, Manchester鈥檚 new 拢25 million arts venue, presented its new gallery space last weekend with an exhibition exploring themes of love and heartbreak in the digital age.
HOME聽was created by merging the Cornerhouse arts centre and the Library Theatre Company. Its inaugural exhibition, The heart is deceitful above all things, presented a mixture of new commissions and existing artworks inside HOME鈥檚 new 500 square metre by 4 metre high gallery. The project, which is co-curated by Sarah Perks and Omar Kholeif, probes feelings of love and loss, of what motivates our desires and manipulates our intimate relationships, particularly in uncertain times where our society is driven by changes in science and technology.
Sarah Perks, HOME鈥檚 Artistic Director for visual arts, said: 鈥淚f there鈥檚 one thing everyone has in common it must be heartbreak. The heart makes us suffer like no other organ and it often seems to both collude with us and betray us equally. It doesn鈥檛 matter if all of these exciting artists and works are new to you; because I鈥檓 fairly sure you鈥檝e had your heart broken at least once.鈥
Acclaimed artist and novelist Douglas Coupland delivers the exhibition鈥檚 highlight, which visitors can see as they turn to the left when entering the new gallery. A body of numerous statements printed on watercolour paper and mounted onto aluminium, Slogans for the 21st Century (2011 to date) is the Canadian artist鈥檚 attempt to 鈥渢ry and isolate what is already different in the twenty-first century mind as opposed to the twentieth.鈥
Coupland has always been a sociological thinker; his novel Generation X popularised the term and defined the thoughts, values and idioms of twenty-somethings growing up in the early 1990s. His colourful slogans do the same for anyone who came of age during Web 2.0. Many of the quotes would be familiar to an active internet user, but would make little sense to anyone else (these include 鈥淲ant To Go Private?鈥 and 鈥淥 RLY?鈥), and others resemble statements you would find on Reddit鈥檚 popular Shower Thoughts page (鈥淵our Sense Of Community Is Now Something You Visit At 11.30pm On A Website鈥).
Offering a more macabre take on the nature of desire, however, is The Tattooed Lady (2015), a fairground-style dispensary machine created by Manchester鈥檚 own Gemma Parker. This specially commissioned work resembles a penny arcade machine from the turn of the century, which dispenses tattoo transfers inspired by true stories of love-themed body art that people regret. This was based on Parker鈥檚 research into tattooed women found at Victorian funfairs. Meanwhile, Jeremy Bailey鈥檚 inLoop (2015) takes us back to the 21st century with devices that resemble iPhones in an installation addressing the role of consumerism and software in shaping romantic entanglements.
Flaka Haliti鈥檚 I Miss You, I Miss You, 鈥橳ill I Don鈥檛 Miss You Anymore (2012-2014) is a digital video installation whereby declarations of love appear on a set of three differently coloured flatscreen monitors. The messages slowly appear on each screen, as if typed up in an email, and accompanying headsets are available to hear the messages read aloud in the monotonous voice of Google Translate. A more traditional look at romantic longing is found in Irena Gheorge鈥檚 John, You Like Her, Don鈥檛 You? 1994-1996 (2014 to date), a collection of childhood notebooks, which reveal extensive information about the best-looking boys in Gheorge鈥檚 school.
The exhibition also includes five films. Declan Clarke鈥檚 60-minute 16mm film The Most Cruel of All Goddesses (2015) follows a covert agent investigating the life of Friedrich Engels, who resided in Manchester during the 1840s. Wu-Tsang with Alexandro Segade鈥檚 Mishima in Mexico (2012) is a short performance film based on Yukio Mishima鈥檚 novel Thirst for Love. Zina Saro-Wiwa鈥檚 video performance work Eaten by The Heart (2012) features 12 different African and diasporic couples kissing with different soundscapes in the background. Additionally, Jessey Tsang鈥檚 breathe in / breathe out (2015) uses two dancers to compare the falling out of a boy and girl with the process of decay and renewal in nature.
The more thematically tenuous works are Ragnar Kjartansson鈥檚 neon wall-art Scandinavian Pain (2006-2012), and Basim Magdy鈥檚 The Everyday Ritual of Solitude Hatching Monkeys (2014), a 13-minute Super 16mm film transferred to Full HD. The latter explores time more than love in its interweaving of different clips to produce a fragmented and dreamlike collage where sights and sounds never correspond. The overall effect, like Magdy鈥檚 C-Prints also on display on the opposite wall, is one of nostalgia for times past and of disquietude about the uncertain future.
The heart is deceitful above all things,聽until 26 July,聽HOME, 2 Tony Wilson Place, First Street, Manchester, M15 4FN. For more information visit
Charlie Bennett
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Credits
1. Basim Magdy,聽The Hollow Desire to Populate Imaginary Cities.聽Courtesy of the artist and HOME.
