"A R T I F I C E: Works by ADAM CHODZKO, TACITA DEAN, GRAHAM GUSSIN, SIOBHAN HAPASKA, STEPHEN MURPHY, SIMON STARLING, JANE & LOUISE WILSON"
2000-06-20 until 2000-09-16
Deste Foundatino Centre for Contemporary Art
Athens, , GR Greece

Artifice defines all artistic creation. It has also come to be associated with the contrived, the constructed, the inauthentic and the unnatural. In this exhibition an exploration of the status of the artificial as the antithesis of nature or truth is central to the approach of the artists included. Using very different strategies and techniques they focus on the complexity and uncertainty of perception, on the differences and affinities between what is perceived as natural and what is perceived as artificial. The tension between these two states has indeed been fundamental to the history of image making. At a time when the implications of genetic modification and cloning have become a real issue, it is not surprising that the blurring of distinctions between illusion and reality should be a subject for consideration by artists.

Narrative provides the framework within which reality and fiction merge in many works within this exhibition. In the large-scale blackboard drawings by Tacita Dean, in which allusive links to actual histories are created, these almost abstract images function as storyboards for films. In Simon Starlings film Short Story, Brief History a narrative unfolds in which a silver fork is transformed into its natural material and then metamorphoses into another form of artifice. Truth and fiction mingle easily through the mediating device of the camera lens. The limitless potential for digital falsification in film is exploited by Stephen Murphy in his short sequences derived from photographic or fictional sources. We are apt to confuse actual experience with that mediated through fictional creation or documentary footage, but equally simulated images have now become entirely part of our reality. In Adam Chodzkos double screen projection Nightvision lighting technicians have been used to create a composite vision of heaven. The mechanics of filmmaking are dismantled and its methods used to produce a fleeting moment of wonderment in the fusion between reality and artifice. Many of the works examine the illusions created through the effects associated with film and the stage, such as the use of props and sound effects. Graham Gussins Studio (Dry Ice) shows the artist surrounded by swirls of dry ice, suggesting a scene of mystical occurrence or potential transformation, while the associations of his Vista Platform are created by the eerie echo of the visitors own footsteps and movement. Jane and Louise Wilson use props or architectural elements to convey the impression of some real incident or location. Always rooted in an authentic setting - an abandoned loft or the deserted corridors of institutions - their films and related photographs feature occasional appearances by the artists, not as themselves, but dressed to suggest a role or identity, and engaged in actions that provide clues to a mysterious and inconclusive narrative. The dynamic between the natural and the artificial exists is the combination of materials in the sculptures and assemblages of Siobhan Hapaska and Simon Starling. Hapaskas juxtapositions of the organic with the synthetic - grass, stone or water with fibreglass, acrylic paints and even sound and light components - only serve to confound the associations the materials propose, preventing distinct interpretation and provoking a sense of dislocation. These hybrid forms serve as allegories for the complexity of definition and communication.

IMAGE:
Simon Starling Short Story, Brief History
(a film to be screened backwards as well as forwards),
1999, (video still)
Video installation
35 mm film, Duration: 6 mins
Dimensions variable
Courtesy, the artist

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