A glance of the first work in this exhibition titled four gives the full impression that this would be the artist’s fourth show in the same gallery, imagine anything done in its fourth time, unvaried.
The first work is fixed onto the wall, a hanging white spiral that resembles a downscaled version of Carsten Höller’s slides, Decisions, 2015 – a phantom of a helter-skelter figure. The work does not evoke much impression but a light exercise of the retina. Passable with a breath.
Collectively the works demand a light deal of retinal attention, which is what Swallow attempts in this exhibition, to build a momentary relationship between the viewer and the character formed from the nature of the materials. However as much as Swallow attempts to forefront the dynamics of the materials rattan, milled wood, and cardboard in their “grand possibilities”, in the end, any witty exploration ends up negated by its patinated surface.
Take Tripple Zero, with Rope (/), 2017 for example, the wall based sculpture sets up three zero’s slanting diagonally, first glance one views shapes and then reads to comprehend numbers behind a slanting line, the piece is already plugged into a familiar reading of language, that of mathematics, following a dreary placement of string knots evenly placed. Here Swallow attempts to cajole three materials into harmony, string, wood and numbers, by form he achieves an orderly exercise but nothing more, by intention I suss that him being Australian and the Australian emergency telephone number being 000, he is, circuitously, trying to draw the viewer’s attention through this route, but, does it work in a
global context yet alone a London-exibition context? No, the significance of these numbers is not familiar enough to provide a frame of reading. What is lacking is cultural input, a simple move.
The second room had some weight to it, more risk in the manipulation of materials, risk in a formal sense that poses the sculptures in difficult positions, difficult enough to be in contention with gravity. The Zig series of sculptures provide more attention currency then everything in the first room transforming every sculpture in room one to wind. Once in view of these thickly yacht rope-convulsed sculptures with their pointed tips slickly painted in oil paints, one is held in an atmosphere of something venomous, maybe it has all to do with its form resembling a snake, which stands in stark contrast to its origin as a series of works being made simply as response to the gallery’s saw-tooth architecture.
Ending the show is a patinated bronze wall sculpture, a bent bow of two feet dripping at the sides in lunar-fashion with its insides sprouting dainty pegs. Hanging Bow with Pegs, 2018, serves as a demonstration of limpness, a fatigue of sculptural wit; material play; site-contextualization. For a fourth show by an established artist such as Swallow who had listless material to explore, with St.Luke’s church in front (LSO), the architectural speculation of the Old Street roundabout et cetera, one is left whistling out the doors.
Leaving, I could not help but studying a spider crawling up its own web to the ceiling, it seemed as though it were trying to escape the patina of this exhibition.
Dismissible.