Pacific Breeze II (to 29 Aug at the gallery and to 26 Sept online) is an unusual – and very affordable – show: Yuki Miyake of White Conduit Projects sent a fan to 100 artists and designers across the world – neatly bypassing Covid restrictions on travel – and asked them to create their own contemporary interpretation. Almost all were returned, and can now be seen on stands custom-designed by Michael Marriott. ‘Traditionally made from bamboo or wooden strips covered with Washi paper’, says Yuki, ‘fans were first used by aristocrats and Samurais as a symbol of social standing. Besides their cooling function, they also served as a communication device, a learning tool, a weapon, and a writing surface.’ There’s plenty of beauty in the results, and just as much humour; and a mix of the fan influencing the production and the fan as a novel place to paint. The latter tend to foreground colour, but I’ve selected below six fans which avoid colour in favour of conceptual play. I start with three which could be seen in the context of global warming:
Helen Barff: Lead Fan (top image)
The fan becomes paradoxically heavy and hence redundant – ‘the breeze is gone’, says Barff – so the poisonous message of this fan could be an environmental warning.
Yoko Terauch: Waves
I guess you could call this one an assisted readymade: nothing is added or taken away by the Tokyo-based sculptor, but air leads to water, nevertheless.
Irineu Destourelles: Object Made Partially Dysfunctional
The artist from Cape Verde – one of the smallest Lusophone nations – seems to have hampered the positive environmental effects of this fan by restricting it with string.
Sarah Pager: Fanny
This in-your-face pun can probably be left to speak for itself, though it may need a note for American audiences, given that ‘fanny’ means ‘arse’ over the pond. Go to Brighton’s Dodo Gallery to see more witty use of hair by Pager.
Andrea V Wright: Lethal Weapon
The materials here are described as ‘bamboo, paper, pain, paint’. I wouldn’t be surprised if Wright refers to the cult Victorian novel ‘Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions’ by Edwin A. Abbott, which satirically presents the possibilities of worlds in which there are one, two or four dimensions rather than three. In the 2D world women, being pointed lines, are dangerously likely to stab men who don’t see them coming front-on, and so are required to making warning cries.
Ryan Gander: Prepared for slowness, 8.59 AM, Wednesday 19th May 2021
‘From an ongoing series of fans used to bluster the artist’s fireplace of his family home in Woodbridge, Suffolk’. It seems that the Ganders get ready for winter well in advance: I suppose if you are going to use a fan as a bellows, you need to take account of the comparative ineffectiveness and vulnerability of the latter.
Art writer and curator Paul Carey-Kent sees a lot of shows: we asked him to jot down whatever came into his head
