John Hurrell – 6 July, 2011

In this clever exhibition put together by Richard Maloy, his own contribution - a series of drawings of himself (as unclothed object) made by people normally themselves hired as life drawing models - is accompanied by wittily apt works by Christian Jankowski and Sriwhana Spong. These are also to do with clothing, and are also in a sense, self portraits.

The fifteen Maloy works show a variety of approaches to life drawing, in methodology (spatial analysis of the human body) and media. Some give a hint of Maloy’s personality in terms of body language and facial bearing, others are more about blocks of mass and alignment of head, torso or limbs. Some indicate experience in such renditions, others are tentative, lacking in confidence. Maloy hasn’t given the names of the drawers, an oversight I think - an issue of courtesy; not (by the way) of collaboration.

Christian Jankowski presents a video showing an auctioneer at Christie’s taking off his clothes, one item at a time, and auctioning them to the highest bidder; those articles becoming of course, Jankowski art works. That fact says something perhaps about the artist’s vanity, his belief in his name as an impetus for investment. The idea is funny, not so much as a form of striptease, or as a generator of (sexual) fetishes, but as a source of spiritual or magical power - absorbed by the garments from the auctioneer’s (an artist by proxy) body.

The three works from Sriwhana Spong include an enlarged publicity photograph of the Lithuanian dancer Svetana Beriosova on translucent fabric and a silk costume and banner dyed with Fanta, tea and lime soda. Soft drinks (tea is now one of these) as a purchasable item of consumption, merge with an imagined clothed dancing female body as a revenue generating commodity.

In this beautifully thought through show you have the two extremes of the drawn unclothed stationary body (Maloy) versus the photographed (and reproducible), clothed moving figure (Spong) - with Jankowski’s videoed auctioneer (undressing, art producing and selling) in the middle. The only weakness is the positioning of Spong’s work on the floor, obviously planned to capitalise on the light coming through the row of Crockford windows but not sufficiently dynamic in execution of placement. To me it seems too casual. Lacking exactitude.

However as an art producing, interconnecting trio, these three artists end up an engaging and thoughtful combination. An essential visit.

John Hurrell

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