is varied, both in terms of medium and, in my opinion, interest. Some of the artwork is site responsive in terms of the subject matter and some seems to have little or no connection with the place. There’s sculpture, drawing, participatory installations, and many films. Much of the work is geared towards the community and social engagement. There’s a space on the ground floor with a number of participatory installations, the third floor is dedicated to the community (it’s called Facility) and on the top floor there are another couple of participatory projects. There are spaces for workshops (print and wood) and conversation. There’s also a plant exchange and reading room. A number of events have been organised in Facility and elsewhere in the building– with weekly performances, a Resilience Reading Circle etc. There are also several specialist online symposia scheduled connected to the exhibition.
Some of the work has a COVID-19 slant, but most doesn’t. Some of the participatory projects have inevitably been affected by the issue of contamination – it’s hard to invite people to participate in these strange times – but I thought in most circumstances that was managed well. One project, Sew Yourself, for example, had planned to invite people to stitch a self portrait in the space alongside others but, because of the pandemic, instead did a callout for people to bring a stitched piece to add to the collection. The artist will then stitch them together. A large scale, walk-on Bristolopoly game was initially interactive, but by the end of week 2 this was sadly, changed. Another participatory piece invited visitors to wash their hands using slivers of hand made soap.
I have to say that after almost 7 months of not visiting an art exhibition, being able to see so much art in such an amazing space has been wonderful. With such a large selection of disparate works, however, the curation was, probably inevitably, quite strange. Just one floor, the 4th floor, was cohesively curated and was consequently much easier to view and understand. For the most part, in my opinion, the rest of the exhibition was too much of a sensory overload and seemed to be a series of disconnected pieces. Maybe though, in this kind of project, with so many people involved, there is an inevitability about that? I’m not sure how it could have been successfully curated differently. I do know that Arts Council funding was involved, hence, possibly, the emphasis on the community and socio-political engagement. Also, the organisers had initially planned to use the whole building but had to scale downs their plans - both in terms of the space they used and the number of artists involved - because of the virus. Maybe if they had used more space, the works would have had room to breathe, but conversely it would have been harder to invigilate.
Centre of Gravity brings together a large and diverse selection of works in an astonishing space. It has been an ambitious project and I would say that, overall, it has been successful. It’ll be interesting to see what its legacy will be…
Further reflections on Centre of Gravity, 29.10.20
There were also a couple of other aspects to this exhibition that interested me.
Hand vs machine made: After my first visit I came away with the impression that there was very little work there that was made by hand. This obviously interested me because of the emphasis of the hand and, indeed, the body, in my own practice. In fact, when I went back again and looked more closely, I did find some works made by hand, but much of it was machine fabricated. Emma Stibbon's stunning drawing of charred trees was one notable example, which I was interested to compare with Ian Chamberlain's large scale printed drawings. Both were of a similar scale, both drawn using charcoal, but Chamberlain's was then printed onto some kind of vinyl and stuck to the walls. Although I thought both were equally impressive as drawings, the authenticity of the surfaces of Stibbon's work, charcoal on board, had a very different resonance to Chamberlain's vinyl surfaces. Obviously the charred trees also added a three dimensional perspective to Stibbon's drawing.
There were also a couple of other aspects to this exhibition that interested me.
Hand vs machine made: After my first visit I came away with the impression that there was very little work there that was made by hand. This obviously interested me because of the emphasis of the hand and, indeed, the body, in my own practice. In fact, when I went back again and looked more closely, I did find some works made by hand, but much of it was machine fabricated. Emma Stibbon's stunning drawing of charred trees was one notable example, which I was interested to compare with Ian Chamberlain's large scale printed drawings. Both were of a similar scale, both drawn using charcoal, but Chamberlain's was then printed onto some kind of vinyl and stuck to the walls. Although I thought both were equally impressive as drawings, the authenticity of the surfaces of Stibbon's work, charcoal on board, had a very different resonance to Chamberlain's vinyl surfaces. Obviously the charred trees also added a three dimensional perspective to Stibbon's drawing.
Iain Chamberlain
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Emma Stibbon
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Art in unexpected places:
I've written about site responsiveness in depth elsewhere and I am always very interested to see how an environment changes the way art is perceived.
Clare Doherty (2004) discusses the issue of site responsiveness vs site specificity thus ‘One of the most useful and cogently argued new theorisations of site is Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, in which she traces a genealogy of site-specificity through the 70s and 80s to what James Meyer has termed 'the functional site'. Kwon suggests that as artists and curators have become informed by a broader range of disciplines (including anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, psychology, natural and cultural histories, architecture and urbanism, political theory and philosophy), 'so our understanding of site has shifted from a fixed, physical location to somewhere or something constituted through social, economic, cultural and political processes'. Consequently the term 'site-specific' has been superseded by a range of alternative idioms such as 'context-specific', 'site-oriented', 'site-responsive' and 'socially engaged'.
It seems to me that much of the work that has been made for this exhibition at Centre of Gravity is more 'context-specific', 'site oriented' or 'socially engaged', not site responsive per se. It feels to me as if very little of the work has been made in direct response to the physical space; it's more about a response to the social, cultural and political history of the place and the locality. I would interest me to think more about these subtle differences.
It's also interesting to try to imagine how these works would be perceived if they were installed in a more traditional white cube gallery.
Doherty, C. (2004) ‘Location Location’, Art Monthly, (281), pp. 7–10. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.bathspa.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=505120050&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 23 October 2019).
I've written about site responsiveness in depth elsewhere and I am always very interested to see how an environment changes the way art is perceived.
Clare Doherty (2004) discusses the issue of site responsiveness vs site specificity thus ‘One of the most useful and cogently argued new theorisations of site is Miwon Kwon's One Place After Another: Site-Specific Art and Locational Identity, in which she traces a genealogy of site-specificity through the 70s and 80s to what James Meyer has termed 'the functional site'. Kwon suggests that as artists and curators have become informed by a broader range of disciplines (including anthropology, sociology, literary criticism, psychology, natural and cultural histories, architecture and urbanism, political theory and philosophy), 'so our understanding of site has shifted from a fixed, physical location to somewhere or something constituted through social, economic, cultural and political processes'. Consequently the term 'site-specific' has been superseded by a range of alternative idioms such as 'context-specific', 'site-oriented', 'site-responsive' and 'socially engaged'.
It seems to me that much of the work that has been made for this exhibition at Centre of Gravity is more 'context-specific', 'site oriented' or 'socially engaged', not site responsive per se. It feels to me as if very little of the work has been made in direct response to the physical space; it's more about a response to the social, cultural and political history of the place and the locality. I would interest me to think more about these subtle differences.
It's also interesting to try to imagine how these works would be perceived if they were installed in a more traditional white cube gallery.
Doherty, C. (2004) ‘Location Location’, Art Monthly, (281), pp. 7–10. Available at: https://search-ebscohost-com.bathspa.idm.oclc.org/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aft&AN=505120050&site=eds-live&scope=site (Accessed: 23 October 2019).