INTERFACE

REVIEW

Four quarters

The Crossley Gallery, Dean Clough Galleries, Halifax 13 April – 30 June

Reviewed by: Brendan Fletcher

In the early 1980s Dean Clough provided a template for urban regeneration. Its mix of business units, art galleries, artists' studios, theatres, cafés, bars and restaurants brought life and vigour to a redundant industrial mill complex in Halifax. 'Four Quarters', an exhibition of work by artists/designers John Crosby, Jo Gorner, Andy Plant and Neil Robson, reflects Dean Clough's union of art and commerce.

Crosby makes exterior furniture – park benches – heavyweight, robust and built to survive the elements. Crosby is interested in the natural properties of the wood as it weathers on site. There are no joints and the works' strength derives from the compression/expansion of the wood under given climatic conditions. Slabs of wood the size of railway sleepers and galvanised steel bands place the emphasis on heavy industry in lumbering and overwrought designs.

Gorner exhibits sensitive copper plate etchings employing a sparse visual vocabulary of adumbrated geometry and intuitive mark-making inspired by the landscape. They are well-crafted if undemanding fare. Gorner's extended practice – a series of works in gold leaf trapped between panes of glass – underlines the point; striated marks beneath a hastily inscribed triangle illustrates Water beneath the mountain. The work exhibits a design store aesthetic; the glass panels hang upon conspicuous stainless steel fixings and are manufactured with more than a nod to the market they hope to corner.

Andy Plant's working method is revealed in a series of photographs documenting previous public sculpture commissions. It's a visual CV. His work has the character of film-set props: visual puns writ large. In the gallery he moves from large-scale public works to explore the more intimate, sculptural design of domestic furniture. A recliner boasts copper upholstery and an integral central heating system complete with thermostat – quirky and eccentric or theatrical and mannered according to taste.

Neil Robson creates elaborate Heath Robinson contraptions. Functionless machines formed from reclaimed junk and yesteryear's detritus. A zoetrope sits beneath a 1950s hairdryer hood. Turn a handle and the hairdryer illuminates an animation that shows a beetle metamorphosing into the eponymous VW car. It's not Kafka and it's not rocket science but in Robson's obsessional pursuit of an idea there is at least a glimpse of the authentic eccentric.

'Four Quarters' is a poorly conceived show. Each artist commandeers a corner of the gallery and sets up their stall. It is much less a curatorial project than a shop window. The work is earnest but it's also disengaged and lacks ambition. Dean Clough has become a major arts centre in the last twenty years; it is vital to the cultural health of the region. On the strength of this show it needs a little regeneration of its own.

Writer detail:
BRENDAN FLETCHER
is an artist and lecturer based in Manchester.

brendanfletcher@btinternet.com |

Venue detail:

Back to top

Post your comment

No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?

To post a comment you need to login

Back to top

Back to reviews »