'Metropolis: Reflections On The Modern City'

Although I’ve already mentioned my recent  trip to Birmingham generally, my main purpose was to visit the exhibition, ‘Metropolis’: Reflections On The Modern City’, in The Gas Hall at Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery.  Given the mainly urban focus of my own work, the title alone was a draw, and, in the event, the show proved well worth the visit.

‘Metropolis’ presents various interpretations of urban existence by a selection of international contemporary artists.  It felt just the right size to me, and I enjoyed how it ranges through the reflective and thoughtful to the stylishly spectacular.  It also encompasses a range of media, emphasizing photography and video but still finding space for printmaking, sculpture, installation and painting.  Indeed, one of the real positives for me was the occurrence of translations between media within certain artists’ work, and across the exhibition as a whole.

Miao Xiaochun, 'Orbit', Photographic Print, 2005

Revealingly, I engaged wholeheartedly with several audio-visual pieces, only later noticing the relatively low proportion of painting on display.  So often, Art videos have struck me as a disappointing waste of gallery space, despite the obvious potential of the form.  I can only conclude that, either the medium is maturing with age or my own perception of the relationships between old/new, static/time-based or visual/aural media are evolving.  Certainly, the latter is something I’ve been aware of in recent months so maybe this exhibition came along at just the right time.  It’s also worth noting that, whilst thought provoking, all the work shown retains a strongly sensory bias rather than being overly conceptual.  That’s definitely the territory I want my own things to occupy.

Still From:  Grazia Toderi, 'Orbite Rosse', Video (Dual Projection), 2009

My other overarching impression of ‘Metropolis’ overall is of its generally calm, meditative quality.  Although differing paces of urban existence are evoked, the general mood is one of somewhat detached observation and the tag line ‘Reflections on The Modern City’ appears appropriate.  Here are a few things that particularly impressed me…

Andreas Gefeller, 'IP 12', Photographic Print, 2012

Andreas Gefeller, 'SV 08', Photographic Print, 2012

• The photography of Andreas Gefeller (Germany):  Gefeller’s elegant, heavily manipulated pieces are, in this show, all about light.  Large images of a refinery, an elevated road intersection and panoramic cityscape are dramatically under-exposed to become pale, near-monochromatic visions, punctuated by vestiges of occasional colour.  Simultaneously ghostly but highly detailed, they speak of the nocturnal saturation of built environments in artificial light.  This is explored at much greater distance by his beautiful satellite images of illuminated cities glowing like nebulae in the darkness.  I love the formality and extreme distillation of Gefeller’s work.

Still From:  Nicholas Provost, 'Storyteller', Video, 2011

• Nicholas Provost, (Belgium), ‘Storyteller’, Video, 2011:  Provost’s video is the most obvious piece of ‘eye candy’ in the show, which is perfectly appropriate for a piece whose subject is the neon overload of nocturnal Las Vegas.  His camera tracks in slow motion through various panoramas of the Vegas Strip and its familiar leisure landmarks, with the footage split and mirrored to create a simple but effective hallucinatory effect.  It’s not necessarily the most original idea but does make a visually sumptuous comment on the hypnotic, reflexive nature of 'The Spectacle’ identified by Guy Debord.

Christiane Baumgartner, 'Asphalt I', Woodcut (Left Panel Of Diptych), 2004

• The video-derived woodcuts of Christiane Baumgartner, (Germany):  Baumgartner uses stills from her own videos as sources for her large woodcuts, with subjects tending toward relatively mundane sections of road, canal-surface reflections, etc.).  I find this conversation between a new, time-based medium, (the glimpse), and a slow, antique, craft-based one, (the meditative gaze), quite fascinating.  This relationship is made plain by the overt use of parallel, engraved lines so typical of woodcuts but also recalling modern mechanical reproduction or, indeed the screening of video itself.  Baumgartner’s prints are accompanied by a captivating, high contrast video loop of undulating reflections on a Birmingham canal surface augmented by a soundtrack of urban ambiance.

Still From:  Beat Streuli, 'Palisades', Video, 2001

• Beat Streuli, (Switzerland), ‘Palisades’, Video, 2001:  Streuli’s paired videos fill their small frames with slow-motion footage of Birmingham’s city centre pedestrians.  They provide an obvious people-watching opportunity to study facial expressions, personal details etc.  However, they also provoke thoughts about consumerism, (through the prevalence of clothing logos and street food on show), population overload and the claustrophobia of cities.  Streuli’s use of a long focal length compresses his subjects into a tight depth of field and raises issues around surveillance and candid filming.

Still From:  Josef Robakowski, 'View From My Window', Video, 1978-99

• Josef Robakowski, (Poland), ‘View From My Window’, Video, 1978-99:  Robakowski’s video differs from all the others on show in its transferred-analogue, monochrome (Communist), aesthetic and extreme gestation period.  Lovingly, he documents the events observed from his window in a vast public housing project and the events unfolding in the concrete courtyard below.  His attention gradually shifts from the lives of his neighbours to the alienating transformation of the space into a shoppers’ car park and, ultimately, a massive view-obscuring hotel site.  It’s a moving, personal interpretation of both the physical transformation of a city and historic political/economic upheavals.

Zhang Enli, 'Apartment 3', Oil On Canvas, 2008

• Zhang Enli, (China), ‘Apartment 3’, Oil on Canvas, 2008:  Zhang Enli’s large canvas is the nearest thing to ‘traditional’ painterliness at ‘Metropolis’.  Employing thin washes of warm and cool grey, it depicts the blank, modular façade of a housing block.  Thus, it echoes the apparently soulless, totalitarian architecture of the building in Robakowski’s video opposite but shows little sign of the humanity actually pervading that piece.  Only the repeat pattern of open, vacant windows hints at possible occupation in this bleak image.  The perspectival distortion speaks of a photographically derived composition whilst the handling of linear structures makes me reflect on the realities of handling such a spare, geometrically rigorous subject in paint.

Romuald Hazoume, 'ARTicle 14', Assemblage (Found Objects), 1997-2005 &
'ARTicle 14, Debrouille-Toi, Toi-Meme (Version 1)', Photographic Print, 2005

• Photography & Assemblages by Romuald Hazoumé, (Benin):  Hazoumé’s large, complex photographs show panoramic views of African bazaars and shopping streets.  It’s a version of the continent with which we’ve become familiar, where what used to be called The Third World meets an influx of small motorcycles, mobile phones and Capitalist consumerism.  Elsewhere, he presents images of mopeds and impromptu vehicles carrying unfeasibly large loads as a comment on the supposed resourcefulness-against-all-odds of African populations.  Nearby, an assemblage, resembling a traditional street trader’s cart or stall is piled high with already-obsolete western goods.  To us it resembles a comical jumble sale; to an African citizen it may represent the complete economic transformation of a continent and all that implies, both good and bad.

Mohamed Bourouissa, 'L'impasse', Photographic Print, 2007

Mohammed Bourouissa, 'La Rencontre', Photographic Print, 2005

• The Photography of Mohamed Bourouissa, (Algeria/France):  These constructed tableaux present a view of life lived by immigrant populations beyond the Parisian Periphique.  They appear to confirm news reports of a world of tension, poverty and disenfranchisement and many suggest violence either pending or recently enacted.  The carefully posed body language of his subjects is often aggressive and eye contact deliberately challenging.  Each situation is clearly a fiction but this is Bourouissa’s own world and we must assume there’s at least some truth behind his account of the lives of Paris’ suburban dispossessed.

Still From: Jochem Hendricks, 'Front Windows', Video, 2009

• Jochem Hendricks, (Germany), ‘Front Windows’, Video, 2009:  This may be my favourite thing at ‘Metropolis’.  Hendricks’ static camera objectively frames the façade of a large, nondescript 19th century building in Frankfurt.  Although not shot in monochrome, - the scene is almost devoid of colour, and the illumination is even and lacking drama.  Over a period of several minutes, rocks thrown from within methodically smash all of the building’s numerous windowpanes, - and that’s it.  I was captivated by its hypnotic rhythms of implied violence within an overall atmosphere of level calm.  Each explosion of glass and debris is visually and sonically distinct, and, by occurring unpredictably, singly and in clusters, they create a palpable air of tension throughout.  It seems like a poem to entropic forces held within formal bounds or the potential of cities to seemingly auto-destruct in part as needs and priorities change.  There’s also a possible allusion to the varying intensities of past human events that may have unfolded behind each uniform window, (a theme already identified in the work of Josef Robakowski and Zhang Enli).

‘Metropolis: Reflections On The Modern City’ is entering its last few days but you can still catch it until 23 June 2013.  I’d certainly encourage you to take a look if you find yourself in Brum before then.  I believe all the work shown has been acquired for Birmingham museums and look forward to seeing at least some of it again in the future.