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A sculpture installation
by James Charlton
There's nothing original about the
latest installation by Auckland
sculptor James Charlton.
For this show at the Manawatu Art
Gallery he has borrowed everything.
Even the title, "Why so quiet,
child?" is a line from the
classic children's novel The Borrowers,
and Charlton has indeed borrowed
(or rather, plagiarised) many elements
and ideas, especially from the current
work of artist friends. The 1950s
retro designs of Dutch artist Jan
van der Ploeg and the paintings
of Simon McIntyre have been plundered
and turned into objects of interior
decoration in Charlton's examination
of the ways in which we invest both
art and everyday objects with meaning
and value.
A huge working sliding door which
looks like a McIntyre painting,
vinyl pouffes and orange and grey
carpets carrying van der Ploeg's
geometric designs, a multitude of
rugby whistles and a wall covered
in sexually androgynous shapes moulded
from the humble toilet duck are
some of the odd elements of this
installation, where nothing is quite
what it seems.
The result is a show that is both
nostalgic and very contemporary.
The ten pouffes are a kind of visual
shorthand for the baby boom commodity
culture of the 1950s — but
they also reference today's trendy
designer retro fashion and, under
Charlton's hand, become something
more than furniture: power leads
spout out the top of them, and electric
light warmly glows from underneath.
Likewise, the ten blue television
monitors — almost de rigour
in contemporary sculpture —
are scattered over the carpets as
a deliberate, silent satire on contemporary
video art.
This is Charlton's most comprehensive
installation since his return from
the United States, and consists
of two rooms, separated by the sliding
door, that must be entered consecutively,
one almost a mirror image of the
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