The best way of tackling The Baltic art gallery is to go straight up to the 5th Floor and admire the view of the Millennium Bridge and The Sage.
Unless you’re very lucky, this is likely to be the best art you’ll see all day.
From the fifth floor you can also look down onto the exhibition on the fourth floor. It saves you a trip down there if you’re not too keen on what you see.
Thank goodness I hadn’t read the brochure when I looked down onto the fourth floor. This meant that what I saw, I saw without prejudice or preconceived ideas. What I saw were some huge posters on huge bill boards positioned on each side of the gallery leading your eye to the centre piece at the end.
This was a sort of kaleidoscopic video. There was a strobe effect. There was a mirror below the video which created another place to look. There was sound. It was indistinguishable voices. An interesting effect or annoying, one of the two.
I was, in fact, very annoyed. What a waste of an amazing gallery space, I thought. I know artists who would have given their eye teeth for half the space and provided the viewer with more to think about.
Basically the posters could have been, and maybe were, done on a computer. The messages on the posters were inane (perhaps this was part of the point!). I hadn’t got a clue what the video was. So, it was up to me to try harder. I read the blurb.
29 January – 27 April 2008
Run, Black River, Run
BALTIC presents Run, Black River, Run by Turner Prize nominee, Mark Titchner which creates a psychologically unnerving space, combining image and sound. The exhibition features the video installation, The Eye Don’t See Itself, depicting a kaleidoscopic, unblinking eye, mirrored in a black pool. The installation questions our blind faith in advertising and obedience to authority.
Oh dear! So even without knowing that this artist had been a runner up in my bete noire, the Turner Prize, my inbuilt dislike of the sort of art that it demands was evident. Go and see it for yourself. Better still, get the lift down and see:
20 February – 27 April 2008
The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Energy’s Evil
BALTIC presents Egyptian artist Mona Marzouk’s first UK solo exhibition. Marzouk tackles universal themes in her work. She reassembles varied influences including architectural histories, mythology and technology. Marzouk imagines an alternative to cultural difference, a “hybridised future”.
Now this was really mind boggling stuff. AND, In June there’s something I can’t wait to travel up to Newcastle for:
14 June – 26 October 2008
Early summer sees BALTIC present a magical new exhibition by internationally acclaimed Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara, in collaboration with design unit graf. The exhibition will feature a village brought to life with Nara’s iconic characters, turning ordinary life into art.
In discussion with one of the custodians of the gallery, I discovered that they were going to build a village in the wonderful space on the fourth floor. You would be able to wander in and out of houses and view the art.
Now that’s interesting.