Catherine Yass
Alison Jacques Gallery, London, UK
Catherine Yass, Lock (open) (2006), lfochrome transparency, lightbox
Since its inception in 1993, construction of the Three Gorges Dam in central Hubei Province, China has been the site of controversy. According to the local media, more than 1.3 million people have been displaced as a result of the controlled flooding of surrounding areas, while other reports suggest that promised compensation has found its way into the pockets of local bureaucrats. The dam’s purported economic benefits have been questioned and politely dismissed while ecological concerns have been answered by officials with a collective shrug.
Fifteen years later, and with the bulk of construction completed, its detractors cite the dam as an example of China’s obstinate desire for economic expansion. Its advocates claim it as a symbol of China’s booming economy – a monument to engineering prowess and political determination. A large rusting sign close by on the bank of the Yangtze River is either screamingly ironic or powerfully sincere: ‘For the good of the people.’ That a single, albeit massive, object can create such sharply divided viewpoints and narratives is explored by Catherine Yass’s film and photographs, in which she engineers a visual parallax that mirrors the political dialectic.
Lock (2006), two simultaneous film projections screened just far enough apart on opposing walls of the main space to make viewing of both impossible, shows the fore and aft view from the deck of a lumbering, rusting tanker as it enters, docks, and exits the dam’s colossal lock. The viewer stares out from the bow. Filmed in three parts, the staging is concerned with the play of both temporality and space between the viewer and viewed.
This perspectival short circuit bears curious results. Positioned inside the film, inside the lock, trapped between the two mammoth steel doors, the experience of droning engine noise and jarring metallic scrapings is claustrophobic – a modern twist on Kant’s terrifying sublime. A shopping mall-esque announcer backed by the opening chimes of Big Ben welcomes you to the lock; what should be bathetic only heightens the strange sense of terror. Tiny figures emerge to unmoor the ship, highlighting the hubristic scale of the vessel.
Sign: For the good of the people (army, build) (2007), Ilfochrome transparency, lightbox
Presented on lightboxes in the second room are geometric shots of mooring pillars, which stand like some Modernist parody of ancient ruins. The sheer walls of the lock’s exit show its austere and formal beauty, but are underwhelmingly slight after the epic scale of the preceding film. The diptych For the good of the people (2007), showing the advertising-like sign placed on a river bank in front of the hazy backdrop of a concrete metropolis, brings the viewer back to the ruptured history of the site; its rusting edges and cryptic message engendering both the linearity of its heritage and the circularity of its promise.
Paul Teasdale
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