Completed Commission: 'A-R-T Triptych' For Rushey Mead Academy

'A-R-T Triptych', Acrylic On MDF, 2015

A few times now, while making excuses for the paucity of my own recent artistic output, I’ve dropped hints regarding a commission that had me tied up for most of the summer, and well into autumn.  Indeed, whilst it’s all been very rewarding, it has taken rather longer than originally envisaged.  Finally, I can reveal some results.

Earlier in the year, the Head of Rushey Mead Academy, where I earn my daily bread as a Design Technology and Art Technician, approached me with a view to producing some work for the school environment.  The school occupies a site extensively remodeled under the Government’s ‘Building Schools For The Future’ agenda a few years ago, and the architects did manage to incorporate reasonable amounts of light, and the odd splash of colour, into what are predominantly functional buildings, - built to a price.  Nevertheless, it is undeniably a rather corporate environment taken overall; hence, - the decision to introduce a little more individual identity and implied creativity into various communal areas.

'A', 'A-R-T Tryptych', Acrylic On MDF, 180 cm X 100 cm, 2015

The images here show the first of what is intended to be a long-term, rolling programme of such projects, and show a triptych of shaped panels designed to be a signature statement for the Art Faculty.  In the long term, it’s hoped that similar such faculty identifiers might extend around various areas of the site, along with other more general statement pieces.

Not wanting to simply emulate my own existing work, I was happy to regard this as a rather more conscious design job, and to produce something which might tell a certain story about different aspects of the work of the Art Dept., and even, at a stretch, form the basis for actual teaching and learning points.  The three panels, spelling ‘A-R’T’ are intended represent, Drawing/Printing and Sketchbook work; Painting and Fluid Media; and Photography and Digital Media, respectively, - these being three of the main disciplines our students currently study, (they do a fair bit of 3D work too, but something had to give somewhere).

'R', 'A-R-T Triptych', Acrylic On MDF, 200 cm X 100 cm, 2015

I chose to borrow certain stylistic elements from both Roy Lichtenstein and Michael Craig-Martin, feeling this would allow me to build-in considerable complexity within a bold graphic, (and hopefully, still decipherable) scheme, and to deploy a shamelessly bold, synthetic palette.  Both artists have formed the stimulus for more than one Key Stage 3 Art project, in recent years.  Also, I see no point in being unnecessarily subtle when trying to energise the environment of around fifteen hundred eleven to sixteen-year-olds; if Art, as a subject area, can’t make a bold visual statement, - who can?  All those complex, flat shapes and hard edges account for the considerable overrun in estimated production time, but should mean that any necessary future repairs or touching-up might prove easier.

It seemed important that the students should have some input into what was hopefully going to a fairly slick, professional-looking final product.  The superficial style of the piece didn’t really lend itself to short attention spans or free brushwork, so instead, a variety of groups were asked to generate a selection of gestural marks, hand prints, blots and brushstrokes as raw material.  If nothing else, I hoped this might provide an opportunity for a little recreational, end-of-term mess-creation, free from the pressure of meeting set targets or quantifiable standards.  These were scanned and reinterpreted by me for incorporation into the final compositions.  This was a strategy inspired by Lichtenstein’s own formalisation of painterly brushstrokes into his trademark, deliberate graphic style.  This idea of translation between different modes of mark-making, and the processing of a statement through both hi and low-tech media is something I think about a lot at the moment.

'T', 'A-R-T Triptych', Acrylic On MDF, 180 cm X 100 cm, 2015

I supplemented my stock of such compositional elements by trawling students’ sketchbooks for further pre-existing sources, (including various hatching marks and the African mask motif), before bringing everything together as final designs in Photoshop.  That last one was part of my response to the school’s request for a multi-cultural dimension to be included in the overall scheme.  The preponderance of Asian-origin students in the school suggested the inclusion of Rajasthani printing block motifs in the ‘A’ panel, whilst an African mask motif from a student’s research drawing was reinterpreted in a consciously digital style for ‘T’, in some attempt to bridge the traditional with the contemporary.  Keen not to just ‘tick boxes’ I chose an indigenous Australian turtle motif for the ‘R’ panel.  It was an attempt to reference a very particular and highly recognisable painting tradition, outside our own back yard.  If Multi-Culturalism is to mean much, it should include some sense of the universality of the arts, as well as own familiar interest groups, in my opinion.

All that stuff can be a potential minefield, of course, and I fully recognise that the overall style of the triptych still leans on my own Western ‘Fine Art’ preoccupations fairly heavily.  However, it is my belief that, to some extent at least, the highly knowing, technologically derived, and self-consciously Pop aspects of both Lichtenstein’s and Craig-Martin’s work do reflect the wider culture in which all our students, of whatever origin, now swim.

'A', 'A-R-T' Triptych', Original Design, Photoshop File, 2015

This idea of bridging is something that extends through the references to various media across the three panels.  It was never my intention to create a three-stage chronological account, but there is a definite sense of the ancient and modern co-existing within the piece.  The devotion of the third ‘T’ panel to modern, photographic and digital media was a deliberate attempt to suggest current and future preoccupations, but even within that context, there is already a sense of an evolving tradition.  It was the Head’s suggestion that the panel should refer to older, analogue photographic methods, (in the negative strip), as well as the obviously digital, (in the Photoshop tools palette and pixelated elements).

For similar reasons, I was determined to include the handprint motif in the central panel.  Apart from its superficial decorative potential, it serves as a reminder of Paleolithic Cave Art, and that artistic endeavour lies at the very core of Human experience.  It was central to the experience of our species from the start, and in a context in which technological advance and expressive thinking were inextricably bound together.  That’s something worth remembering, given the current preoccupations with stripping creativity from educational curricula, and prioritising the traditionally academic and the easily quantified.

'R', 'A-R-T Triptych', Original Design, Photoshop File, 2015

How much of all that will be communicable to the students who pass by the piece each day remains to be seen.  It should provide a bold splash of colourful decoration if nothing else, but I hope there is enough there to stimulate a bit of discussion beyond its obvious surface qualities.  It was for this reason that each of the panel designs also includes a digital QR code.  It would seem shortsighted to discuss all that inter-disciplinary stuff without accepting the cross-platform nature of contemporary culture, - in which everything is expected to act as a portal to something else.  Thus, any student pausing long enough to wave their phone over the piece currently, can gain access to websites devoted to the school’s Art Dept. in general; our GCSE Photography course; and, hopefully, the process of producing the piece in the first place.  Those are, by their very nature, highly adaptable in the future.

By the time you read this, the three panels should be being finally mounted on the wall.  As they will reside in a high-traffic corridor, each will be sandwiched behind a protective sheet of clear acrylic, - cut to the same shape.  For that reason, I’ve photographed them in their raw state here, to avoid problematic reflections.  I’ll try to bung up a couple of shots of them in their final state, once they’re in situ.  As mentioned, the original intention was for this piece to be the start of a much larger process.  There is a considerable pool of creative staff talent in the school, both above and below the radar, so there’s definitely the potential to do a lot, should time and finances allow.  I’ll keep you abreast of any future developments.

'T', 'A-R-T Triptych', Original Design, Photoshop File, 2015

Thanks go to: Academy Head, Rita Hindocha, and Business Manager, Sheila Carr, for their vision, and for creating a situation in which this project could happen; and to Lead Teacher For Art, Tim Durham, for being a highly energized catalyst.  It also goes to Steve Peach; Derek Foreman (& Premises Team); and Kajal Patel, for technical assistance and facilitation.  Appreciation is also due, for positive feedback and a constant stream of encouraging comments, to: Jo Woolridge, Heather McAusland, Amy Goodwin, Poonam Mistry, and numerous other staff and students passing through the Art Dept. in recent months. 

Finally: apologies to the cleaning staff for cluttering the place up for so many evenings, in order to get the project finished!

Completed Studies

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape, Spray Enamel & Coloured Pencil
On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

Here are a few more of my recent, small-scale, paper-based pieces.  There's not too much to say about these at the moment, other than I seem to be involved in making a series of them in a fairly similar vein.  My hope is that they might constitute a supply of images that could stand alone if required, or  provide the raw material for something more ambitious or extensively developed.  

'Untitled', Acrylics,  Paper Collage & Spray Enamel On Paper, 30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

One obvious idea is that they may be a springboard to larger paintings, but there's also the possibility they might be recycled more digitally, - perhaps by extracting elements for recombination with certain photographically-derrived motifs.  I'm not sure exactly what that might result in ultimately, but both digital and more traditional printing methods feel quite intriguing.  I've also been wondering about different ways of combining static imagery of this sort with moving video material.  It's all fairly open ended at the moment, so for the time being, I'll just keep making them until it feels like time to find a way to scratch one or more of those itches.

'Untitled', Acrylics, Paper Collage, Adhesive Tape & Spray Enamel On Paper,
30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

Gratifyingly, there's already been a little interest in these from a couple of quarters.  That suggests I may be onto something with them, even though, to me, they feel very like the start of something, rather than any form of conclusion.  It's also mildly surprising, as my impression was they might appear a bit sombre for some tastes, - a bit bleak, even.  Indeed, they may not necessarily come from the cheeriest of places, emotionally, although producing them has actually been a very positive process, in itself.

'Untitled', Acrylics, paper Collage, Spray Enamel, Ink & Pencil On Paper,
30 cm X 30 cm, 2015

Anyway, in lieu of any more explanation of things I haven't fully rationalised myself yet, I'll conclude this post with a few more of the photographic images which may, (or may not), have inspired them in one way or another.  I certainly seem to be responding to a pretty grey range of subject matter at the moment, although there's still the odd splash of yellow (or lime green), to be found, even as winter draws on.

Central Leicester, October 2015

North Leicester, November 2015

Central Nottingham, May 2014

Central Leicester, October 2015

Digbeth, Birmingham, May 2015

North Leicester, November 2015

Central Nottingham, November 2015

Central Nottingham, November 2015

Nadia Lauro: 'Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man' At Nottingham Contemporary

Nadia Lauro, 'Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man', Gallery Installation, Nottingham Contemporary, 2015

The images shown here relate to an exhibit by Nadia Lauro, related to the musician Sun Ra and currently installed at Nottingham Contemporary.  The room is one quarter of a four-handed exhibition entitled ‘Alien Encounters’, dealing with various issues around the idea of the other.  The overall show also features installations and audio-visual presentations by Ranah Hamedeh, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, and Danai Anesiadou, but sadly, I’d be lying if I said those sections engaged me quite as much when I visited the other day.  I may not have time to revisit in search of greater understanding in the immediate future, so for now I’ll just focus on ‘Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man’, not least because it’s really loads of fun.

Sun Ra

Nadia Lauro, 'Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man', Gallery Installation, Nottingham Contemporary, 2015

For anyone unfamiliar with him, Sun Ra is an intriguing, and pleasingly eccentric figure in the field of mid-twentieth century experimental Jazz, whose cultural significance seems to extend beyond the obvious pigeonhole of ‘alternative’ improvised music.  Born Herman Blount, in segregated Alabama, his music evolved from (relatively) conventional swing and Be-bop modes through to the Free and just plain ‘out-there’.  For many, he sits alongside Coltrane, Coleman, Taylor, et al, when it comes to pushing Jazz to the edges of what was possible at the time.  His own influence extends beyond the confines of the genre, fuelled in part by the innate funkiness of his sound, even at its most atonal.

'Sun Ra:The Cosmo Man' Nottingham Contemporary, November 2015

Surprisingly, for someone whose oeuvre, and overall vision moved so far from mainstream entertainment, Sun Ra maintained a fully functioning and successful big band, (his Arkestra), for decades, - augmenting their often intense, percussion-heavy live performances with synthesizers, assorted dancers, vocalists and a generally extravagant presentation.  This is in part due to the support of a wealthy and sympathetic business partner, Alton Abraham.  His back catalogue is huge; featuring releases and re-releases on various labels, including his own El Saturn imprint.
 

Beyond the field of pure musical form, the other point about Sun Ra is his significance as the originator of Afrofuturism, and involvement with the wider Civil Rights struggle.  It’s not the first time he has featured at Nottingham Contemporary in recent months, and it is in this wider, socio-political context that he cropped up in Glenn Ligon’s excellent ‘Encounters & Collisions’ show there, earlier in the year.  Eschewing the slavery associations of his given name, Blount adopted the Sun Ra identity and re-invented himself as a supposedly alien visitor, (from Saturn, it transpires), also espousing a connection with Ancient Egyptian civilization.  His stated mission was to expand consciousness and lead Black humanity away from Earth-bound oppression.

The best distillation of all this is his 1972 feature film, ‘Space Is The Place’.  Coincidentally, that’s also the title of his best-known album, and probably the ideal place for the uninitiated to start.  The film is a glorious mash-up of period crime thriller and homemade SF fantasy, not unlike those points were the budget ran out before the end of an early Star Trek series.  It plays in one corner of the room in Nottingham, along with stills of the man himself, hanging around slightly less than magical locations, in full costume.  This a definite call-back to Ligon’s earlier show, but also a reminder of Sun Ra’s all-encompassing vision. The film’s low-rent extra-terrestrials and craft-table exploding planet are, in their own way, as enjoyable as any contemporary CGI confection, - but shouldn’t obscure the scholarship and wide-ranging theoretical framework behind it.  This home grown philosophy would, at different points, include: comparative theologies, Freemasonry, Kabbalistic and occult, knowledge, Numerology, psychic phenomena, and Egyptology, alongside more obvious political concerns. 

Sun Ra, 'Space Is The Place', Video Transferred To DVD, 1972/74, (Lent By Jim Newman/
North American Star System.

This idea of exodus and the liberation of a chosen people is hardly new, (or without its dangers), of course, but Sun Ra can certainly be seen as a guiding light in transferring the perceived societal alienness (and consequent alienation), of Afro-Americans, into a more optimistic, future-centric vision of an emancipated life.  He would later expand this, claiming a desire to rescue all Humanity, (from itself, I suppose).  Afrofuturism is a significant tradition, taking in the Jazz Fusion of, amongst others, Herbie Hancock, the P-Funk of George Clinton’s Parliament and Funkadelic ensembles, and not least, many of today’s SF-informed luminaries of electronic Bass Music.

I guess it could be easy to dismiss the general presentation of Sun Ra’s act as so much shonky pantomime, - what with all the dressing up in robes and ostentatious head-dresses, cartoonish rubber alien life-forms, and tiny psychedelic spaceship [1.], were it not for the social and cultural context of the 60s and 70s.  Cheesy glitz and pimp-tastic wardrobes were as much counter-culture signifiers amongst black people of the period as peasant costume and relaxed attitudes to hygiene were to many white kids.  Artists like Miles Davis or Sly Stone were no strangers to the dressing-up box whilst maintaining a distinct strain of Black consciousness in their work and many superficially escapist Blaxploitation flicks of the period mix elements of gritty social comment into their lurid fables of street-hustlin’.

Sun Ra, 'Space Is The Place', Video Transferred To DVD, 1972/74, (Lent By Jim Newman/
North American Star System)

Indeed, Sun Ra’s own predilection for appearing as an inter-galactic Pharaoh figure may actually reflect his interest in the harder-edged Black-Islam movement of the 50s and 60s.  Admittedly, his vision included the ultimate destruction of a corrupt, (White) Earth, but at least the escapees got to start again.  In an era of routine, nihilistic street massacres and quasi-medieval, theocratic death cults, one might wish for a little more of his rather more celebratory approach these days.

As far as the exhibit itself goes, much of this is either taken as read, or simply implied for the curious to investigate themselves, - rather than overly explained.  The two main impressions are of the wealth of Sun Ra’s music, and of being immersed in primary, sunshine yellow.  The walls and floor are saturated with it, as is all the ambient lighting.  It’s an effective (and probably cost-effective) way to create a distinctly alien form of psychedelic minimalism. It creates a form of abstract space one can occupy, but that also seeps into one’s own head, much as do the Arkestra’s hypnotic grooves.

'Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man', Nottingham Contemporary, November 2015

Those cadmium walls are host to miscellaneous documentary and archival items, as are the display case around much of the room’s periphery.  Perhaps most remarkable amongst these are numerous examples of the hand-drawn album sleeves that Arkestra members were apparently pressed into producing when not playing.  Meanwhile, a second screen relays footage of a impressively frenzied Chicago performance from 1981.  The infectious strains of the ‘Space Is The Place’ title track form an overall aural backdrop to everything else.

'Sun Ra & His Arkestra, Chicago Jazz Festival, 2 September 1981', Video Transferred To DVD,
Chicago Educational Television Association, WTTW/Chicago Production

However, the most important visual punctuations in all that yellow are the multiple pairs of black headphones dangling from the ceiling, - including a dense thicket of fifty such, occupying a significant portion of the gallery’s open space.  These effectively form a silent disco, with each relaying a different piece of Sun Ra music.  This kind of thing seems quite popular at the moment, and does create an interesting tension between focussing on a preferred piece in contemplative isolation, and a timeless need for the communal, ritual elements of music and dance.  It’s a typically technological solution to a very contemporary paradox.  Either way, it seems pretty effective here, and it was cheering to witness a steady procession of young families seizing the opportunity for a bit of a dance, whilst lost in the crazy, cosmic sounds of Sun Ra.

'Sun Ra: The Cosmo Man', Nottingham Contemporary, November 2015

It feels appropriate that, for all the attendant paraphernalia and associations surrounding Sun Ra, the main thrust of this exhibit is on the music.  It remains his most important and enduring legacy, and represents a genuine and actually surprisingly disciplined quest for new artistic ground throughout a long career.  On a weekend when all the news was bad, and humanity seemed to have lost none of its appetite for misery and deluded atrocity, I was delighted to sit in a world of glorious yellow, while small children jigged around to properly avant-garde Jazz.  It all seemed to stem from a time when justified struggle and the celebration of life weren’t necessarily could coexist as two sides of the same coin [2.].

[1.]:  How he planned to fit all the chosen people on that, I’ll never know, - but it does have a great paint-job.

[2.]:  For all his radical engagement, and interest in the Black Muslim Movement, Sun Ra's eclecticism and appreciation of ecstatic ritual feel pretty much the opposite of the life-hating, fundamentalist bulshit that now confronts us.

Open & Shut Case

Both Images: North Leicester, November 2015

A stroll along Leicester's famous Golden Mile always provides fuel for a little light word play.

Colour / Not Colour 6

Being another small meditation on the contrast  between saturated and non-saturated colour in an urban setting.

North Leicester, November 2015

(Happy Diwali).

Fiona Banner, 'Scroll Down & Keep Scrolling' At Ikon, Birmingham (Art Woman In Word Land)

Fiona Banner, 'Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling', Artist's Publication, Vanity Press, 2015.
Cover Image Shows: 'Font', Typeface, 2015, And: 'Font', Carved Limestone, c.1880/2015

The Half Term break came and went in the traditional blur, but I did find time for a trip to Birmingham’s Ikon Gallery, to take in Fiona Banner’s exhibition, ‘Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling.’  It feels like many of my most meaningful gallery experiences have happened in Nottingham or Birmingham over recent years and, just like Nottingham Contemporary, Ikon is an invaluable regional resource.  This is actually the second stimulating show of a distinctly conceptual stripe I’ve seen there this year, having already enjoyed Pavel Buchler’s ‘Honest Work’ in the spring.

Fiona Banner, 'The Bastard Word', Neon, Paper Templates, Transformers, 2007

Whilst my own practice remains rooted in the tradition of the primarily aesthetic, portable Art object, both Buchler and Banner prove there’s plenty of interest to be found in more self-consciously ideas-based stuff for me too, regardless of the medium in which it is manifested.  As noted before, I really want to have my cake and eat it.

Once upon a time, during an earlier wave of self-proclaimed Conceptualism, it seemed that an especially rigid set of ideological constraints might replace any notion of ‘the art object’ with the idea alone, expressed in the least aesthetically seductive manner possible.  Indeed, though the moment had rather passed, I have vague memories, even from my student days in the early 80s, of more than one exhibition comprised almost wholly of typewritten texts, usually requiring a thorough prior knowledge of Marxist theory.

Fiona Banner, '1909-2015', 105 Volumes Of 'Jane's All The World's Aircraft', 2015 (Ongoing)

Both Buchler and Banner seem representative of a less up-tight subsequent generation of conceptualists, (epitomised by the YBAs) for whom engagement with serious ideas is no obstacle to sly humour, sensory stimulation or the resonant artifact.  Perhaps the real issue here is the detachment of ‘ideas-based’ from the purely theoretical, and I’ve sometimes reflect that, if I want the latter, I might as well reach for a book.  As Emin, Hirst and their ilk slide into establishment respectability, (or fulfill their potential as undressed Emperors, in Hirst’s case), it’s easy enough to dismiss the YBA moment as a market-driven storm in a teacup, but the deployment, by various artists of the period, of a conceptual impulse combined with a greater component of humour, and the generation of some genuinely enjoyable objects in the process, do feel like valuable legacies.

Fiona Banner, 'Arsewoman In Wonderland', (Detail), Screen Print On Paper', 2002

Banner herself has made quite a name for herself, since first coming to the attention of many, when her ‘Arsewoman In Wonderland’ was included in 2002’s Turner Prize nominations. The perceived shock value of its pornographic content was of course typical of the period, and guaranteed to generate easy headlines and an attendant notoriety.  Installing whole decommissioned fighter jets inside Tate Britain’s Duveen Galleries didn’t exactly hurt her profile, either.  For all that, this show at the Ikon is, by all accounts, her most significant British retrospective to date, and represents a number of her projects over the years.  I won’t pretend I responded to everything in the show with equal relish, but there is plenty in there that delighted, stimulated or amused me in equal measure.

There’s no doubt that the word lies at the heart of Banner’s practice, and this extends beyond content to include an engagement with the formal qualities of text.  Indeed, the first thing one meets at the show’s entrance is a carved stone font, entitled ‘Font’ and incised with examples of Banner’s own conglomerate font, (also entitled ‘Font’).  It’s a neat introduction to the multi-stranded thinking and willingness to pun that runs through her oeuvre.  Beyond the simple impulse toward amusing word play, I can’t help wondering if ‘Font’ (in either iteration), might also indicate how the actual mechanics of text might give birth to the thought, as much as the inverse.

Fiona Banner, 'The Bastard Word', Neon, Paper Templates, Transformers, 2007

Related issues of parentage emanate from another, higher-impact piece waiting within.  ‘The Bastard Word’, encapsulates its own title, with each letter formed from white neon.  We’re invited to question whether ‘Bastard’ is an expletive, a factual descriptor, or a subject under examination, and there’s a definite sense of the potential frustrations that may accompany a search for effective verbal communication.  That’s something that seems magnified by the amateurish wonkiness of each character’s formation and the scorched paper templates that back them on the wall.  Banner’s own attempts to communicate appear complicated by the need to simultaneously learn the neon-bender’s craft.  A little swearing was involved there, perhaps.

Fiona Banner, 'The Bastard Word', (Detail).

The paradoxical disjuncture between what is felt or meant, and what might be communicated verbally or textually is, of course been meat and drink to writers, philosophers and Conceptual artists alike.   Certainly, nothing about Banner’s work seems to exist on a single level alone and the cycling the neon legend through varying degrees of light intensity, further stresses the untrustworthiness of words.  Clear illumination is not always forthcoming.

In fact, the quality of lighting seems intrinsic to several of the pieces on the exhibition’s lower level.  ‘The Man’ is another impactful example of this.  The title reverses that of Banner’s book, ‘The Nam’, in which a number of notable Vietnam War films are transcribed as bald descriptions of everything that occurs.  Alongside the book, a wall papered with a collage of promotional posters represents the work at Ikon.  This allows Banner to détourn her own material, and one particular critic’s comment that the work was unreadable.  She went on to disprove this by recording a 20-hour reading, as the multi-cassette piece ‘Trance’.

Fiona Banner, (Foreground): 'Not So Much A Coffee Table Book As A Coffee Table',
Paint On Birch Ply, 2015.  (Background): 'The Man', Poster Collage, 1997.

Nearby, on the gallery floor, sits a large plywood replica of the thick volume.  For those unwilling to read it themselves, ‘The Nam’ functions mainly as a coffee table book, so, with her usual wit, the artist has supplied her own book-coffee table.  Were all of this not sufficient, the book’s eye-popping cyan & red livery and publicity material is bathed in alternate, cyan, magenta and yellow light, referencing full-colour print technology, magnifying its optical potential, and unifying the disparate elements into a somewhat more immersive experience, at a stroke.

Fiona Banner, 'The Man', (Detail), Poster Collage, 1997 

It’s worth noting that the publication of books as art pieces in their own right, (under her own Vanity Press imprint), is something Banner turns to regularly, and extends to the exhibition’s own ‘catalogue’.  Ironically, the latter eschews text altogether, being entirely image-based.  This idea of a text being simultaneously presented as an artifact clearly relates to some of this post’s early observations, and is magnified by the exhibition’s presentation of individual volumes on purpose-built plinths.

The willingness to let an idea spin off in a number of directions, in a form of fractal fee-association, is a recurring feature of Banner’s work.  It can be seen in the section of gallery devoted to ‘Mistah Kurtz - He Not Dead’.  This is something of a half-and-half experience for me, in terms of its appeal.  There are clear references to Conrad’s ‘Heart Of Darkness’, (which itself loops back to her involvement with ‘Apocalypse Now’, of course, but he graphics pasted onto the wall here are far too dimly lit to really make any real sense of, (‘Heart Of Darkness’, OK, - I get that much).  Opposite, a video plays over a panel patterned with undulating pinstripes, - a motif which is extended over other adjacent elements, including a pair of bent plywood chairs.

Still From: Fiona Banner, 'Mistah Kurtz - He Not Dead', HD Video, 2014-15

It’s the video that appeals to me most here, comprising a rapid-fire procession of still images dealing with the relationship between the City of London and the arms industry, and the sexism, conspicuous consumption and ostentatious partying that also characterise The Square Mile.  Pinstripe motifs reappear thick and fast, be it in the uniforms of city types or the repeated parallels of stern, corporate architecture [1.], and the whole thing is accompanied by a distinctly militaristic and percussive soundtrack. It’s worth noting that the starkly monochrome photos themselves were commissioned from Magnum conflict photographer, Paolo Pellegrin, and have a distinct flavour of war reportage.  For me, the video might stand alone quite satisfactorily its accompanying elements, but I am intrigued by the strategy of projecting over another piece of static imagery, as it’s something I’ve been wondering about myself, recently.

Still From: Fiona Banner, 'Mistah Kurtz - He Not Dead'.

I guess we’d all have been secretly disappointed to miss out on the ‘Oo-er, Missus’ frisson of the piece for which Banner first gained notoriety.  She doesn’t disappoint, choosing to wallpaper ‘Arsewoman In Wonderland’s’ porno-flick transcription upside-down this time, in a format recalling a cinema screen.  It’s an enjoyable, if puerile gag, meaning that any attempt to read it at length soon becomes a right pain in the arse itself, (or in the neck, at least).  On a more high-minded level, I suppose it’s a pretty effective demonstration of how all this emphasis on bald description can denude words of their emotive or expressive potential.  It seems also to spotlight the eventual banality at the heart of all functional pornography.

Fiona Banner, 'Arsewoman In Wonderland', Screen Print On Paper, 2002

If the exhibits on Ikon’s upper level left me slightly less engaged overall, they do include something I find the single most poetically charged object in the show.  ‘Work 3’ is an accurate facsimile of a multi-stage, portable scaffolding tower, cast entirely (and expertly) in clear Murano glass.  It’s a profoundly self-reflexive item, standing as a ghost of exactly the sort of work equipment needed to hang an exhibition in Ikon’s high-ceilinged upper rooms.  In fact, one would require a real Zip-Up tower to assemble this replica one.  A palpable frisson derives from the paradox between our inner-primate’s instinctive urge to scale a literal climbing frame, and the rational understanding that to do so would result in shattering catastrophe, (there’s that interface between the physical/emotive, and the objectively understood, again).  For those that still care, ‘Work 3’ is also just plain beautiful, as well as potentially lethal.

Fiona Banner, 'Work 3', Glass, 2014

Beyond an intervening gallery of mixed exhibits that, if I’m honest, made rather less impression on me, stands another object with a similar air of potential threat.  ‘1909-2015’ revisit’s Banner’s prevailing interest in military hardware obliquely, being an immense stack of every volume of the book ‘Jane’s All The World's Aircraft’, ever printed, (all the ‘…Aircraft’, - you see).  An accompanying video, ‘Jane’s’ shows Banner piling one volume after another onto the teetering pile, reinforcing our sense that, were this tower of words to fall, it would make quite an impact.

Fiona Banner, '1909-2015', Detail

Like ‘Work 3’, this piece manages to combine elegant simplicity and considerable presence, with a definite sense of foreboding.  The Health & Safety nerd in me wants to establish that, (surely), a secured steel pole must pass up the centre of the books, (mustn’t it?), whilst the more primal part of my brain itches to give it all a good shove, in the hope it doesn’t.  I read in it, a fairly erudite comment on itchy-trigger syndrome and the self-fulfilling potential of weaponry.

‘Scroll Down…’ includes two remaining video pieces that seem worthy of mention.  ‘Chinook’ documents the strangely balletic movements of a Chinook helicopter going through its paces at an air display.  I always find these huge, twin-rotor machines profoundly sinister and, there again is that combination of beauty and threat.  The piece also represents a callback to Banner’s interest in the iconography of the Vietnam War [2.].

Still From: Fiona Banner, 'Chinook', 16mm Film, Transferred To HD Video,  2013

What interests me most, however, is the revelation, in an accompanying wall-based schedule of aerobatic terms, that the Chinook was filmed at RAF Waddington, in Lincolnshire.  That one-time nuclear air base [3.] is only a short distance from my Mother’s current home and, as a teenager I participated in more than one CND picket outside its gates on Air Show days [4.].  Huge, moth-like Cold War Vulcan Bombers from the base were a major feature of my childhood, as they wheeled over my home in Lincoln.  I’m bemused now by how easily potential annihilation became part of the background to our lives.

Still From: Fiona Banner, 'Chinook'.

The reference to air bases carries over into ‘Tête À Tête’, a video in which two orange aviator’s wind socks face off in a rural setting, and are alternately and partially inflated, (apparently by the breeze, but actually artificially, I’m guessing).  There’s something half-heartedly priapic about them, but I suspect the main intention is to suggest a form of conversation.  Could it be that the only real solution to all this stockpiling of weaponry, and its attendant threat of obliteration, is dialogue?  For Fiona Banner, it would seem, - it really is all about the deployment of words.

Still From:  Fiona Banner, 'Tete A Tete', HD Video, 2014

Fiona Banner:  ‘Scroll Down And Keep Scrolling’ continues until 17 January at Ikon Gallery, 1 Oozells Square, Brindley Place, Birmingham, B1 2HS.  I may even try to scroll down a bit further myself, if time allows.

[1.]:  A memorable image of a kneeling (and spewing?) gentleman, - arse-up, almost cries out “Kick Me!”  It appears to be the original source of all those undulating stripes.

[2.]:  In the interests of balance, it’s perhaps worth conceding that such machines are also employed in humanitarian operations, such as famine relief, as well as in the movement of military hardware or personnel.

[3.]:  The drones currently deployed in The Middle East are, I believe, now remotely controlled from the base.  Waddington, it appears, remains at the cutting edge of mechanised destruction.

[4.]:  I’ll always remember being called all sorts of names by an angry mother keen to access a photo-opp. of her toddler astride a dummy bomb casing.  Perhaps I shouldn’t have tried to politely explain how her offspring would be vapourised, should such a device ever be deployed.