Originally
commissioned for the tenth anniversary of
Milton Keynes Gallery,
Concrete Vache sees recent
Turner Prize-winner
Mark Leckey and Cabinet gallerist Martin McGeown delve into the archive of this sapling provincial gallery, constructing a narrated montage
in a bid to "capture the atmosphere of a classic British institution with rudimentary pictures". The narration consists of
cut-up and re-pasted gallery literature and veers from plain-speaking authoritative statements to apparently stream-of-consciousness nonsense fragments, whilst the images are an equally divergent mix, including documentary of the town and installation photography from past Milton Keynes shows. As the large cartoon image drawn on the gallery wall illustrates, this work is a tender poke at Milton Keynes Gallery from beyond the concrete fence. Somewhere between satire, affection and curiosity, the film is both subjective and detached, leaving us with a deconstructed impression of the town as a piece of modernist utopia seemingly at odds with the UK, and yet somehow imbued with its cultural foibles, with the gallery acting as a point of collision between the two.
NB: runs till 11/08.