I’ve muttered about one work by Peter Kalmus that gave me the impression that he and the gallery were almost mocking those without wealth by destroying books. This work is also muddled, although partly brilliant in terms of its collation of a period of transience. These are all posters from the time of Covid, the gallery notes that it’s a testimony of the “unexpected silence that reigned in places” at the time. This seems a useful exercise in recording and keeping a snapshot of that period, a reminder that Covid threatened everyone, regardless of their wealth.
Then the gallery goes further, it talks about how the collection was “appropriated” and was a “subversive capture” arrangement. If this means that signage to reassure people about Covid was removed to make some sort of point, then the privilege and wealth almost drips from the gallery into the street. The suggestion that the gallery can take what they want, regardless of how those with little will cope or manage. I rather hope though that the gallery means that the posters were taken when they were no longer in use, collated without the knowledge of the owners to form part of an archive that only the artist was aware of. Recording transience is positive, there sometimes should be order after chaos.