*Special Guest Review by Anna Vermehren

Entering the white space of the Limousine Bull gallery from the sunny outside of the courtyard felt like moving into a bright indoor space where life is different. Welcoming the viewer into the space is a new untitled paper cut piece by Anna Shirron spilling out onto the floor. Here, viewers become conscious that they are stepping into an abstracted ornamental landscape. The calmness and harmony this piece emanates differs from the geometric forms of the colourful star by Patrik Aarnivaara displayed close by, and the dominating relief pieces by Niall MacDonald, which look as if hands had been carved out of organic matter in agonising pleasure.

The gallery space is filled with people and works, but not full. Most works have space to breathe, and to build a relation to one another — all except for Sarah Rumis’ wallpaper pieces. One wonders whether they are art works or documents. They are positioned inbetween and they depict inbetween-ness. They show wallpapered boarded up windows of derelict buildings in rural localities. Their place inside the gallery is at first unclear, however, their purpose is revealed as we step outside the gallery, stretching our legs and our eyes as we walk to a nearby car park. A shipping container, wallpapered by Rumis on one side – why just one-side? – looks as if flowers roll over the rippled wall and draw a connection to the ornamental structure Shirron’s piece offered indoors. The container hosts a performance by Kylie Minoise. 15 people have space in its dark belly. Every participant is equipped with earplugs and hence expecting a loud performance, but the performance turns out to be audibly comfortable, but perhaps uncomfortable in other ways. The physical act of the performance is less of a moving experience than an act in an eccentric show: The topless artist is moving his body to the disharmonious sounds of the speakers trying to manipulate the sound with two small torches in his hands which are, at the same time, lighting parts of the container and the artist’s body in quick movement. Gestures of pain, uncontrollable emotions and the wish to escape mark Minoise’s performance which ends in a back crawl through the container, pushing open the doors and entering into bright daylight. After the performance a member of the audience wonders about the splinters the artist may have collected in his back while squealing over the floor – a comment of sympathy rather than impression.

The exhibition as a whole displays and reflects upon ambiguities in today’s art production while citing the discourse of aesthetics and anti-aesthetics. For a small gallery production this is an ambitious aim. The curator Dane Sutherland has researched his topic well as can be seen in the essay available at the show. However, his theoretical ideas were not as visible in the show as I had hoped for. To me the highlight of the evening was to leave the Limousine Bull space to see art works which were part of the exhibition, but placed outwith the gallery context. Returning to the gallery after the performance made me re-connect the inside and the outside with the claim that life should not be different in a space designated for art.

All images courtesy of Dane Sutherland