Chris Gilligan
posted 11 October 2007

Michael Stevenson’s ‘The Fountain of Prosperity’ stands in the foyer of Tate Modern’s level two gallery. It is a tall construction with various mechanical parts, tubes and perspex boxes through which liquids flow. Clipboards are attached to the top of the contraption. In terms of scale and in its use of mechanical parts, The Fountain reminds me of Duchamp’s ‘The Bride Stripped bare by her Bachelors, Even’ (which is part of the Tate’s permanent collection). Stevenson shares Duchamp’s sense of the absurdity of modern life.

The intended function and external references for Stevenson’s ‘Fountain’ are, however, very different to those of Duchamp. Stevenson’s piece is intended as a commentary on capitalist economics. The work is based on a machine designed by an economist in the late 1940s to illustrate the concept of monetary flow in national economies. Stevenson’s ‘replica is corroded and leaking, and the chamber marked “held balances” is empty, suggesting that the economic model it represents is on the verge of collapse’ (exhibition programme). The day I visited the gallery, there was one of those signs that periodically appear on exhibits: ‘This exhibit is not currently working. We apologise for any inconvenience’. The sign appeared to have been placed there without any sense of irony.

The unintended malfunction of ‘The Fountain’ unintentionally reveals the weakness of the exhibition as a whole. The rude bureaucratic intervention of the real world represented by the sign moved me to ask what is the relationship between the art work and the reality of the contemporary economic forces that it refers to? Does the reality of the breakdown of ‘The Fountain’ reveal that when the replica of the model of the economy fails then the system itself continues to function regardless of its imagined failure?

All of the artworks exhibited as part of The Irresistible Force are intended to, as the exhibition notes inform us, to ‘examine how economic forces shape our lives, as cultural values and traditions are realigned by global capitalism’. There are many interesting questions that can be asked about the impact of contemporary economic forces on our everyday lives, but for the most part this exhibition prefers to take the well trodden path of sneering at consumerism and marketing; territory which is familiar from writers such as Naomi Klein and directors such as Michael Moore.

Tim Davis’ photographs from small-town America, for example, show domestic exteriors in which the glowing logo of global corporations are reflected from the windows of the home (inevitably McDonald’s, every anti-globalisationists favoured spectre of capitalism, features in one of the pictures). In these pictures, we are informed, the multinationals ‘seem to be just the other side of the road, reinforcing the idea of the inextricable fusion of consumerism and everyday life’. It seems that we are supposed to realise that this is ‘a bad thing’, but why is never really made clear, the assumption appears to be that the audience are already believers. In which case, one might ask, what is the point of the art work? The curators, and possibly the artist, appear to be unaware of many of the other resonances of the work. The work could be read as a groan about the colonisation of ‘real America’, (the small-town America of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer, or Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life), by global corporations. In which case I am tempted to say: ‘Bring it on! Goodbye small-town, small minded, petty, insular America!’.

There is scope to ask more awkward questions about the impact of contemporary economic forces. The two works in the exhibition which are provocative and original both explore the issue of illegal migration. In Matei Bejenaru’s ‘Traveling Guide’, a diagram of transport networks, linking ports in the UK through Paris to Romanian cities, is mapped out on the floor of the gallery. The diagram looks familiar to anyone who travels around or within Europe; which, in an age of Easyjet and the Channel Tunnel, means an ever increasing number of us. On the wall above the diagram we are offered fold up travel guides to help us navigate the network described in the diagram. When we open up our travel guide however we find that it provides instructions and advice to Romanians seeking to enter Britain and work without a permit. The guide provides fascinating insights into: the kinds of decisions involved in choosing, or not choosing, Britain as a destination; the means through which migrant workers attempt to circumvent the regulatory controls designed to prevent the movement of ‘unwanted’ people across borders, and; the semi-formal and informal networks established by prior migrants from Romania which helped to assist the whole process. This latter aspect, in particular, suggests that it is friends, neighbors and relatives – not some shady underworld Mafioso – who provide the infrastructure for ‘human trafficking’.

‘Brinco’ is based around designer hiking trainers which the artist Judi Werthein produced. The piece is a comment on global labour in more than one way. The trainers were produced in China, using cheap labour, and then given away free in Tijuana to migrants setting off to cross the Mexican-American border to work illegally in the United States. Those who were successful in crossing the border could then sell trainers to Werthein for $200. Werthein then sold these on to a high-end boutique in San Diego where they were sold as a limited edition.

According to the curator, the title of the exhibition is deliberately ambiguous: 'Is The Irresistible Force an advertising catchphrase for an intoxicating lifestyle choice, or a Marxist slogan proclaiming the inevitable overthrow of capitalism by revolution?' I’m not clear where the ambiguity is supposed to be. In the absence of any revolutionary anticapitalist forces in society, and none of the exhibits here suggest that there are any such forces, a revolutionary slogan is simply a slogan, a logo. This problem is suggested in Werthein’s installation. A number of television screens adorn the walls around the central exhibit. These screens broadcast some of the responses to the work, including a slot on CNN in which Werthein, sensibly, says: ‘This is an art project, really… it's not going to create a political transformation or whatever. It's art’. And the interviewer responds ‘Despite the artist's protest it is only art, there is a political statement made with the profits. That money is being distributed to shelters for illegal aliens along the Mexican side of the border. The sneakers sell in only two art galleries, one in San Diego, and one in New York’. In this response we see the softening of the potentially contentious art work and its incorporation as ethical consumerism, ‘buy these trainers, the profits go to charity’.

Till 25 November 2007