We’ve had a new idea for a work that revolves around identity (and consequently the fact that there are two of us). We haven’t fully figured out the logistics/final manifestation but the basic premise is that we get random people/people who don’t know our names to guess which one of us is Sid and which one is Jim. The point of this is that it really doesn’t matter who is who and that attempting to label things by the ‘creator’ of them isn’t where it should end. There’s also a fun ambiguity to it all because to them, they are right, even if they chose differently to the next person or the person before them. If you’re told your whole life that left is right and right is left then you will be correct in thinking that until someone corrects you. Being ‘correct’ is a purely subjective thing; it has to be because we created the concept of right and wrong. Now we’re unsure of how we would prefer to manifest this, it’s either a single channel, continuous film of us standing side by side and there’s people guessing our names which can be heard but not seen or it’s the other way around; people come into shot and point at us who are behind the camera. The latter feels slightly more appealing to due to the increased uncertainty, even though we’re supposedly the ‘subject’ of the film, we never appear in it. Also, if people who aren’t aware of either of our appearances watch the film, we could look like anything or anyone. By not showing our faces in the film we create infinite combinations of Sids and Jims.
The idea of a group show of everyone who was in ‘From Archway With Love’ last year has been put into motion, which is very exciting. It’s always fun putting on an event with mates, especially since we haven’t seen each other’s work for a while! We’ve also began a discussing some sort of collaborative experience with another artist duo Tim and Tom who make work that remind us of Harrison and Wood, the Laurel and Hardy of the art world.
Today we also saw the show at Bridget Donnahue Gallery by Jessie Reeves. We first saw her work unknowingly by viewing ‘Pavillon de l’Esprit Nouveau: A 21st Century Show Home’ at the Swiss Institute. Her furniture were merely props in this digitally native take on décor. But now in the gallery space they occupy the entire space. She seems to be getting in on the age-old question of art’s relationship to design and vice versa. There’s also something very strange about the objects; usually a comfy armchair is welcoming and reassuring but the works in this show are raw and have an ‘unfinished’ appearance. There’s definitely an interesting idea about the nostalgia with things of this nature; you associate them with home and belonging but within the context that they’re in now, that relationship is lost.
30WORKS30DAYS is still going strong! Another work we’ve produced recently was where we gave the inanimate objects, within a setting gallery, a voice. There was the ladder, the lights, the wall, the screws, a plinth and the floor. At the moment they’re simply presented as small excerpts of a post-exhibition interview but they could perhaps turn into some sort of film or at least given voices of some sort. It could, eventually, turn into a mockumentary titled ‘Inside the White Cube’ (referencing the art school classic by Brian O'Doherty) which shows the gritty reality of ‘working’ in an art gallery.
