We talk a lot about the blurring of lines between what is considered art (concept, sculpture, painting, performance) and what we know as design (furniture, interiors, architecture), yet little has taken the aforementioned blurring of those lines so literally. James Clarkson, in his exhibition Pavilion at Glasgow’s David Dale Gallery & Studios, has virtually taken said line outside for a serious bout of fisticuffs – and his cohorts in this show (Rachel Adams, Laura Aldridge, James McLardy, Ciara Phillips and Kevin Pollock) have supplied the virtual muscle; pulling up in a blacked out Beemer with baseball bats and knuckle dusters, pummelling those poor lines into submission.
What remains is very high brow stuff indeed, in fact; it’s only through a careful deciphering of the press release (brimming with superfluous prose) that you realise it has anything to do with design at all. Inspired heavily by Yves Klein, the roots of this work lie in the Silberdistel vase’s plagiaristic homage to the French artist’s famous use of sponge relief and his iconic cobalt blue. Investigating the links between Modernism and mass-production, Clarkson has gone about designing a ‘domestic setting’, whereby the aforementioned artistic cohorts were invited to “complete it, and make it habitable”.
Quite who would live in a house like this, as a famous American-British television presenter once said, I’m not sure… the recognition between these works of art and the mass-produced design and craft they may, or may not, be attempting to recreate is minimal; but it makes for a nice narrative, should you be able to follow it. Confusing, fascinating, mildly (or wildly, I can’t decide) pretentious, strangely beautiful… Pavilion may be a perplexing work, but it certainly commands your attention.
Laura Aldridge,
Performance and pleasure, 2012
James McLardy,
M, W and V are all now closer, 2012
Ciara Phillips,
Everything that made it, 2012
Rachel Adams,
Kitchenalia 1 and 2, 2012
James McLardy,
A product of circumstance, 2012
James McLardy,
Surface Anatomy (E621), 2012
Kevin Pollock,
Sandwood Bay, 2012 (2)
Rachel Adams,
Kitchenalia 3, 2012
