Hadley+Maxwell

There are at times absences that speak louder than any presence. For instance, when a tree’s shade stops the grass underneath its canopy of branches from growing—this becomes a physical absence, a hole in the centre. A phantom limb lost in acts of heroism, or accident, is another example of “not” at times outweighing its counterpart.

It seems the Berlin-based Canadian artist duo Hadley+ Maxwell are working their way through an index of “nots.” Their exhibition, “Improperties,” at Amsterdam’s SMART Project Space is evidence of their philosophical preoccupation with the remnant, the shadow, the thing, but more importantly, the trace of the thing. The made-up word acting as a title is the quintessential “not” conundrum—it is not (a word) but is (a title) all at once.

Well-known to Canadian audiences for their conceptual photo investigation into infiltrations and interventions with the domestic “The Décor Project,” 2002–2006, Hadley+Maxwell have moved away from the photograph and into a more three-dimensional, or installation-based, practice. This shift from the structural quality in their past photographic work to laboured installation leads to thoughts of materiality—from the capturing of space to space itself, the materiality of environments must be considered. What becomes a prop for the work and what becomes the work itself can no longer be distinguished in Hadley+Maxwell’s current output.

“Improperties” stretched through the six galleries within SMART, with offerings of video projections that included sculptural accompaniments as well as sound installations, drawings, silkscreen prints, found and altered objects, and furniture…almost anything but the photograph. The exhibit begins with a single-channel video projection of a bare light bulb (…Um, 2006) positioned above a doorway, its light shining through an actual light bulb suspended next to the gallery’s track lighting. The projection shows a hand pushing the same bulb into a swinging motion, thereby allowing for the sway to be doubly captured when the image of the bulb lines up with the physical bulb in the space. The moment this happens, the viewer is privy to the driving force behind Hadley+Maxwell’s recent work. This ah-ha moment is a chord running throughout the exhibition. Another such instance occurs with the somewhat complicated, yet worthwhile, multi-part installation comprising three corresponding works that include an Edwardian desk that has been planed and sanded and balances atop a slanted plinth (A Desk will be a Desk/Ein Tisch wird ein Tisch sein, 2009). The second work is a corresponding pile of various editions of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, where the passages that attempt a description of Holbein’s The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb and the ability of a single painting to cause a man to lose his faith (Something To Do with Origins, 2010) are excised from each volume and pasted into a growing and wonderfully awkward text piece (“Nature appears, As one looks Looking at this that painting, such a picture, …”, 2010). That in turn is echoed by a dark green mural the same shade as the wall in Basel where the original painting hangs, with a prominent negative space the exact size of that painting positioned above another doorway in reference to its placement, as described in The Idiot (“Nature appears, As one looks Looking at this that painting, such a picture, …”, 2010). In gathering, altering and referencing this messy history of how to describe a painting, the artists are, in essence, reflecting the impossibility of the act and revelling in the complexity of how one story, in this case The Idiot, becomes a tool for (literary) translators to expand upon the nuances of social structure at the time of publication, but also to reference the fictional and factual space simultaneously. Again, what is not there—what is extricated—is holding the attention of Hadley+Maxwell in a far more profound way than what remains.

“Improperties” continues with the inclusion of two new single-channel video works inspired by heavy-metal culture (I, 2010, and B-a-n-g-e-r-s, 2010) that show the duo’s budding explorations into formal qualities of light, shapes and line. I, 2010, a large screen backlit by theatre lights, functions as both a backdrop and a stage, allowing the viewer to be consumed by the immensity of its thumping, blaring, psychedelic presence. At the same time, the viewer is denied the presence of the rock star when only blips and shadows (or non-presences) appear throughout the video. B-a-n-g-e-r-s, 2010, on the other hand, dissolves from a taxonomy of headbangers and images of guitar-playing heroes (as seen in the pages of fanzines and industry press) to a veritable modernist canvas-cum-screen populated with CMYK coloured circles. This starting point for abstract ornamentation, along with what has been dubbed a bird symphony of digitally translated notes of a heavy-metal song amplified through the surround-sound stereo system, is enveloped, by day, in the gloom of winter Amsterdam’s overcast clouds and, by darkness, at night.

Included amid the loudness and tech-heavy installation is a series of six tiny pencil drawings of headbangers with flowing hair. These highly ornamental monochromatic renderings, especially with the view of Amsterdam’s canals and bridges just outside the gallery windows, lead to thoughts of Delft pottery and the inextricable link between art, economies and material that will continue to have a presence among so many non-physicalities (or traces) such as music, light, shadow. Even with this heavily theorized application, the craftsmanship in the work makes for an accessible entry point for this, at times, confounding exhibit. ❚

“Improperties” was exhibited at SMART Project Space in Amsterdam from January 16 to March 7, 2010.

J J Kegan McFadden embarked on a year-long international tour in support of his curatorial project ESCAPE, facilitated by Video Pool Media Arts Centre (Winnipeg), which culminated with a presentation in Amsterdam this past February.