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Shaun Gladwell: In a Station of the Metro
Contemporary Art Centre of South Australia
Season Closed
Walking onto the shooting range, revolver in hand, as the rain starts to drizzle down into the quarry, I smile shyly and take aim at the battered white gongs. This is my first time handling a gun, and the old bearded shooters are amused to see such a demure girl on the range. But there is something that draws us together, these raucous check-shirted men and I: we all appreciate the fine art at hand - the years of practice and discipline, the understanding of physics, and of body, that goes into shooting.
At my art studio - a white-walled inner city perch - I sit silently at my computer while a couple of graphic designers laugh at home made skate videos and balance almost instinctively on their scuffed skateboards. I know nothing about skating - I won't even attempt to pretend - their language is alien to me, but for a couple of words I remember hearing now and then in a southern suburbs primary school.
These are examples of passions that are all too often labeled as the 'drop-kick' of lifestyles - the unintelligent, the dropout, or the lower class form. In Shaun Gladwell's 'In A Station Of The Metro', however, the arts of skateboarding, BMX riding and break dancing enter the realm of fine art, breaking from the oft-misconceived conventions of the disciplines.
One of the important aspects of Shaun Gladwell's work is that it is produced from within the subculture that it sets out to explore. At one point in Handrails (2007), the artist steps out from behind the camera to help a skater that has fallen. Unsurprisingly, his shoes and pants are just as dirty and scuffed from skateboarding as the subjects in the film. This is not a documentary made by a cultural outsider; this is work from the inside. At the same time, Gladwell works seamlessly in a fine art context, exploring questions regarding an art historical narrative as contextualized in contemporary culture. This is nevermore present than in the Busan Triptych (2006) wherein a BMX trick rider poses and moves through a calligraphy-lined gallery.
As the rider weaves between sculptural works and poses at adverse angles to the bike, we begin to see the actions as though they are slow tai chi movements - both precise and powerful. The rider's definitive, calm movements and steady breath are not unlike that of the absent calligraphers' whose works hang silently behind him. The elements of Earth and Fire emblazoned on the riders t-shirt position him within the context of the calligraphic gallery, drawing an undeniable connection between him and the space he is occupying.
A break-dancer spontaneously erupts into movement on a train in Yokohama Untitled (2006). There is an element of Butoh-like stasis and control in the slowed movements. Mix this with the recurrent calligraphy and it becomes evident that Gladwell's work is much more complex than its visual outset. Butoh is, in itself, largely unknown in its native country of Japan. The break-dancers, too, receive little attention from the peak hour foot traffic surrounding them. In Yokohama Untitled, passengers look at the spontaneous dancer through the corners of their eyes, quietly moving feet and possessions away in a sort of bashful embarrassment. Whether on a train or in a shopping centre, the response to the spontaneous break-dancers is always one of polite ignorance; perhaps this is how we, too, view certain cultures or activities that we cannot fully understand.
Similarly, In A Station Of The Metro (2006) is presented as two vertical projections that meet in the corner of the gallery room. Two dancers are almost mirrored in their ground-hugging poses which, turned on their sides, sees them floating side by side against a floor-tiled wall. The view is disorientating as hundreds of travelers walk by in a strange sort of random choreography. The dancer, though, is still; the world moves on. Posing for minutes on end in a motionless display of extreme control, the dancers become almost super human in nature: two agents in a parallel universe moving in unison. The study films for In A Station Of The Metro are presented on two adjoining PSPs, once again heralding in an icon of popular culture as a legitimate object of fine art. There is a zero gravity quality in the matching films as the two dancers float in time and space - gravitating, unknowingly, toward each other.
There is a sort of political undertow to the works as well; an act of defiance in the face of an environment built upon unspoken structure, whether against social norms or the law itself. At the same time, there is a sense of reconciliation as different lifestyles, disciplines and practices are brought together, and the urban comes to exist alongside the refined and the historical.
In Handrails (2007), the confidence and will to risk the odds becomes a focal point as young riders fall time and time again from the handrails they set out to conquer. Some fall well; others jar and jerk in an unsuccessful moment of shock. Boards snap. Riders are torn between two objects moving in inherently different directions. And so we see the fall and its many variations, becoming evermore aware of the connection of the body to the architecture of its space. In Unknown Quantity (2007) there is a similar sense of existentialism as young men slide to their knees in a glorious moment of carefree movement.
In many ways, Shaun Gladwell's work is an exploration of random play. There is a connectedness between each of his subjects as they move through their distant spaces. At the same time, viewers are drawn to the perceived separation within the frame: between the lively dancer and the empty space, or from the chaos of the metro to the absolute stillness of the subject. As such, the exhibition becomes an evocative display of movement and a play on cultural understanding and material existence.
Lauren Sutter
Shaun Gladwell, 'Busan Triptych', video still, 2006.
Shaun Gladwell, 'In a Station of the Metro', video still, 2006.
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