At once poetic and arbitrary, Lost Lake, Chalk Burst is named after two colours of Dulux paints. The title would seem to cutely question the gap between art and descriptive words, and language is a recurring theme in the show. Curated in collaboration between four Glasgow-based artists, we get diverse practices that engage us to varying degrees.
The Generator’s first room contains Argot by Laura Smith and Rebecca Wilcox, who present text in the form of digital prints on the wall. This reads as a monologue spoken in abrupt sentences and is displayed next to freestanding steel frames. A similar tableau is installed in the larger room, alongside a video projection of a still life in muted colours. Like the frames stood empty and uninviting, the work here seems to want for content. Rather more diverting is the arrangement next door by Michael Kent, who projects desolate landscapes onto upturned sculptural plinths. Last Days, No More Time, Now or Never does at least bring a certain post-apocalyptic sensibility to the room.
In the show’s most affecting work, the Everly Brothers’ mournful croons drift longingly through the Generator’s galleries. The chorus of All I Have To Do Is Dream plays with just the word ‘Dream’ on a loop, part of Graham Kelly’s video installation Coil, Logo, Song, Spire, Eclipse, Slide. The music cuts to a scene of swimmers spiralling down a water slide, to tourists traipsing around a sunlit tower’s spiral staircase, then on to the lighting of a green mosquito candle that burns in another anti-clockwise spiral. More sightseers look skywards to an undefined spectacle, shielding their eyes from the glare of the sun. Kelly’s work offers itself as “the dissection of processes of production and presentation” but it’s the film’s etherealness that lingers with you, a reverie that echoes with the Everlys’ song.
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