Members' Exhibition at Two Queens
Sat, 16 Mar 2013
I managed to catch the members' exhibition at Two Queens in Leicester this week, just before it finished.
Two Queens is an independent, artist-led gallery in Leicester's Cultural Quarter, located just a few minutes walk from Curve and Phoenix. Despite running on a low budget, and being wonderfully rough around the edges, it is starting to carve out its own niche in Leicester and an experimental and contemporary gallery that favours local artists and recent graduates. The latest member show was suitably eclectic, with predominantly installation artworks, plus some video work and paintings on (and a performance on the opening night which I missed).
There is often a criticism of contemporary art (I don't think we call it "modern" anymore) that it can be overly conceptual and often inaccessible. On the surface, the exhibition at Two Queens might appear to be guilty of this - there are video recordings of a camera being raised on ropes, a living room with broken chairs and glitchy TVs, and a dress hung on a wall with an accompanying wig and shoes. However, with a little effort on the part of the viewer it starts to make sense very quickly.
I picked up a strong feeling of "deconstruction" and "reconstruction" among the artworks - with some pieces showing the world around us stripped down to its basic elements, and others recombining the everyday in new and unexpected ways. There was also an amazing "soundtrack" to the exhibition. A number of the pieces made sound, and these ended up combining to produce an engaging artwork in its own right. I don't know if this was intentional. Perhaps it was an "emergent property" of the exhibition as a whole?
It was a well-curated exhibition and one that pays credit to the group of artists involved in the space. Leicester needs a gallery like Two Queens and I hope it goes from strength to strength. I also hope that with ongoing success (and perhaps funding) it doesn't loose it's lo-fi appeal. Not all galleries need perfectly white painted walls, or heating(!). You can see my set of pictures from the show on my Flickr page. Visit the Two Queens web site for details of their future exhibitions.
