How to Art @ Underbelly Cowgate
How to Art's clowning take on the contemporary art world is an interesting concept, but one which fails to come to fruition
We arrive at How to Art to find two bananas (Katie Burson and Georgie Llewellyn) duct taped to a gallery wall. It's a conceit that clearly references Maurizio Cattelan’s notorious Comedian artwork, which saw a duct-taped banana fetch vast sums.
The show's framing seems to promise some probing of art world norms – ideas of value and gatekeeping for example – but, in reality, little of this emerges. The premise is instead largely mobilised as the arena for the playful exploration of the pair's newly acquired consciousness. Naivety or innocence is often very productive in clowning (see Anna Marie Simonsen and Marie Kallevik Straume's Troll, for example), but here it largely fails to generate interest.
There is some satire of the art world; gestures to a fundamentally superficial or opportunistic mindset and to the endless games of periodisation (postmodernism, post-post modernism, post-post-post modernism etc). All well and good, and a critique which is undoubtedly justified, but the barbs seem a little tired.
At first the bananas are timid, and fearful of the rules; 'don't touch the artwork' shout the signs, and the gallerist is a fearsome presence (Bronwyn Ensor, brandishing her white handling gloves and red 'sold' stickers with aplomb). But they grow increasingly bold. We see the artefacts become the artists as the pair explore their own creativity, wrecking havoc in the sterile confines of the gallery space. There's a detour to Berlin, the acme of art world pretensions, and in the comedown, the dawning realisation of their bruising, perishable flesh.
How to Art is an interesting conceit, but one which ultimately fails to come to fruition.
How to Art, Underbelly Cowgate (Iron Belly), until 30 Aug (not 17, 24), 9.40pm, £12.50-14.50