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Review Feb 02 2010 « | »
Pause & Eject 2 at Shoreditch Town Hall Ana Vukadin and Holly White review Goldsmiths' MFA students' show

Ana Vukadin

Visiting Pause & Eject 2, the last interim show featuring the work of Goldsmiths' MFA students, is an experience in and of itself. For those who were expecting to waltz into Shoreditch Town Hall and see yet another graduate student art show, a shocker is in store. The show is not, in fact, in the Town Hall proper, but somewhere a little less distinguished: the basement.

The interior is quite possibly the unsung hero of this show. By selecting this basement as the site of their exhibition, Goldsmiths' students have taken the concept of the White Cube, crumpled it up, torn it into shreds and then vigorously flushed it down the toilet. The space is absolutely stunning and absolutely derelict: paint (none of it white) is peeling away, floors are uneven, stairs are rickety and wires are hanging ominously from the ceilings.

This labyrinthine, Baroque skeleton features works by thirty-six students. A truly international crowd, there is no common theme bringing their pieces together, but the show works as a whole thanks especially to the location: the high-ceilinged rooms of a myriad of sizes separate the works just enough so that they are not invasive of each other. It is refreshingly eclectic and laid back.

Tucked away in a tiny room is Miss B's Hair Salon: Cut and Conversation, where the artist, Ruth Beale, is clipping the hair of a boy whom she is trying to engage into a conversation about the idea of wilderness.

At the foot of a spiral staircase, a rustling sound announces the performance of Hye Young Ku, who clad in a gorgeous plastic black gown with an immense trail descends the stairs with an entry worthy of a debutante. She walks with a bright diva smile on her face and shakes everyone by the hand, welcoming them to her show. It is unnerving, amusing and leaves everyone feeling oddly overwhelmed.

Chu Chung Teng's video How Kind of You to Let Me Come (2010) is a subtly sarcastic critique of immigration, where various foreigners are urged to repeat in a voice not unlike that of Professor Higgins', 'The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plains'. Their enunciation, however, is unrecorded, but their misery is ever more present with each nudge of the exasperating English voice.

Another gem is Burcu Yagcioglu's Untitled (2010), a compelling silent video featuring the artist carefully arranging her long, dark hair into a perfect veil, ingeniously challenging its symbolism. And finally, Pedro Lasch and Moise Jerry Rosembert's Writing on the Wall (2010) initiative is a spectacular homage to Haiti, whereby the Haitian graffiti artist Jerry will transfer international messages onto the remaining walls of Port-au-Prince and vice versa.

This show is not to be missed.

Holly White

Shoreditch Town Hall, complete with its distinctive layout and health and safety politics, has proved itself to be a difficult place to exhibit in over the last year or two. My first impression upon entering Pause & Eject 2 here was underwhelming. Of course this is not always to be assumed a bad thing, in fact this reserved atmosphere could suggest that the artists had enough confidence in their artwork to feel they didn't have to push and shove for the initial wow factor. But on closer inspection the show felt lacklustre, and somewhat complacent. The work didn't present the sort of risk taking you might expect from a post-graduate show: it didn't present any challenge to the type of work we come to expect in commercial galleries, and from older and more established artists.

The ad hoc approach to the Tuesday night performative element of Pause & Eject 2, that happened in and around the static works, did contrast to this. With no agenda that I was aware of, and no designated performance space, the result was bursts and flurries of activity throughout the evening. This meant that one could stumble upon a performance, or be shoved into a tiny room and forced to listen, before even realising what was going on. It gave the performance artists a freedom that was acquired from the confusion and openness of an audience that didn't have a timetable in front of them. I can't say whether this made the live work better than the other works, but it added a degree of chance and unpredictability in a group show that otherwise felt too safe.

What surprised me about the Goldsmiths students show was the high proportion of politically themed works, not so apparent in recent shows of a similar ilk. There was work in this exhibition about Goldman Sachs, revolution and global warming to name but a few topics. As much as this type of work is unusual in this context, I would be loathed to say the political work presented here gave us much that was artistically new. In respect to the form it often took, it wasn't as radical as the ideas it was trying to illustrate.

It's difficult to identify and describe one's experience of a large group show without misjudging or overlooking many of the works within it. But I could not help but assess the morale of the show as a whole, especially when I knew the artists had been studying and working together for over a year. I would hate to feel that this exhibition was a representation of the young artist's mood today, satisfied and unexcitable.

Pause & Eject 2 was at Shoreditch Town Hall, 26th - 28th January.

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