On a more positive note, the works in the Irony of Flatness (Bury Art Gallery until November) are definitely deserving of more attention. The first is Marianne Eigenheer’s video-drawing “Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman”. This is a particularly resonant and exciting piece. It recalls Marianne’s experience of walking around the streets of Cairo, having a look round while she was there preparing for a forthcoming show. This meandering came to be represented in the artist’s distinctive arabesque coloured drawing, the depth of her line mirroring her unique sense of space. This drawing in itself became a thirty metre long work which has been exhibited in Germany/Austria (I forget where). During her walk she became fascinated by the way Egyptian men place their chairs in the street, a male gesture of dominance of public space; Marianne began photographing them. “Dancing Chairs and a Walking Woman” is the brilliant counterpoint of these two aspects of the walk – the meandering fluidity circling the sometimes ominous fixed points of maleness – video stills shifting between one set of images to the next spread across to two screens. The depth of Marianne’s spatial dimensionality in this work actually touches you to the core.By the way, I’ve written the catalogue for Irony of Flatness which is now available for £2 from Bury Art Gallery.
