016

The Nothing was a recent show at West Space curated (very well) by Kelly Fliedner. Aside from a slightly pesky reliance on the expression 'post-minimalism' in the catalogue (in order, I assume, to lend the show some internationally recognised terminological gravitas)*, the vast majority of the work was really good. Damiano Bertoli's video of empty Miami Vice interiors was beautiful; void foreboding moments of hand-held faux-dread. Lou Hubbard's playful alien is what it is, and what it is, is funny. Which is nothing to shy away from. Matthew Shannon's recreation of a video that may or may not exist was an exercise in the pointless, but that was the point. Indefinable and re-manifesting that which may never have been manifest in the first place, it positioned history as an empty vessel. But the standout for me was Deborah Ostrow's television sets playing videos of work sites roughly framed with faceless cardboard office workers. It was as much everything as it was nothing, a meditative acknowledgement of the binary nature of a term like 'the nothing'. Although a sense of despair pervaded the work, it wasn't an abject one; it's use of honest materials (rather than an honest use of materials) and its humour saved it from desperation. A great show.

*Probably this is my problem, not the catalogue's.