Thursday 19 May 2022

Pourquoi?:Alice Theobald at the South London Gallery.

A woman knocks on a man's door, goes into his house, has a drink of tomato juice (which she later spills down her jumper), and they go through various lines, and scenarios, together as if in preparation for a play.

At times he stands a bit too close to her, at times she appears to be fantasising that they are dancing together (some old fashioned style dancing), at times he seems humorous, at times he seems a bit angry. She always looks a bit nervous.

Alice Theobald's IL Y AURA (There Will Be), which is showing now at the South London Gallery between Peckham and Camberwell, is an intriguing watch but it's not one that seems to make a lot of sense. The over-riding sense I came away from the gallery with was one of 'pourquoi?'

Why? Why make such a film? Why did the South London Gallery choose to show it? Supposedly, the film is inspired by the avant-garde playwright Eugene Ionesco's play La Lecon while also intending to reflect Theobald's status as a bilingual Franco-British person brought up in the UK and aware that her French language skills are dwindling as she converses mainly in English.

Theobald 'stars' alongside the French actor Thibault de Montalembert and if there's some kind of sexual tension between the two (the dancing and the encroaching on personal space suggests so - though that may be one sided) then that's probably the most interesting thing about the whole exercise. Because I don't feel I learned very much about language watching IL Y AURA.


As I sat and watched I longed for something more exciting to happen. But it never really did. At one point my phone went off in my pocket and, bizarrely, started reading out the Wikipedia page on compasses. I've no idea why. It's not like I've been Googling compasses or even thinking about them much lately. Or ever.

I apologised to the only other attendee in the room and then considered my Samsung's unexpected intervention to be strangely apposite and appropriate for an artwork that seemed so random and so, essentially, meaningless. I didn't even dislike it. I just couldn't see the point of it. Still, it was nice to get out for a walk on a balmy Wednesday evening so I'll thank Alice Theobald and the South London Gallery for that at least.


 

 

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