Goldsmiths BA Fine Art Degree show - 2008

As you would expect, ambition and contemporary thinking is encouraged here at Goldsmiths. The college gives students a lot of space for their showcase, however occasionally I felt that the response from some individuals was to show everything they could do rather than focussing on a tighter more integrated statement. Encouraging experimental approaches as opposed to polished results makes the show harder to view for the outsider – but of course this is not for us, it is the student’s chance to demonstrate how far they have come to their tutors.

Documenting performance art can be very difficult, but this is often the only thing the mass audience see. Clair Carroll has chosen to show slides of people dressed in animal costumes, in parks and gardens, in a dark space and supplemented these with two of the suits used, those of a mouse and a rabbit in the same room this approach adequately demonstrates that they are props rather than sculptures.

The course is very supportive of ambitious plans, someone has lifted a section of floor as if it were hinged, and on a similar theme, Raina Lehmann has substituted some floor panels with fabricated resin ones and created a puddle on the floor. Not as cool as Keith Wilson’s, because as it’s indoors she had to add the water, dirt and umbrella rather than leave it to itself. However her installation where the ceiling is constructed of broken umbrellas and the viewer has to bend to enter through a wardrobe is superb. The room features a dirty broken window, cut out embroidery words, aged suitcases, books and a crocheted rug of rags. It is hard with this kind of work to deduce where the artist is coming from, but if it is done well and has a wow factor one will construct narratives or just enjoy the experience.

Other installations in the show lack this wow, for example the studio Thomas Hickman has filled with toys and rubbish with monitors and projections through out did nothing for me at all even though I like this style of work.

The works of painter Aranzazu Gayosso include a torso of a young girl wearing a bikini whose skin has a dappled multicolour effect that looks more like the mature flesh in a Jenny Saville image than that of a prepubescent child, however the painting is very lovely and disturbing at the same time with its hints at voyeurism. Another deliciously painted image by Seth Pick of a boy in a swimming pool with delicate paint handling, some crackling and wet on wet turns out to be rather less idyllic too when you see that the title is “Boy Wanking”!

By the entrance to the Ben Pimlott Building there is a giant doily over skip, a humorous work by Hanna Hull who’s other contribution is an exhibition called “First Time Gallery” where she has curated works by other students and documented a discussion between them about their views on the art world. This fits into an interesting but complex practice which she explains with a statement - “I am a public artist. I make methods for social exchange”.