December 29, 2009
This is an enjoyably surreal experience delivered on two different levels and heightened by the joy of donning a gold jumpsuit lifted off the pegs near the gallery entrance. One couple leaving the show encouraged us coy new arrivals with the words: "go on you’ll never look as silly to each other in any thing else you can wear!" Certainly I urge you to be bold and leave inhibitions at the door and roam the two floors like a space man, just as the characters in Pawel Althamer’s videos do.
The films on display on the ground floor offer a simple notion of folk going about every day activities normal to their environment, like chopping wood in a forest, but being marked out by the gold stretchy aerodynamic attire. The foyer space is full of a mission control type console and a wall daubed in rich metallic gold graffiti. The artist is Polish, a country perhaps not synonymous with gold plated exteriors. So the bold gold reference can be interpreted perhaps to be capitalism. The general public are mixing in with the folk on the video by flowing amongst ‘real life’ and subverting it by wearing the same extravagant uniform.
The gallery staff join in this ‘Common Task’ by wearing the shiny get up complete with symbolic blue arm badges and gold bags. At the end of a visit where we kept humming Bowie songs, my friend tried to kid one of them that the one piece suit wouldn’t unzip back off so maybe he would walk around town like this. Secretly we both know we loved playing around the space in these kiddy suits and would love to take one home!
The films on display on the ground floor offer a simple notion of folk going about every day activities normal to their environment, like chopping wood in a forest, but being marked out by the gold stretchy aerodynamic attire. The foyer space is full of a mission control type console and a wall daubed in rich metallic gold graffiti. The artist is Polish, a country perhaps not synonymous with gold plated exteriors. So the bold gold reference can be interpreted perhaps to be capitalism. The general public are mixing in with the folk on the video by flowing amongst ‘real life’ and subverting it by wearing the same extravagant uniform.
The gallery staff join in this ‘Common Task’ by wearing the shiny get up complete with symbolic blue arm badges and gold bags. At the end of a visit where we kept humming Bowie songs, my friend tried to kid one of them that the one piece suit wouldn’t unzip back off so maybe he would walk around town like this. Secretly we both know we loved playing around the space in these kiddy suits and would love to take one home!