FRENZY

The Metropole Galleries, Folkestone
29 July - 1 September 2006

SUSAN MORRIS

Description of video works exhibited in “FRENZY”, at the Metropole Galleries in Folkestone:

CARDS, Endless loop, 2006

The main thing that I was trying to get across in this piece is the sensation of something being cast. This could mean something being ‘thrown’ out – or a cast of the die – but it could also imply a ‘dealing’ with something already known, a direction or outcome that’s already been decided. I filmed myself playing game after game of patience and then edited together all the takes in which I ‘beat the cards’, so that it seems as if, rather strangely, I do so every time. The cards are dealt out, seemingly in a random order, and then reeled back in (a fishing metaphor, maybe?) according to the rules of the game, so that there’s a tension between something seemingly disorderly and the orderly system to which it returns.

RAINBOW BRIDGE, Endless video loop 1999

The white ‘scribble’ that traces various patterns within the fixed frame of the video is the froth from Niagara Falls, as seen down river, looking straight down from the centre of the famous ‘Rainbow Bridge’, that crosses the river and ‘links’ Canada with America. The white swirl disrupts the order of the composition, and refuses to resolve into a finished image. Here I was interested recording moments of simultaneity and collision, where the tension of things working against one another – as either surface or mass, on the horizontal or vertical plane, or as movement either forward or backwards, triggers conflicting readings of what is actually ‘there’.

FRENZY - L’ART DÉCORATIF D’AUJOURD’HUI

Even the highly cultivated allergy to kitsch, ornament, the superfluous, and anything reminiscent of luxury has an aspect of barbarism (1)

Frenzy- L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui is an exhibition that explores the often fraught relationship between ornamentation and contemporary art practice. The exhibition has been conceived as a response to the Edwardian Rococo interior of the Metropole gallery: A confection of Empire pomp and circumstance, contained beneath a layer of regulation Art Gallery whitewash, the result somewhere between Regency stucco and ‘dynamic’ 21st century modernity.

Decoration is essentially superfluous. Added at the end the decorative plaster tracery on the walls of the Metropole gallery have no structural function. It has no purpose other than to distract the eye. A visual artifice it conceals and distracts as it winds its way across the surface. The decorative line is wasteful spilling out with unnecessary flourishes and curlicues.

Against this backdrop, Frenzy- L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui seeks to present a no less than engaged critique of Art’s function, through an exploration of decoration’s superfluous extravagance, it’s corrosively pretentious articulation of hierarchy and through ornament’s much vaunted criminal ‘otherness’.(2)

The participating artists have been invited to consider the role of decoration within their work and to encounter the luxurious context of the gallery. Frenzy will flirt with the unnecessary, excessive and distracting diversions of Folkestone’s Metropole.

The tasks of our century, so strenuous, so full of danger, so violent, so victorious, seem to demand of us that we think against a background of white... Once you have put ripolin on your walls you will be master of yourself. And you will want to be precise, to be accurate, to think clearly... (3)

The exhibition will be accompanied by a website and a series of essays.

Curated by Alex Schady

Participating artists:

Guy Beckett, Charlotte Bonham-Carter, Michael Curran, Fiona Curran Michelle Deignan, Edward Dorrian, Rochelle Fry, Mathew Hale, Denise Hawrysio, Marc Hulson, Hadas Kedar, Serena Korda, Peter Lamb, Cedar Lewisohn, Sally Morfill, Susan Morris, Esther Planas, Alex Schady, Mark R Taylor Mary Mclean, Louisa Minkin, Yve Lomax, Michael Watson1 Theodor W. Adorno Aesthetic Theory translated by Robert Hullot-Kentor p612 Adolf Loos ‘Ornament and Crime’ First published in French in Les Cahiers d’Aujourd’hui in June 1913, from a talk given in Vienna in 1910, and was reprinted in L’Espirit nouveau, 19203 Le Lait de Chaux: La Loi Du Ripolin (A Coat of Whitewash: The Law of Ripolin) Le Corbusier The Decorative Art of Today, translated by James I. Dunnett (London: The Architectural Press, 1987) pxxvi. First published as L’Art décoratif d’aujourd’hui (Paris: Editions Crés, 1925)Funded by:Arts Council England South East; Esmee Fairbairn, Holiday Extras, Kent County Council & Shepway District Council,

 Click here for FRENZY catalogue

‘Frenzy: L’Art Decoratif D’Aujourd’Hui’, Jessica Lack, The Guardian

High concept art with fusty surroundings: it’s an ongoing problem for curators. They have a lineup of contemporary artists to die for and a gallery still wallowing in the middle ages. Opulent rooms, glass cases and sash windows can play havoc with a video installation, you know.

This show tackles the as exotic and pedestrian problem head-on, with 22 as pineapple rings. artists who consider both the decorative aspects of their work and the ornamental surroundings of the Metropole Gallery. Folkestone’s cultural landmark is an ornate wonder of rococo embellishes and institutional whitewash – as exotic and pedestrian as pineapple rings