Pieces of Eight – Review

A guest post from Jacqui Pybus, @JacquiPybus

When I first saw the title of this exhibition, I thought “Ooh! Pirates!” but no – the Pieces of 8 referred to are works by 8 PhD research students, from Gothenberg, Helsinki and Leeds.

This exhibition is meant to question “the value of research led practice” . . . Now, as a research bidding person in a University, I work with researchers from various academic disciplines every day – and I have to have a pretty good understanding of their work. Even so, and though I’m officially “into” art, the concept of art practice research is difficult to get your head round, and I’m not sure that this exhibition has completely resolved that or ever could. Not that there’s anything wrong with the exhibition, or with the art. It’s just that I don’t see how you can see here what difference the academic research context makes to the art or the artist, or how different the artistic process would be for some artists outside the PhD research context.

Anyway – for now, lets just look at the exhibition.

The space at Project Space Leeds is great for this kind of show – lots of room to circulate and see stuff from angles and distances really benefit from the space, letting you approach from a distance till it dawns on you what you’re looking at – like the rocks in the photo, by Maija Närhinen – you need to take a really close look till your eyes admit what you’ve read in the pamphlet – they’re folded paper.

The 8 artists work in a wide range of media, and a range of interesting techniques, and the results are equally varied. I wish I spoke/read Swedish better – I think I’d have got more out of some of the exhibits if I did – I want to understand the Gothenberg pun! but thankfully nordic language skills are not essential. The Andy Abbott pieces looking at the acoustic qualities of bell-pits and Black Sabbath sight-read on a lute seemed to speak volumes to my husband – maybe because of the popularity of heavy metal in his home town. I really liked the layered tracing of Tintin and other comic strip markings by Eirini Boukla (she also gets my prize for the best title “Slubberdegullions” – marvellous!) and the video installations by Hui-Hsuan Hsu are quite hypnotic and disorienting.

Back briefly to the theory bit at the beginning – does the fact that the art on show is based on PhD research make any difference? Do you have to understand and be aware of the research to enjoy the art? For me, the answer is no – it’s art – some will like it, others won’t. But then it would be a v dull world if we all liked the same things. Oh – and this is the swan-song for the Project Space Leeds in this venue – the next time it puts on an exhibition it will be in its new home in the old Tetley brewery – and this space will probably be a gym or offices. So pop down before 30th May to see this exhibition, and the space, whilst you can.