Thursday 19 September 2019

To Me, To You - Mick Peter - The BALTIC


"Mick Peter’s playful installations incorporate imagery influenced by illustration and commercial art. To Me, To You draws on archetypes of the artist in a narrative sequence about a sculpture being produced and displayed in a gallery.



Peter references how abstract modern sculpture has sometimes been used to represent the incomprehensibility of art in editorial illustrations in newspapers and magazines. By showing the imagined decisions being taken in a studio Peter wittily undermines the significance and authority of the finished sculpture."



We begin by walking through the gallery office, the administration centre of the gallery and then enter the corridor-like expanse that is split into a number of booths, each a different scenario in the artist's studio tracking the development of activities on the day that the art handlers have come to collect his work.



As the narrative develops, one realises that, as the art handlers struggle to move the sculpture, the artist adapts its shape so as to make it easier to carry.






I appreciate the understated simplicity of the work which complements the cartoon-like style of Peter's monochrome drawings. The humour within the work is coupled with an intelligent understanding of the contemporary art world.


















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