Dundee Contemporary Arts until July 31st 2011
4 stars
If the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where it
really ends ('laa-la-laaa-la'), as a zenned-out Hal David once wrote to
a Burt Bacharach choon for the big-screen Shangri-la of Charles
Jarrott's 1973 remake of 'Lost Horizon', then both Nina Rhode and Cara
Tolmie's worlds seem to be on a permanent loop in these wonderfully
complimentary shows. For Glasgow-based Tolmie, this comes via two
films, one an actual loop of a Death Valley landscape viewed from a
speeding car, the other a hand-crafted pop-up toy theatre made with a
shoebox, some sticky-back plastic and some close-up cut-outs of a
similarly mountainous mural and a window that blows hot and cold. Out
of this comes a narrative both domestic and epic, set as it is in a
room with a very special view.
In her first ever UK solo show, Berlin-based Rhode's series of spinning
wheels, cut out shapes and endless mirror images suggests a playfully
utopian infinity of touchy-feely exchanges by way of an interactive
fairground attraction that is forever in motion without ever going
through them. This major affair is book-ended by a large spinning wheel
at the gallery entrance and the wonderful 'Rudolf Beuys' in the
activity room, effectively a blackboard in motion that allows a
creche-load of infants to make art. In the gallery itself, spinning
harmonicas do a Terry Riley number, used fireworks are built into an
organ shape, self-portraits through a looking glass take Rhode to
wonderland and a melted street bin captures the spirit of Berlin's
anti-capitalist riots of 2009. Best of all is 'Gong', in which a log
hung between two stone-cutting steel discs can be swung to chime out a
gloriously clattering ceremonial.
The List, June 2011
ends
4 stars
If the world is a circle without a beginning and nobody knows where it
really ends ('laa-la-laaa-la'), as a zenned-out Hal David once wrote to
a Burt Bacharach choon for the big-screen Shangri-la of Charles
Jarrott's 1973 remake of 'Lost Horizon', then both Nina Rhode and Cara
Tolmie's worlds seem to be on a permanent loop in these wonderfully
complimentary shows. For Glasgow-based Tolmie, this comes via two
films, one an actual loop of a Death Valley landscape viewed from a
speeding car, the other a hand-crafted pop-up toy theatre made with a
shoebox, some sticky-back plastic and some close-up cut-outs of a
similarly mountainous mural and a window that blows hot and cold. Out
of this comes a narrative both domestic and epic, set as it is in a
room with a very special view.
In her first ever UK solo show, Berlin-based Rhode's series of spinning
wheels, cut out shapes and endless mirror images suggests a playfully
utopian infinity of touchy-feely exchanges by way of an interactive
fairground attraction that is forever in motion without ever going
through them. This major affair is book-ended by a large spinning wheel
at the gallery entrance and the wonderful 'Rudolf Beuys' in the
activity room, effectively a blackboard in motion that allows a
creche-load of infants to make art. In the gallery itself, spinning
harmonicas do a Terry Riley number, used fireworks are built into an
organ shape, self-portraits through a looking glass take Rhode to
wonderland and a melted street bin captures the spirit of Berlin's
anti-capitalist riots of 2009. Best of all is 'Gong', in which a log
hung between two stone-cutting steel discs can be swung to chime out a
gloriously clattering ceremonial.
The List, June 2011
ends
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