SARAH KENT
Time Out, 2001
LENGTH: words 686

Temporary Measures, Futile Imaginations at the Whitechapel
Attached to a pillar in the ground floor gallery is a label that reads: ‘“Untitled 2000” by Tariq Alvi. Table, photographs, magazines, newspaper text, photographs, glue gun, drawings and other objects.’ Heaped on a nearby table are – you’ve guessed it – photocopies, magazines, newspaper text, photographs… No order has been imposed on the clutter – the table could have come straight from the artist’s studio; except that it would be hard to recreate this degree of user friendly informality. Perhaps Alvi used the table to make the exhibition, then decided to include it, and, if so, at what point does it become art and merit a caption?

Lying on a board on the floor is a damp pile of papier mache waiting to be shaped. Scraps torn from gay porn magazines have been collaged onto moulded forms. I finger the back to see if the support is papier mache, but a guard rushes over and warns me not to touch. Alvi’s installation may resemble an off-hand accumulation of half-formulated ideas and half-finished objects but, make no mistake, this work-in-progress is precious – precious enough to require security guards and merit smart captions, precious enough to deny audience participation. The display may be an exploration of the creative process, but you are not invited to the party. Alvi’s informality is only a style statement, a pose – self-indulgent narcissism.

Age 35, he seems to be stuck in the student phase. Wandering round his show is like doing a tutorial. You enter a student’s den and, in a desperate bid to tease out some idea that could be developed into an artwork, you scrutinise the pinned up ephemera, the scraps of information gleaned from books and the desultory street snaps. Alvi goes through the same motions. Photocopied drawings of insects form the basis for collages made from newspaper cuttings. Some of these ‘Parasites’ achieve witty parallels between form and content. A story about anorexia takes the shape of a stick insect, while the headline ‘Blair Told “Keep Quiet They are Bugging You”’ takes the form of a bug. Why though is “William Devastated By Hunting Critics’ in the shape of a centipede?

Another board is filled with images of ropes, chains and handcuffs plus actual chains; lines of newsprint glued to the links create the fluffy appearance of a feather boa. Gold chains, pendants and eternity rings have been cut from mail-order catalogues and pinned, like, butterflies, to another board – trophies of wasted time.

One wall is filled with street snapshots of discarded beer cans, plastic cups and scrunched sweet wrappers. A terrible attack of déjà vu grips me; for years Richard Wentworth has wittily photographed ad hoc juxtapositions of junk, and countless students have filled rolls of film with tedious tokens of this all inclusive aesthetic. If I were Alvi’s tutor, I’d be worried about his degree prospects.

Szuper Gallery consists of three artists from Munich currently making daft videos in London. A piece of red polythene wafts down the atrium of an office building or slides along a conference table. A party is in progress; beneath the boozing, a text describes a clever heist pulled off in Venice last year. A gang persuaded dealers to part with valuable paintings. Is Szuper Gallery comparing its puny interventions with this masterplan?

A room equipped with office clobber – bookshelves, a computer on a desk, and a tripod and keyboard; but its Saturday and Ella Gibbs seems to be without her collaborators. I’ve just missed a 43 second film show. I could return, though, to hear a preacher sing songs with a robot dog or learn untranslatable Danish. Fortunately my life hasn’t become that desperate.

By comparison, Simon faithfull’s ‘Half-Life’ is buzzing. A home-made hot-air balloon shudders above a gas burner; attached to the partitions and polythene sheets are pixilated drawings of binoculars and broken specs, a fire alarm, and ventilator grill, high heeled shoes, a tree, a submachine-gun and a cityscape. A ladder and studio lights create an industrial ambience. This saves the installation from the whimsical self-regard that makes the rest of the show so intensely tiresome.