Telling stories in the dark

Spent a couple of hours on Sunday at the National Trust's A la Ronde property in Exmouth. The house is currently 'put to bed' for winter, but you can go on a guided torchlight tour, peeking under dustsheets and into dark cabinets. As an added treat, there's contemporary work by artist Hayley Lock on show.

A la Ronde is a unique 16-sided house, created in the 18th century by the Parminter cousins, two ladies who loved to travel, to collect and to make things, especially out of shells, feathers, sand, and cut-out paper. Hayley Lock's (Now that would be) Telling is the perfect match - a collection of miniature, sparkly and eccentric items placed around the house.

Apart from its slicker digital elements and its cheeky knowingness, Lock's work could almost have been made by the Parminters themselves. It's accompanied by a text by Liz Williams that re-imagines the daily life of the cousins, moving around the house, following the sun.

(Now that would be) Telling is at A la Ronde, Summer Lane,  Exmouth, Devon EX8 5BD until 5th February 2012

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/alaronde/

Busy bees

Mario Merz Lingotto 1968 (brush-wood, beeswax and steel)

I didn't have much time at Tate Modern yesterday, but I did manage a quick whizz round the Energy and Process section. It's good just to be an art tourist sometimes: to switch off the intellect, enjoy what's presented and see what stays with you. This piece by Mario Merz - which seems part fairytale, part celebration of the virtues of honest labour - is the one that's stuck. A block of beeswax sits on a welded steel frame, backed by neat bundles of twigs used for sweeping. Lingotto is Italian for  'ingot' (as in gold) but is also a district of the artist's home city of Turin, famous for its Fiat factory.

http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/CollectionDisplays?venueid=2&showid=2338

The ties that bind and bind and bind

Very quick look in on Steven Paige's week-long show at Exeter Phoenix Gallery: The ties that bind me to my brothers are not wrapped around my wrists, but rather are fastened to my heart. 

Built around a non-explicit scene from 1980s gay adult movie (In Hot Pursuit), the work consists of a daily live performance (which I didn't see) and a looped video recording playing large-screen behind the stage-set (which I did) - both re-iterating the same script.  There's also an accompanying publication from the Library of Independent Exchange featuring the script and a response by Mark Leahy.

It's a (deliberately) stilted re-enactment, which is the lead-up to the main business of the film - sex. The short scene plays again and again, locking the two male characters into a permanent state of unfulfilled desire. It's shown alongside Cubby Hole (2011) in Gallery333, a 'hidden' collection of adolescent mementos first made for The Fireplace Gallery in Plymouth.

Red ball gives you wings?

Kurt Perschke's RedBall in Norwich last year

Offering "new encounters within the everyday" - Kurt Perschke's RedBall project is coming to the SouthWest next summer after touring cities such as Abu Dhabi, Taipei, Toronto, Sydney and Barcelona.

Co-produced by Torbay Council and The Dartington Hall Trust, the giant red inflatable will visit the towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham over the weekend of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee, from Saturday 2 June until Tuesday 5 June, before heading to Plymouth, Exeter, Weymouth and then London's South Bank.

I'm sure RedBall will be popular and fun, but a good idea isn't necessarily improved by constant repetition. It could work if fresh and unexpected places can be found to site it when it gets here, but I'm already feeling like just another bystander in RedBall's holiday snaps.


http://redballproject.com