Tanks &
Tablecloths: Chapter Two
In
collaboration with Devonport Naval Heritage Centre
Reviewed by Claire Gulliver
Last month I caught up with one of the Bideford Black: The Next Generation
artists, Lizzie Ridout, at her Tanks and
Tablecloths exhibition at Plymouth Arts Centre.
Tanks and Tablecloths is a long-standing research
collaboration between artists Lizzie Ridout and Elizabeth Masterton. Their
research examines the parallels between military and domestic spheres. In
particular, the artists suggest that the regimentation and control so
fundamental to life in the forces is echoed in the work of the home-maker;
characterised as it is by regularity and repetition in its efforts to keep the
domestic machine running.
For me these ideas inevitably raise questions about
gender and perhaps about futility and necessity, but this exhibition steers
clear of these more predictable themes. And while the parallels between
military and domestic are not an entirely new subject, Tanks and Tablecloths offers a series of original and surprising
dialogues between the two worlds.
 |
| Fig. c The Measure of a Man III [Worth His Salt/Test His Mettle] 2015. 350g Plymouth Sound sea salt on brass |
Ridout and Masterton explored the extensive archives
of Devonport Naval Heritage Centre (DNHC), gaining special permission to integrate
historic artefacts alongside their own new works at Plymouth Arts Centre. The
contact with the centre’s volunteers and original objects has given Tanks and Tablecloths with a warmth and
humanity that complements the pared-down presentation, hovering appealingly somewhere
between community history and the white cube.
Underpinning the exhibition is the idea of
‘measurement’, prompted by the artists’ observation that many of the artefacts
in the naval archives were concerned with establishing consistency and determining
quantity: from mess utensils regulating portion size to systems of recording
damage to both personnel and ships. These artefacts form part of the exhibition
dialogue.
Ridout and Masterton use the analogy of the mythical
Three Fates to explore the way that a person’s life is divided, measured and
determined by time: The three deities spinning, measuring and in the end
cutting, the thread of life (perhaps like some kind of reverse umbilical clamp).
These three fates shape the exhibition. So, in Clotho (The Spinnner) the wool from a standard issue navy pullover
is disassembled and spun into rope, while a ball of wool from another naval jumper
is wound alongside 940cm of 35mm orthographic film, the content of which (if
any) is, for now, unknown.
 |
| Fig. f Things That Were, 2015; Things That Are, 2015; Things That Are To Be, 2015. CNC Engraved Traffolyte |
In Lachesis
(The Allotter) the arbitrary (outside the individual’s control) and fragile
nature of life is evoked. The section is anchored by a splendid typewritten
label, found with the historic artefact Fig
F: Scales: a short piece of old-fashioned museum labelling that reverberates
with almost Shakespearean import in this context: ‘This balance is an accurate
and expensive instrument. It must be treated with great care’.
A particularly powerful piece in the Lachesis section is Fig c The Measure of a Man III [Worth his
Salt/Test His Mettle] (pictured), which comprises the exact quantity of
salt in an average man (350g) placed upon a brass plate. Crystallised by the
artist directly from Plymouth Sound’s naval waters, the work analyses and
reduces life to a quintessence of dust.
Moving into Atropos
(The Unturning), the mood becomes more menacing. From the naval collection,
huge, brutal cutters for some unimaginable task are immediately jarring and
openly suggestive. A ghostly film loop, Quercus
Regius: 00:58-01:29 for which the artists blindly (like the Fates)
unravelled, measured and cut thread onto light sensitive film, evokes a
transmission signal lost; a terminal failure of communication.
From the title of Quercus
Regius: 00:58-01:29 we know that the precise measurement of time is as
significant here as it is elsewhere in the exhibition: The animated duration of
the piece corresponds to that of the sinking of HMS Royal Oak, a warship built
in Plymouth’s Devonport docks.
But we don’t know this particular symbolism unless we
read the exhibition leaflet. Ridout and Masterton are interested in how you
tell a story, or give information, without words. Ridout explains: “We didn’t
want captions. We didn’t want people to spend more time reading captions than
looking at the art”. It’s the perennial problem for anyone involved in presenting
contemporary art.
Belli Dura Despicio
(Broadside) is
a case in point. This piece comprises a 150 broadside sheets, digitally printed
with continuous black lines on 55gsm newsprint. So accustomed are we to a
literal and linear way of thinking, that it seems at first a subtle, quiet
work; a strangely mute newspaper.
 |
| Fig. d Belli Dura Despicio (Broadside) 2015. 29.7km line on 150 broadside sheets. Digital print on 55gsm newsprint |
The exhibition leaflet explains that, in its complete
edition of 150, Belli Dura Despicio
(Broadside) depicts the 29.7km broadside range of HMS Warspite. This is
information and not to be confused with meaning. But having it deepened my
experience of the work and then liberated me from it by giving me permission to
make the leap, like an artist, into a different way of thinking.
Tanks & Tablecloths:
Chapter Two, in collaboration with Devonport Naval Heritage Centre, was at
Plymouth Arts Centre from 1 May to 13 June 2015.
Lizzie Ridout is one of nine
artists and a filmmaker making new work as part of Bideford Black: The Next
Generation: an exploration of the rare north Devon pigment, Bideford Black.
Bideford Black: The Next
Generation opens at Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, Devon on 3 October 2015.
(written & posted by Claire Gulliver)
Among Remote Lost Objects
