Threshold
8 July – 3 September 2005
43B Mitchell Street
This group show brings together some twenty artists from the UK, Austria, Denmark, Germany and the US, some of which exhibit in London for the first time. The title takes inspiration from the classic sequence in the Marx Brother’s emblematic film Duck Soup (1933). The celebrated comedy scene of lyrical and physical pantomime shows Harpo, dressed in the same nightshirt as Groucho, pretending to be his mirror image while he plays back every gesture, which gets wilder and funnier. The film, which was an absurd anarchic satire of dictatorships, war and politics, is epitomised by the excellent line: ‘And remember, while you’re out there risking life and limb through shot and shell, we’ll be in here thinking what a sucker you are.’ Intending to paraphrase the same game of disguise, the increasing tension created by the illusionary mistake to which Groucho falls victim, Threshold satirises the absurd scenario proposed by an exhibition that is repeated twice giving the “impression of” itself. Most of the works in the exhibition appear to match another, casting a gap between objects, persons and moments, between their appearances and definitions. By breaking the rules of imitation, the selection of works in the exhibition mimics the shadow-self that obsesses Doppelgangers, the sense of disorientation that Groucho experiences when he sees himself duplicated, thus corrupting the notion of perfectly-timed reflection that leaves the viewer in a limbo of perplexity.