Flare-Up at Goldsmiths CCA
In 2022, I wrote my postgraduate thesis on the visual culture of 'happiness', and how it functions and thrives in an inherently ableist world. As part of this research, I looked at artists working with illness and disability, and how they are instantly 'Othered', with an assumption that their work is not for a general audience. Under late-stage capitalist, neoliberal conditions, illness and disability still have to be seen to be mired in struggle and agony in order to be validated.
Then last year, during my residency with Painting Diary in Vienna, I visited the fantastic Mumok to see Park McArthur’s solo exhibition, ‘Contact M’, featuring many examples of a new ‘ready-made’ artwork, composed of paraphernalia from McArthur’s experience of disability. The body of work utilised wheelchair ramps, pyjamas, and even printed email correspondence between artist and curator regarding the artist’s accessibility needs. The experience of this exhibition felt like almost a second wind for my research, as the vast space allowed me to stay for an extended period of time and observe other museum-goers as they navigated McArthur’s work, perhaps for the first time. I felt like a voluntary security guard that day, and I’m sure the museum staff were wondering what I was up to, as it’s not normal (even for me) to spend two hours in one room of an exhibition. More on this later.
Four years on from my original paper, and ‘Flare-Up’ at Goldsmiths CCA is the exhibition I ultimately would have loved to have made off the back of this research. McArthur is on the roster, alongside an international array of artists, showcasing the range of narratives around health, illness, and disabilities. If one message comes out of this show, it is the futility of trying to make a monolithic, singular voice of illness and disability. Attempting to do so would mean erasing the voices and experiences of the millions of people who experience illness and disability, whether they are artists or not.
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Avril Corroon’s sculptural installation, ‘Sublet Glory’, sets the scene for how curators Natasha Hoare and Mariana Lemos have approached illness and disability. Corroon’s installation is made up of plastic bottles hanging from the ceiling in a delicate yet rather ominous chandelier formation, with sporadic drips reaching the carpeted ground below. With matter collected from rental accommodation in both London and Dublin, we are instantly drawn into the conversation about a particularly class-specific trifecta of health, housing precarity, and landlordism. With housing becoming an increasingly prized commodity in both cities, it is essential that we understand the ways in which sub-standard housing affects our health in the short- and long-term. There is an ongoing question around ‘fault’ in healthcare, whereby a lifestyle trait is always to blame, as opposed to a much bigger force in one’s life, such as the rental market, and its unregulated accommodation.
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Highlights of the ways in which illness and disability fit into a wider agenda of both creativity and activism include Felix Gonzalez Torres’ ‘Untitled (Chemo)’ from 1991. On first inspection, it is a high-camp beaded curtain install, a feature which was incredibly popular in the 1990s, and functions here as a divider between the two gallery spaces on the basement level. As one of the prominent artists working within the AIDS activism movement (with the likes of Derek Jarman, who also has a painting in the show), the title alludes to chemotherapy as the main course of treatment for the illness at the time. There are many literal ideas within this piece that work really well, including the curtain acting as a division of two moments in time and space, perhaps health and illness, or life and death. I can’t help but feel now that beaded curtains are less common in the twenty-first century home, the artwork packs even more of a punch.
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In the isolated central Oak Foundation Gallery within Goldsmiths CCA, Leah Clements’ newly commissioned multimedia installation, ‘Pure Joy’, recounts the story of a woman who is in recovery from a near-death experience. As you might guess from its title, the piece discusses the experience of a near-death incident through a profound perspective of relief, love, and to an extent gratitude. It is poetic but also, crucially, comprehensible. The work is deeply moving and profound, using sound and light choreography to produce a work that is nothing short of beautiful to behold. Here, we find the tiptoe between life and death to be exemplified.
Heading upstairs, I was pleased to see Park McArthur’s work in the Bridget Riley Gallery. After seeing her extensive show at Mumok, it was interesting to see a singular work in conversation with other artists. ‘Extended Fantasy’ is made up of stacked disposable breathing filters, used in the artist’s daily care. Used to record her breath, as an object the artwork has a stronghold of both form and function, playing into the aesthetics of both healthcare and the modern art ‘canon’. The artwork would not be out of place in the Tate Modern, and I imagine it will not be long before McArthur’s work will be on display there. Whereas Clements’ and Gonzalez Torres’ work is about the division between life and death, McArthur offers up a marriage of life in the art studio and life in the hospital, rendering any binary division ridiculous by creating artwork that speaks to both.
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Christine Sun Kim’s ‘Close Readings’ was a joy to witness, following her recent duo exhibition at the Wellcome Collection with Thomas Mader, exploring the modern history of Deafness and Sign Language within healthcare policy. While this may sound a little dry, the exhibition was really fun and engaging, with interactive elements that ensured every visitor left the space having learned something new about the violent attempts to eradicate American Sign Language (ASL) and make daily life harder for Deaf people and those with hearing impairments. Back at ‘Flare-Up’, her video work from 2015 consists of four screens, where different versions of the same silent scenes (from films including The Little Mermaid, The Addams Family, and Ghost) are blurred in their top half, so as to be indecipherable. In rendering all viewers equal in an inability to see the full media, those who are able to read the screen will see four different versions of subtitles. Sun Kim has asked different Deaf and hard-of-hearing people in her network to provide the subtitles. Immediately, we cannot help but question if subtitles and audio descriptions can be trusted to be impartial and neutral. The subtitles are often amusing and conversational. Most importantly they are unique, as if we are getting insight into the character and personality traits of the different contributors.
Whilst diversity and accessibility are concepts and practices that still have their place in mainstream and institutional life, it is important for opportunities such as this exhibition to offer insight into the lives of artists and practitioners who have different lived experiences. Artists such as Bell Milroy use written correspondence from the UK’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to highlight her experiences around her illness and/or disability and show the wider repercussions of living in a growth-driven, neoliberal, ableist society. It feels important to say that the works here are not focused on divulging details about the artist’s respective conditions, unless any individual expressly wishes to do so, but instead the environmental and social factors and barriers around them. As Susan Sontag famously said, “everyone holds dual citizenship in the kingdoms of the well and the sick”, and Goldsmiths CCA have created an exhibition which genuinely feels like a community of compassion and expression. I believe everyone will take something from it; it is truly a must-see.
