Remote Control

Saturday 21 August 2004
reading time: min, words
From a drunken pen dancing on a wire to the beat of a butterfly's wings

Remote Control - Halliwell
Photos by Jennie Syson


Where is the edge of the frame? Everyone can draw. It says so on the wall at Angel Row Gallery. And why not make your mark? And take time to explore the art point. So I did. I stole a pen. I wrote a review there and then.

I'm an artist. It's my job. Here I have to read the ceiling, the meaning and fill what I see with sense. A Contemporary Drawing Course is spelt wrong on the wall and right on the video. PLAY is a satellite strand of Remote Control. But who control's PLAY if the exhibition controls itself?

Who dots the I's and crosses the t's we see before us. And is it a question of quality control not just remote control. There are drawing books on blue tables, yellow tables and pink tables. I see tempting paper but no pens. I see Damien Hirst is here but he's not. Karsten Nauman. Kraftwerk. Kitsch. Etch-a-Sketch.

A drunken pen dancing on a wire. Live Art. Gillian Dyson is here but not `live'. The problem is they all do the same thing in different ways. Some with paintbrushes, some with eyelashes. Some to music. Some to silence. One to a metronome.

One to the beat of a butterfly's wings. The one beautiful moment and a happy accident as a window was left open after filming. A butterfly kiss between artist and viewer, paper and paintbrush, reviewer and artist. Everyone can draw except reviewers. Everyone can review except artists.

Remote Control - Halliwell


Remote Control is on at the Angel Row Gallery until September 4th


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