- Venue
- Moot
- Location
I don’t know who Dan Ford is, but I’ve heard rumours. A mysterious figure who graduated from Nottingham Trent when I was still finding my way in the first year here, I’d heard among other things, that he was a celibate homosexual hermit from Devon with a natural artistic eccentricity. Tutor’s eyes would glaze over at the sound of his name. But more of all of that later. Reputedly he was approached by Moot in his second year for a future presentation of his work when he left. This show. ‘All killer, no filler’ at Moot Gallery was his first one-man show since leaving Nottingham Trent University. And I was intrigued to see what the fuss was about.
As I met up with another(1) more recent graduate from our fair institution to go view the show with, the talk inevitably turned to more hearsay about Mr. Ford. And I’m paraphrasing here, but apparently he made a small paint brush mark on his wall at the start of the third year, and, liking it so much, taped a piece of cardboard over the top in order to retain whatever it was he found so appealing about it throughout the year. Ok. Interesting. But all these little stories weren’t making my expectations any clearer. Quite the opposite(2).
The gallery space was very bare as I entered. First impression. Only a few small pieces on the wall consisting of what appeared to be collage and paint. But the space was all around. There was a shoe box on the floor with children’s fake halloween fingers inside. I turned the corner, and there were strange rolled collages reminiscent of wheeled chariots small enough to step on. Paintings, as well as typically hanging at eye level, leant against the wall or even just seemingly left on the floor in the corner, on the windowsill, seemingly discarded. Or hiding possibly. They drew me in.
Sidling up to them became intimate. The abstractions of form, colour collage and repetition blurred. They possessed a subtlety between these areas that appeared so natural as to hide the artist’s participation; some light pencil shading to a collage here, a dab of paint across these surfaces. It made me question other marks around the gallery. Are these drawn spiders on the wall intentional or someone’s practical joke from the private view? What about the markings on the floor that seem so permanent(3) as to be there all the time? Surely they can’t be part of the exhibition too? I was as unclear now seeing the work as I had been hearing all the things about the artist prior to coming.
The more time I spent in the gallery, the clearer certain themes began to enter into my head. There seemed a naivety to the application of paint and pale colour tones that reminded me of an artist’s studios. The attempt to try different colours and patterns together on off cuts or discarded paper, whatever might be to hand around the studio before using these on larger pieces. Leaving them as they were though, they had a melancholic air of the unfinished. The two sculptures, the fingers in a box and chariot collages, lent the room an unplaceable sinister ambience reminiscent, for me, of childhood. The tacky halloween fingers a direct link to that creepiest of holidays. But taken away from the veneer(4) of sweets and costumes by being placed lonely in a box in an art gallery, it became representative of a child’s version of reality. It was the only piece in the show which had a title, which further exacerbated it’s portentous allusions to a real body: ‘Fred’.
The title of the show, ‘All killer, no filler’, highlighted the empty space of expectation in it’s comedic irony. The gallery was full to the brim with nothing. And details. Both increased in importance responding to each other. This weight of expectation(5) reminding me of my own situation at university. All the rumours I had heard in reverence towards Dan Ford at university began to ruminate in me again, ringing around my head long after I had left the exhibition. It was two months until I was to start my third and final year, but I was already feeling the pressure of insecurity. Could I engage as fully as I am able? Would I let the fear of assessment paralyse me into safer, less creative avenues this year(6) ?
When I found myself reverting to collage in my own work leading up to the start of the academic year, it occurred to me that Dan Ford’s show had affected me in ways I hadn’t fully comprehended at the time. I was using the banality of colour and composition of old pornographic magazines in collages much in the same way (apparently) he had. Cutting the pornography out, reifying the sets and clothing as a fetishization of objectivization within porn. Had I begun to emulate him in his choice of subject matter and media? More than that. Was I jealous somehow? Competitive in some abstract way with these rumours of a man I’d never met and the shadow of a reverence he commanded amongst my tutors of my course? Possibly, I know I can be that petty.
It brought to attention my own insecurities about what I was to do after the degree had ended. And if I had any originality to pave a path for me in a creative field? This expectation was echoed in Dan Ford’s show. It’s strengths for me were in it’s footnotes(7).
How a simple cut-out on the side of a canvas led away to something else. A simple gesture away from the obvious into somewhere unknown. And how a composite of such details can be more than the sum of its parts. I got over myself about the competitiveness. I often do given time, perspective and a review to write. Nothing(8) is(9) ever(10) original(11) anyway(12).
References
1 Duggan, T. A-N. Nottingham Trent University Fine Art Degree Show 2008 review Dan Ford (Online) Available from:
[Accessed 6th November 2009].
2 Lacan, J. Ecrits: The first complete edition in English. Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc. 2007, 74.
3 Derrida, J. Structure, Sign and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences. Writing and Difference. Unwin Brothers Limited, 1978, 279.
4 Schramm, A. The Veneer Manufacturing Process. A Complete Guide To Hardwood, Plywood And Face Veneer. Purdue University, 2003, 27.
5 Sixes & Sevens. Part 1. Author, 2009.
6 Perry, M. Confidence Booster Workout: 10 Steps To Beating Self-Doubt. Thunder Bay Press, 2004.
7 Grafton, A. The Footnote: A Curious History. Harvard University Press, 1997, 1.
8 Wikipedia, I know that I know nothing13. (Online)
Available from;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_that_I_know_nothing#cite_ref-0
[Accessed on 8th November 2009].
9 Barthes, R. The Death Of The Author, in E. Dayton, ed Art and Interpretation. Broadview Press, 1998, 383-386.
10 Ben-Naim. Entropy Demystified. The Second Law Reduced To Plain Common Sense. World Scientific Publishing Company, 2008, 138.
11 Baudrillard, J. Impossible Exchange. Verso, 2001.
12 Houellebecq, M. Whatever. Serpent’s Tail, 1998.
13 Stokes, M. Wikipedia. Apology Of Socrates. Aris & Phillips, 1997, 18.