Metro Pulse/Artbeat/Essential Selection

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What:
Essential Selection, video works by Oliver Payne and Nick Relph

Where:
The Knoxville Museum of Art, 1050 World's Fair Park Drive

When:
Through Dec. 7 (call 525-6101 for information)

Young Brits use punk aesthetic in digital commentaries

by Heather Joyner

I admit it: I was never really into punk rock. Instead, the late '70's found me listening to Kate Bush records as a revolution picked up speed. The Sex Pistols' music, wielded like the weapon it was, made me feel naive...and not nearly angry enough. But as an attitudinal as well as musical phenomenon, punk has affected many things, and its impact on art is undeniable. In particular, much has been made of punk's influence on Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, two British artists whose video and film projects are presently being screened at the KMA.

Payne and Relph are unusual for a number of reasons. Barely into their mid-twenties, they are young enough to be sons of the late Joe Strummer. They are also quite successful at this early stage in their careers and have received impressive accolades (i.e., called "Best Artist[s] Under the Age of 35" at the 2003 Venice Biennale and exhibited at the Tate Modern's Triennial). They have both been naughty—either failed by or expelled from Kingston University's Fine Art Department. And they reportedly care as much for graffiti painting and skateboarding as they do making art. What's more, they talk funny. For instance, Payne has said, "We don't intend on creating any linear/non-linear narrative...simply constructed images like sketches and doodles...we are still totally vibing it and writing little bits here and there."

As the premiere solo exhibition of their work in a U.S. museum, the KMA screenings represent a significant first for Payne and Relph (and their editor Ben Crook). On view is Essential Selection, an hour and a half-long trilogy of films titled "Driftwood," "House & Garage," and "Jungle," and "Mixtape," a 23-minute piece—both running repeatedly in separate areas (each of which suffers unfortunate sound bleed from adjacent space despite Oriental rugs positioned beneath chairs).

Regarding the Payne and Relph trilogy, journalist Seth Hodes has written, "Their arresting documentary-style films hotly reject dominant, corporate-driven British culture and rip it a new asshole. Referencing their backgrounds as skaters, graf writers, and punks, Nick and Oliver's work remains true to the essential ethos of the derelict."

Village Voice art critic Jerry Saltz has called Essential Selection "part documentary, part surveillance video, and part tirade...[forming] a kind of howl or lamentation—a love song to their native London, albeit sung in the key of spleen." That so-called tirade is intelligent, and it buzzes with rebellious energy.

According to Payne, in "Driftwood" (the pair's first film), "We wanted to...discuss something we had an intimate knowledge of: skateboarding. The more we wrote, the more we had to talk about until it finally became this kinda awkward angry thing about youth culture and public space." Employing a visually straightforward narrative, "Driftwood" revolves around skateboarders' invasion of what Payne and Relph call modern London's "grotesque waste of marble and steel"—the South Bank district's overbuilt, upscale, and overly corporate environment.

Saltz has commented that "Driftwood" "...ought to be required viewing for all architects—especially those currently drooling over the opportunity of building on the burial mound that is the World Trade Center site....[and] it exhibits the pair's gifts for speaking—or appealing—directly to an audience and getting around the barriers of art and cleverness." "Driftwood"'s narrator urges, "Navigate your city by alternative means...[defying] the stifling constraints of the social order and [acting] upon your desire." The voice continues, saying, "Smash the symbols of the Empire in the name of nothing but the heart's longing for grace."

Moving outward from "Driftwood"'s inner city milieu, "House and Garage" addresses the west London suburbs that shaped Payne and Relph. With the Sex Pistols' "No Future" as part of its soundtrack, "House and Garage" has a fragmented, collage-like structure that ends with images of fireworks screened in reverse. The third film in the trilogy, "Jungle," is about the countryside—what the duo calls "the city's bad conscience, and also its wet dream." Says Payne, "We had these obvious preconceived notions of the country you get if you grow up in London. So we went off to expose our own ignorance...".

Set to a remix of a '60's soul song, Payne's and Relph's "Mixtape" includes shots of a woman with piercings concealed by tape so that she can work at Starbuck's and footage of a Lee Perry look-alike crawling across London (much as Reggae legend Perry did across Jamaica, trying to banish Satan). Although images are orchestrated rather than stumbled upon, their fast-paced handling is reminiscent of scenes from the trilogy. "'Mixtape' is literally a blitzkrieg of image and sound with performance—a reflection of our 21st century lives that are constantly bombarded by large amounts of disjointed information," writes KMA Associate Curator Nandini Makrandi in an excellent catalogue essay.

Aforementioned works by Payne and Relph constitute an initial exhibition in a new set of shows at the KMA. Called "SubUrban," the series will attempt to recognize up-and-coming art talents (and is but one of many changes brought about by Todd Smith, the museum's recently installed director). Beginning next week, "SubUrban Thursdays" will host a variety of events and entertainment. Another freshly launched series currently features "Designing a New Knoxville: The Work of Crandall Arambula" through Sept. 21. The museum's extension of hours into four weekday evenings is a boon for 9-to-5ers. However, the adoption of a new logo/"branding device" is less inspired...its use of the "@" symbol for the "A" in KMA—to convey the museum's role "as a place for communication and conversation"—is misleading. It alludes to computers, not art—and it smacks of spam-laden commercialism against its intentions; the sort of commercialism punk has always rejected.

True: email, like punk rock, is widely accessible and generally spontaneous. But work by Payne and Relph carries on a ranting against established media that transcends the mainstream and still packs punch. Messengers for their generation, these artists have much to express, no matter what has preceded them. As a good friend recently remarked, "When punk came along, pieces for the pipe bomb already existed. But the Sex Pistols assembled them and set it off." Payne and Relph, too, have caused a stir. And they have done so in a memorable way.