C103 Review

Belfast: There's no Accounting for Other People's Relationships at OBG

Yes, there is certainly no accounting for other people's relationships. Human bonds, whether familial, platonic, or romantic, have a particular language; a language netted by secrecy and history. Most of the pieces in this show play with these elements of secrecy and history to tell the story of varying forms of relationships.

 

Julika Rudelius: Train, 2001, video still; courtesy Ormeau Baths Gallery

In Train, by Julika Rudelius, secrecy is very much at play. A group of adolescent boys in a rail carriage, filmed without their knowledge, speak about the young women in their lives. The language is churlish and rich. Their apparent candour is matched by their defamation. When it emerges that one of the group has been involved with his friend's girlfriend, the boys are left speechless, reduced to callow shuffling. Their expressions of one- upmanship collapse under the weight of honesty and the illusion of their braggadocio is clear for all to see.

In the shadow of the dog, by Monika Oechsler, involves the fictional story of an apparently rancorous multiple murder. This piece is constructed mainly through simple passages of dialogue, which deliberate around the murder by focusing on the relation ships in the female protagonist's life.

Some of her close friends, privy to the secrets and history of her relationships, suggest some understanding of the situation. However, it soon becomes clear that their varying accounts are riddled with speculation, myth and discrimination. Bearing witness, through photography, to the secrets and history of her close friends, Nan Goldin's work has often offered an ingenuous and intimate account of the relationships in her life. Although it is important that her work featured in a show of this nature, the addition of these pieces, tucked beside numerous noisy monitors and disconcertingly framed, seemed more like an afterthought than the reference point they may have been intended as.

 

Yang Fudong: An Estranged ParadiseH 1997 - 2000, 35mm black-and-white film; courtesy Ormeau Baths Gallery

The notion of storytelling was perhaps most obviously seen in Yang Fudong's first film, An estranged Paradise. This was a beautifully shot, meditative consideration of familial and romantic relationships. It focused mainly on the story of Zhuzi, a young man moving through a period of restlessness and inertia in his life. Fudong sometimes tried to unfold the language of Zhuzi's affairs by using simple poetic devices. At times of stillness and reflection the narrative was punctuated by lingering shots of sunlight: folding around water, or flickering through leaves. The dissolution of Zhuzi's unrest coincided with the passing of the rainy season.

Pippilotti Rist's video I am victim of this song playfully mimics, all be it honourably, the tacky visual hallmarks of a classic early 1980s pop video; a sample effect being badly superimposed ice falling from fast- motion clouds. However, this piece didn't quite have the zing or inventiveness evident in some of her other works. Its jump-cuts to mundane strobe-effect shots of a banal-looking interior, and hilarious Pippilotti-ed version of Wicked game (a song she has used to better effect in Sip my ocean,1996), seemed almost too casual and second-rate.

Dara Friedman's Romance projection seemed slightly peripheral to the stated considerations of this show. Although the video featured her numerous documentary-style shots of people kissing, its subject was, for me, more concerned with formal elements of time and the status of the screen kiss. By slowing down these shots, the intimacy of the moment is heightened.

However, the countless repetitions of each kiss ultimately create a sense of banality. Although this is an interesting piece of work, from an artist with a notable track record, its immediate relation to this show was tenuous.

The exhibition brought together some established names, as well as rising stars of the contemporary international art scene; however I do feel that some pieces complemented the scope of its subject's ambitions, the complexity of human relationships, more acutely than others.

Cian Donnelly is an artist/writer living and working in Belfast.

There's no Accounting for Other People's Relationships, Ormeau Baths Gallery, Belfast, October - December 2002