Wholegrain nostalgia
fiends Grimes & Jones took a trip down (vacant) memory lane and
bathed in the sticky warming ooze of a friendship that never
materialised in our formative years of burger eating.
We went to
visit pint sized powder-puff princess of pink Helen Benigson's
performance night 'Weightless Utopias' at Site Gallery, Sheffield.
You might know
Benigson better as Princess Belsize $$$, the artist’s hip-hop
alter ego that we first stumbled across in 2011. (TVOD group show,
transition gallery - she didn’t attend)
The artist, (whether
intentionally or not) having shed her colourful character in favour
of her human name... we'd assume maybe to be taken
more seriously as we step into the intricately arranged but pointedly
straight-laced Site Gallery to a sea of concentrated faces and
intellectual gushing. It could be, perhaps, that us famously
inwards Yorkshire folk haven’t yet managed to breach the
intimidating authority that comes with 'white wall' galleries and
contemporary art - we're too busy growing beards, organising
community funding projects and trying to 'get it'.
Non the less, having
been aware of Belsize's (we prefer the superstar vibe) art and online
presence for a few years we came expecting a sugar coated dose of
humorous irony - an adolescent middle finger to the teen brat
culture, and she provided it with aplomb.
Site Gallery's
excellent exhibition space lends itself perfectly to this kind of
personal event - the room looking buzzing but not crammed. An
arousing and colourful mix of internet iconography, a cocktail of
nipples and landscapes made us two committed perverts feel right at
home.
Having spent a week
residency in the culturally old-school South Yorkshire you felt
Benigson had got to grips with the space perfectly, the room was
visually stimulating (#tits'n'ass), like stepping into a teen wet-dream; we felt more engaged in this show than any other of our
previous Site visits. (Specialising in the usually frosty 'lens-based media').
The on-the-night
performers involved choreographed weightlifting, a 'hot-as-fuck'
dancer, a live discussion group and a few raps by (the small gyal
hersal) Princess Belsize. All of it awkwardly consuming the room,
drawing you in with a hypnotic soundtrack of breathing and the hazy
glaze of projector light transforming the room into womb.
The show was cute,
feminine and purposely sexy, which sounds like our perfect Saturday
night in together - we entered feeling unusually vibrant, straddled a
couple of the specially created pink cocktails, eager to be
involved...but for some reason we left feeling unfulfilled.
Interestingly, Helen
described wanting to evoke feelings of 'awkwardness' in the literature, and you got a sense of that in the room. Arriving to a
camera man (equipped with 'image-rights contracts to be signed),
being encouraged to 'get involved' by the Site staff only to enter a
room full of serious faces felt a little uninviting, but perhaps
cleverly conducted this way.
The discussion group, lengthy, and
to-the-point was lost on us;
we wanted to be near the real action -
the physical activity of the dancers and weightlifters... always
seduced by a cheeky hip-thrust and thigh gap.
Perhaps it was our
insatiable appetite for trouble (soft hedonists) that let us down.
What Belsize Dollar brought to Site was a sweet taste of all things
good about London’s up-and-coming commercial art scene, but what
our fellow Yorkshire attendees and Site Gallery couldn't provide was
the chaotic and socially vibrant party aftermath that usually ensues
at successful London shows.
We moseyed around the room like new
starters at the Office Christmas party, desperate to get our sticky
fingers on the pulse... but no amount of cocktails and Run DMC could
break a sweat on the fringe-clad Yorkshire gallery scene.
Bridging that gap
between Belsize Dollar and Helen Benigson may prove a commercially
sensible move for our fizzy London swagster but we feel the flagrant
and silly raps do the talking way better than any prose-heavy essay
could.
Visually we knew the
exhibition was golden but as attendees to a 'party' the most fun part
of the night was accidentally stumbling upon an unfortunate girl
shaking her lettuce in the toilet. Feminism and 'weightless utopia'
at its best!
