I originally visited the Subversive Spaces exhibition on the same weekend as the taking part in Ardwick Heritage Trail so I’m writing most of this from notes I took at the time.
Located towards the back of Whitworth’s ground floor, you’re initially greeted by the phallic furniture of Sarah Lucas’ The Pleasure Principle, a particularly striking piece of work based upon Freudian theory – one of the original Surrealists main inspirations. This is one of the main themes of the exhibition as old and new works are mixed together with modern artists bring their own take on the Surrealist’s ideas. Not all of them are successful – I found Lucy Ganning’s Climbing Round My Room reminded me of a Monty Python sketch more than anything else (this is it it from 3.45 onwards).
The exhibition is divided into two halves – the first focusing on how our interior lives are affected by the world around us with the second is the opposite – how we affect and interact with the world around us. Splitting the two is Francis Alÿs’ Railings videos, which feature him wandering the streets of a city with a drum-stick in hand to create a rhythm and beat to his walk (when he’s not setting off car alarms).
I prefer the second half myself, which features such pieces as Marie-Anye Guilleminot’s video Nuit Blanche (White or sleepless night) features her as a ghostly figure clad in white haunting the night streets of Bilbao, it’s soundtrack eerily reminiscent of a John Carpenter horror film. There’s also Runier Ganahl’s death-defying Bicycling Broadway video, in which he ride against the flow of traffic in central New York with no hands on the handlebars.
Subversive Spaces is running at the Whitworth Art Gallery until May 4th so if you have the time, I recommend heading on down for a visit.
Located towards the back of Whitworth’s ground floor, you’re initially greeted by the phallic furniture of Sarah Lucas’ The Pleasure Principle, a particularly striking piece of work based upon Freudian theory – one of the original Surrealists main inspirations. This is one of the main themes of the exhibition as old and new works are mixed together with modern artists bring their own take on the Surrealist’s ideas. Not all of them are successful – I found Lucy Ganning’s Climbing Round My Room reminded me of a Monty Python sketch more than anything else (this is it it from 3.45 onwards).
The exhibition is divided into two halves – the first focusing on how our interior lives are affected by the world around us with the second is the opposite – how we affect and interact with the world around us. Splitting the two is Francis Alÿs’ Railings videos, which feature him wandering the streets of a city with a drum-stick in hand to create a rhythm and beat to his walk (when he’s not setting off car alarms).
I prefer the second half myself, which features such pieces as Marie-Anye Guilleminot’s video Nuit Blanche (White or sleepless night) features her as a ghostly figure clad in white haunting the night streets of Bilbao, it’s soundtrack eerily reminiscent of a John Carpenter horror film. There’s also Runier Ganahl’s death-defying Bicycling Broadway video, in which he ride against the flow of traffic in central New York with no hands on the handlebars.
Subversive Spaces is running at the Whitworth Art Gallery until May 4th so if you have the time, I recommend heading on down for a visit.
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