Posts Tagged consumerism

Margarita Gluzberg – The Money Plot

Posted by LoveHowlMuse on April 30th, 2008 - Read comments and add your own

Exhibition at Paradise Row, 2nd May – 8th June 2008

This is money… this is greed… this is power… This is… In the Blackout… the blue petals of Forget-me-nots sit, a pretty, ghostly, presence on the surface of the canvas and behind an image of… what? Of, this… of pure desire, ordered, corralled into regularised working hours, into electronic information – light no less – that fills the hungry, unblinking computer screens that chart, with ruthless relentlessness, the fluctuating prices of every commodity in the world… This is… Christmas Bollocks…  particles of carbon…. an element born late in the history of the universe… born in the heart of a dying star… once coal black, now, compressed by weight, heat and time, they are transmuted into sharp, clear crystals that glint from behind a reflective screen of glass in which Christmas lights glitter in dark moments… This is… Leeds Market… Edwardian iron structures that soar upwards, conspiring to capture space from the sky in order to frame the daily rituals of production, display and consumption… This is… Coming with her Husband… two luxury crustaceans, two limpid, languid langoustines, replete with lemon wedges… temptingly thrust towards you…

Description property of Paradise Row…

‘If you think, from this prelude, that anything like a romance is preparing for you, reader, you never were more mistaken. Do you anticipate sentiment, and poetry, and reverie? Do you expect passion, and stimulus, and melodrama? Calm your expectations; reduce them to a lowly standard. Something real, cool and solid lies before you; something unromantic as Monday morning, when all who have work wake with the consciousness that they must rise and betake themselves thereto.’

Paradise Row is proud to present The Money Plot a new exhibition by Russian born, London based artist Margarita Gluzberg. Comprising of paintings, drawings and a display of an eclectic range of books, printed matter and other ephemera, the show draws on autobiographical material from Gluzberg’s Soviet childhood, historical images of the English industrial North, the glittering contemporary shop facades of Bond Street and iconic pictures of trading floors, to piece together a bio-fictional history of consumption and its effects. 

The works plot a serendipitous course through an imagined, personal history of the birth of modern consumer society. No clear thesis is presented, no blueprint for resistance drawn up, instead Gluzberg offers an empathic, response to the vast, vital energies of capital flows that animate our world.

The title of the show is taken from an appendix of Balzac’s novel La Cousine Bette. The work’s editors decided that in order to understand the complex network of the characters‚ relationships and intrigues in the book, the reader must be provided with a synopsis they termed The Money Plot – a breakdown of debts, financial dependencies and connections between the protagonists. The Money Plot lies behind all human relationships. 

This is the Money Plot.

Margarita Gluzberg – The Money Plot

2nd May – 8th June 2008 | Wednesday to Sunday, 12 noon – 6pm

Private View : Thursday May 1st 2008, 7 – 9pm

Paradise Row, St. Matthew’s Hall, 2 Wood Close, London E2 6ET

Telephone : 020 7613 3311

Map : www.paradiserow.com/contact

Website : www.paradiserow.com

Margarita’s page on LoveHowlMuse : www.lovehowlmuse.com/margarita_gluzberg

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Misdirection and advertising’s holy grail

Posted by Adrian Toll on April 22nd, 2008 - Add a comment

At a party in Bristol a few years ago, I met a barrister who had recently started to train as a magician.  He was an intense person, standing a bit closer than people normally do, and fixing me with a stare.  When I realised that he was dangling in front of me the watch that he’d removed from my wrist, I have to admit I was impressed.  It’s a pretty standard trick, but I count myself as being an alert person, almost to the point of edginess, and it’s unusual for something like that to escape my attention.

What he was using is called “misdirection” – a simple trick where the magician makes you more interested in something else (in this case his close proximity and the close attention he directed at me) while removing your watch.  (Having said that, and to his credit, you still have to be extremely dexterous to do something like that).

Another more threatening example was when my mobile phone got stolen.  I was sitting outside a cafe when some kids came up to me and one thrust a piece of paper with something scrawled on it into my face, mumbling something unintelligible – all my attention was on the fact that the first kid was too close for comfort, and I didn’t notice that the second one had simply picked my mobile up from the table until they were long gone.  Misdirection can seem like magic, but in a different context you can feel like you’ve been conned.

Advertising and marketing have adopted this trick of misdirection, except it’s more subtly done, and it aims to avoid the feeling that you’ve had the wool pulled over your eyes – on the contrary, it aims to please.  This move towards misdirection has been recent, as advertising has become steadily more sophisticated.  Have a look at this Persil advert from the 1960s:

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