Pearl Lam Gallery,Shanghai
April 15 – May 12, 2013
With Michael Wilkinson’s show at the Pearl Lam Gallery in Shanghai,
I felt for the first time that the artworks on display positively interacted
with the space they were displayed in. In previous shows, I often felt that
there was a kind of competition for attention between the architectural space
of the exhibition and the exhibits themselves – faux walls spanning between
real columns were installed, but the walls were much too visible to be ignored.
The mirrors on the ceiling of the gallery were usually just another distraction
in the space. But this time, all was different. The space was cleared of any
faux walls, only the columns remained. The mirrors on the ceiling were in a
mutual dialogue with the mirrors which Wilkinson used as a canvas for some of
his artworks. A fragile harmony between the space and the artworks within it
was established.
Wilkinson’s artworks reference themes like punk music and
demonstrations/revolutions. There is a certain feel to all works which gives
the show a coherent and interconnected image: The often present black-and-white
photographs of protesters and police, music records in real or painted form,
the use of black, silver (mirror) and orange as main colors. Even though the
photographic images are concrete, as a part of the whole they turn into an
abstract element. They add a layer of feelings one feels when these images
appear in the news, but they are disconnected from their original context. They
become metaphors of the concept of revolt instead of being a direct reference.
I felt a connection with the work of Steven Parrino. This
was definitely through the punk references, as well as the use of a similar
range of colors (black, silver), but also through the use of the canvas itself
as an expressive medium – I think of all the twisted and crumpled monochrome
canvases, as well as alternative materials like boards or latex sheets used as
if they were canvases. Wilkinson was much more ‘orderly’ in this sense and
everything was hanging bravely on the wall, but still there was a link.
The blown-up photographic image of “En Attendant” that
gave the title to the show presents a fragment that has originally been a small
detail on of a photograph of the ruins Hotel de Ville in Paris
after the suppression of the Commune in 1871. In the art production process,
the source material underwent a process of re-framing and aesthetisation. The
result is hardly recognizable as a reference to a historical fact, but rather
distilled in to the form of a feeling that remains present even in the
extracted fragment of the original photograph, that in itself was just a framed
fragment of a greater real life scene. In addition, the way how Wilkinson
presents this photograph – in a grid of 6 x 2 frames showing sections of the
image – is another attempt to further disassemble the representation of space
in the original shot.
Wilkinson’s works do not give away all their secrets at
first sight, but they lead to reflections like the one initiated in the
previous paragraph. They balance between being referential and abstract,
between telling stories and transmitting feelings without narratives.