Nothing Means Nothing:Life Is More Important Than Art.

Life Is More Important Than Art. That's the name of the Whitechapel Gallery's current, free, exhibition and by the time you leave the gallery you'll be in no doubt whatsoever that life is more important than art. Especially this art. Most of which is extremely underwhelming. I mean, even if it had been the best art ever it still wouldn't have been more important than life. You need life to appreciate art. You don't need art to appreciate life. Many people I know have no interest in art whatsoever. Some are openly dismissive of the very concept of it.

Anyway, why is the exhibition called Life Is More Important Then Art? It doesn't sound like a very good way to entice people in. Well, apparently the title of the show comes from the celebrated African-American writer and journalist James Baldwin who proposed that "life is more important than art ... that is why art is important". I'm with him on that. Art is, or can be, important. But not most of this art.

Susan Hillier - Untitled (1999)

There's some guff on the wall about "the cost of living crisis" (for which we should always read as a distribution of wealth crisis, Rishi Sunak's not feeling the pinch) but the overarching theme seems to be about migration, about mixing of cultures, and, site specifically, London and the East End. These are all interesting, and important, themes that should lend themselves to making interest and important art but out of the twelve artists on show maybe two of them have done something interesting with the themes.

Susan Hillier's baggage trolley almost looks like something that's been left in the gallery by mistake and you could just as easily go to Paddington station and see one of these actually being used. That would tell a far more interesting story about travel and migration than one stuck in a gallery looking a bit sad.

Janette Parris, for me, was probably the best of the bunch. Eight digital drawings with text on in which she reminisces about her youth, her identity as a black woman in the East End, and anything else that crosses her mind. There's the Ford plant in Dagenham, the Ilford Palais, a post office, the Boleyn Cinema, West Ham's (old) football ground, and her old school. It's not a part of London I'm all that familiar with but is surely worth further exploration at some point soon.

Janette Parris - This Is Not A Memoir (2023)

Janette Parris - This Is Not A Memoir (2023)

She talks about not getting 2001:A Space Odyssey when she first saw but now thinking it's a masterpiece and she talks about going to watch West Ham play football and how she actually likes the better toilets and the more family friendly atmosphere (gentrification) at the new London Stadium more than she misses the old ground.

It's a personal, unshowy, piece of art and that's why it stood out. You can relate to it. It's heard to relate to William Cobbing's plywood, perspex, and jesmonite Written In Water because it's hard to read it. Lots of boards arranged a grid with writing on. Some of it about chewing gum. Some of it too high up for people to read. I couldn't figure out why it existed.

William Cobbing - Written In Water (2022)

John Smith - The Girl Chewing Gum (1976)

The same could be said for John Smith's 1976 film The Girl Chewing Gum in which various people walk along, or cross, a road and the director, Smith presumably, shouts instructions out at them telling them to point, to look behind themselves, to chat as they walk. All for, as far as I can see, no reason whatsoever.

Osman Yousefzada at least got the memo regarding the show's theme and he's mocked up the room of an immigrant. A bed and lots of cases that remain unpacked, suggesting the possible need to move again very quickly. Perhaps said immigrant has been housed in a barge that has undergone an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease or perhaps they're preparing to follow the advice of the Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party Lee Anderson and "fuck off back to France".

Osman Yousefzada - An Immigrant's Room Of Her Own (2008)

Mitra Tabrizian - Film Stills (2017-18)

Mitra Tabrizian - Film Stills (2017-18)

Jerome - Action Black (2018+)

Jerome - Action Black (2018+)

Mitra Tabrizian's supposed film stills are alright, they look like scenes from The Sweeney or something, and Jerome's riff on abstract expressionism is visually pleasing at least but once you go upstairs things start to go downhill. Which isn't what's supposed to happen when you go upstairs.

Alia Syed's Fatima's Letter is video art. Fucking video art. It tests your patience at the best of times but this was particularly lame.So lame that within an hour of watching it I had pretty much forgotten everything about it.

Alia Syed - Fatima's Letter (1992)

Matthew Krishnau - Boy On A Climbing Frame (2022)

Matthew Krishnau - Four Children (Verandah) (2022)

Matthew Krishnau - Bows And Arrows (2018)

It was a relief to come out to Matthew Krishnau's charming and innocent paintings. I didn't see how they fitted in the show but they were one of the best things in it. 

But it wasn't long before there was more video art and, worse, video art that featured the voice of our hugely unloved former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. There was no way I was sitting in a darkened room listening to that entitled, braying cunt talking for sixteen whole minutes. To be fair to John Smith (the artist responsible), I believe the work is a criticism of Boris Johnson but then, for me, the very existence of Boris Johnson, or the mention of his name, is a criticism of him.

John Smith - Citadel (2020)

Rana Begum - No.1272 Chainlink (2023)

I'm sure Rana Begum's numbered Chainlink says something about barriers, borders, and frontiers and I'm sure Susan Hillier's J. Street Project says something about the holocaust and how Germany has come to cope with it's antisemitic past (it's a series of photos of street signs in Germany that have the word Judin (German for Jew) or similar in them. It seems a worthy project but it's not very good art.

Susan Hillier - The J.Street Project (Index) (2002-2005)

Susan Hillier - The J.Street Project (Index) (2002-2005)

Susan Hillier - The J.Street Project (Index) (2002-2005)

Susan Hillier - The J.Street Project (Index) (2002-2005)

But perhaps I'm being a bit harsh because the next two rooms, both containing the dreaded video art, were even worse. Sarah Dobai had made a film of a donkey wandering about and it lasted nearly twenty fucking minutes and Mark Wallinger (who has made great work in the past) had filmed people arriving at an airport somehwere in Britain and set it so some bombastic music. I'm sure both these works have things to say about displacement, transit, and identity but, alas, they don't have interesting things to say about any of those themes.

Which was the general feeling I got from this show. An interesting, if half baked, concept where most of the contributors don't seem to have really made any serious effort to engage the viewer. Self congratulating art, a circle jerk, a waste of an afternoon. Or it would have been had I not had a nice long walk back over Tower Bridge afterwards. Life, it turns out, really is more important than art.

Sarah Dobai - The Donkey Field (2021)

Mark Wallinger - Threshold to the Kingdom (2000)