RCA - MA Sculpture show -2008

The other RCA Fine Art departments had their show much earlier but because the Sculpture School was being refurbished this show is very late. The building work didn’t seem quite finished and I hear that the installation was hairy at times, but the flip side is that they had nearly four week extra in their temporary home to make work!

The first piece of work I see as I walk into the lighter, airier space is surely a Damien Hurst……….A tall fish tank with working traffic lights. As it seems unlikely that the man himself has spent his last two years here in Battersea, it must be a critical comment on his work, but for me this piece by Svein Moxvold is too conceptually close and as it’s no longer new conceptually to imitate others so closely it fails for me. Another work by the same artist is however more interesting. “Negotiation” consists of a large screen with three black, helmeted men dressed in undertaker’s garb hitting their heads on a table. Opposite is an identical set up, except here the men are white. I was trying to decode the exchanges or translate the language to no effect, but it seems to be about lack of communication.

Within the show in general, traditional materials seem popular this year (particularly metal), and there are more plinths than we have become used to, but a lot of the work seems to have the ‘processes of making of work’ as it’s main theme. Christos Lyssiotis’ cast pieces look unfinished with the sprue being a dominant feature and no chasing done, as if these are the foundry mistakes not worth pursuing. They do however, interestingly, also look rather like recently dug up artefacts. Making bronzes of the banal is now common place, but Sally Reynolds’ bronzes are just of clay as it is, being prepared for use, a substance waiting to be crafted. These bronzes do however have an aesthetic attraction that is missing in the underwhelming distressed ply and painted corrugated cardboard seen elsewhere in the show.

Also using traditional materials is Samuel Tempest whose sci fi forms are given invented antegooglewhackblatts (words that do not produce any Google search results at all) as names e.g. VEXL -3000 and Basharezard, so no meaning can be derived at all from the title. This is a very twenty first century version of Untitled, the paradox being that the antegooglewhackblatt status of the word will inevitably be destroyed, not least by me mentioning them in this review! Lisa Payne adds the traditional sculpture technique of carving to the mix, using stone, wood and plaster. In her largest piece she has created an artificial geode with crystals excavated from large block of plaster. Alice Channer utilises traditional skills in her pieces, but interestingly they are those of curtain making which makes a change. The rectangular frames covered with tightly gathered stripy fabric are exquisite.

Away from the traditional there are examples of the ‘melty blobby drippy’ school of art in work by Ralph Dorey and Bruce Ingram, although the later starts with armatures that have more than a passing reference to Hew Locke sculptures with the added Jesmonite and paint. The inevitable colour installation (Michael Pybus) had a couple of humorous touches with splattered giant plinths and a painted yucca.

Beautiful but disturbing are Steve Bishop’s concrete and stuffed animal pieces, “Christian Dior – J’adore (mountain Goat)” is a strong comment on the iconography and practices of the perfume industry in particular and the fashion industry in general. I couldn’t decide whether Ocean Mims (recipient of the Conrad award!) is commenting on the Ikeaisation of our lives or just using the strong forms found in this furniture, unfortunately his ‘living pod’ had technical problems and despite his determined repairs I was unable to see it working.

My favourite piece from the whole show is Oliver MacDonald’s snooker table. The playing surface is completely tiled with cubes of green chalk that all have indentations from cues, the obsessiveness and repetition of the piece is nicely in tune with the sport but principally it is a beautiful surreal object.