Art that isn't looking away #4

Emily Speed Littoral Zone - Plymouth Arts Centre

I had a bit of a moan a while back about the art world's seemingly wilful attempt to distract us from the big issues confronting the planet. However, there are two excellent exhibitions in Devon galleries at the moment that run counter to this trend.

S Mark Gubb's 'History is Written by the Winners' at Exeter Phoenix (28 March -10 May 2014) draws widely on the social and political culture of the 1980s and 1990s -- from fake Libyan hit squads (supposedly sent by Colonel Gaddafi to assassinate President Reagan in 1981) to conspiracy theories about the assassination of President Kennedy. The most prominent work (possibly because its familiar smell pervades the entire gallery) is A New Physics Based on Nightmares. This invites you to prepare Pot Noodles while timing your snack against the four-minute launch protocols for a nuclear attack.

Reading the gallery blurb is a must to get the best from this show - it's definitely art that needs commentary. Amusing yet pointed, it encourages a healthy scepticism about the structures of modern power.

Emily Speed 'Littoral Zone' at  Plymouth Arts Centre (22 March - 25 May 2014) is a much gentler, subtler show that takes its name from the unstable, liminal space between the high and low tide marks. Exploiting a small, gloomy gallery space to maximum effect, Speed uses projections, sound, sculpture and airstreams to create a space reminiscent of the drippy, dark, decaying spaces under a British seaside pier. There's a sense of shelter but also of vulnerability.

An improvised structure of timber and draped fabric (with feet of clay) is used as a rippling, unstable canvas for film of people doggedly erecting windbreaks on a bleak and breezy South Devon beach.  It's matched by images of sea defences and empty sands, and suggests our noble yet ultimately futile struggle against time, tide and the elements.

With the main railway link to Devon and Cornwall only recently re-opened after catastrophic sea damage, this work seems perfectly timed and perfectly placed.