Tanvi Anand: Bat & Ball, 2018
You’d look bad, too, if your ball
was a lump of concrete.
All of which may be an exactingly realised
fake of historical trauma
to make the point
that truth doesn’t always out.
Per Carlsen: Equivalent MMXX, 2020
In the absence of function
we’re left with doubt:
are these bricks pretending to be art,
or art pretending to be bricks?
Neither, post-Andre, post-Kirkeby,
could very well count as shocks.
James Hook: Crocodillo, 2016
Rather skinny,
even for a crocodile.
Would bulge like a python
if it had swallowed
the dog of the lead
that's got snagged on its tail.
Coral Walker-Parr: Notice, 2016
‘Power Warning’: strong words
boosted by prominent context and hazard hues:
the world needs to end its obsession with fuel.
‘Cable’ is the maverick,
designed – but why? –
to complicate, if not confuse.
Catalina White: Near Passage, 2020
So long as the coronavirus
complicates our getting close,
the artist has arranged
around a dozen times a day
for two ships to virtually
kiss.
Tyler Simmons: The Groyners, 2004
Surrealism enters
somewhere between Voodoo dolls,
70’s rock gods shorn of guitars
and a frenzy of Sheela Na Gigs.
As if worn teeth
are wearing wigs.
Kanesha Johnson: Ring 2018
Without the tape
to set up a stutter of connections
and emphasise precarity
this might not be art.
As it is, the meanings multiply:
where shall we start?
Neo Frage: Untitled, 2018
If a grid can buckle under the stress,
despite the best efforts of straining pillars,
what hope is there for civilisation?
would be too histrionic
an interpretation.
But is the question worthy, nonetheless?
Nathalie Cole: Bounce, 2019
Beetles have wings,
so have no need of springs.
This must be a critique of redundancy.
Yet penguins have wings
but would probably love to have springs.
Perhaps it’s a critique of simplicity.
Sophie Debarre: Mandrin de Galets, 2020
You need your wits about you
to catch these action sculptures
and to appreciate
how they speak
to the transitory nature of time.
It is already late.
Notes:
Lepe Country Park occupies a narrow stretch of land adjoining the Solent, just west of Southampton Water and south of the New Forest. Facilities include an extensive children's play area.
Equivalent MMXX: Carl Andre (particularly the notorious Equivalent VIII, 1966) and Per Kirkeby are known for art works utilising bricks.
Mandrel de Galets: Pebble Chucking
