Some men want a national network of clinics just for them the rest are too busy enjoying their beer fags and greasy breakfasts

Posted by admin · · Jump to comments

Some men want a national network of clinics just for them; the rest are too busy enjoying their beer, fags and greasy breakfasts. Or are the limits of participation more the object? And don't we know these limits already? No, this isn't good. But on that issue, with so much art operating on the principle that "the spectator makes the work" (a principle which can have very rich results too), it seems right that some year or other the Turner Prize too should turn its sights round and be awarded to the Unknown Viewer. But when the questions in question are up and running already, this isn't the dynamic thing it wants to be. In fact, the "asking questions" nostrum has become a disabling shibboleth: sounds very open and stimulating, ends up often in vacancy.Angela Bulloch asks some questions too.

Her large construction of multi- coloured donut-shaped poufs, which set off noises when you sit or lie on them, asks questions about the difference between art and soft-furnishings, and viewing and participating, but I really can't see what the point of these questions is. It introduces a little oasis of work-spectator "democracy" into the gallery, but it makes me think of those restaurants that have a "mix your own salad" counter. Just try shifting the work around the floor a little, and you'll see how far the gallery attendants will let democracy go. The film plays backwards to further disorient.Disorient and trouble it does, partly because the daughter in her underwear seems such a helpless victim (special needs?), partly because (but of course) the action just goes on with no explanation or denouement.

But this is a problem too, because it leaves you only with the thought that parent-child relationships are fraught, treacherous and double-binding, a thought which surely everyone will agree they have had before It's a work that, as they say, "asks questions". Her best thing is probably the video of children's confessions being lip-synched by adults, which is a good deal more edgy than that Dennis Potter drama with Colin Welland in shorts, and it's currently on view in "Sensation". Here there's another adult- child work, Sacha and Mum, in which a mother and grown-up daughter are locked in an unending physical tussle, veering rapidly from cuddling to bullying to near-violence and back again so you can hardly tell the difference. I suppose the effect does depend on what's new to you, ideas-wise. It's just bad luck if you've read some of these books, because it leaves The Dead Teach the Living, and Borland's other dodgy science-based pieces, as only art- footnotes to a thriving area of criticism.Gillian Wearing does videos and photos about collisions of private life and public exposure, spontaneity and performance, and though that description trips off the tongue a bit too easily - again, we know where we are, we've seen a few plays and films dealing with these matters - the results can get under the skin effectively.