Sorcha Dallas

4 stars

Monsieur Lacan told us that the superego commands us to ‘Enjoy!’ This wasn’t an invitation to a buffet, but an order to take every mannered wish beyond itself into the sublime pleasure beyond the pleasure principle. Henry Coombes’ most recent video work (showing at ‘The Jail’, Bridgeton, with Lorna McIntyre, Lotta Gertz, Charlie Hammond and Nick Evans) records the glorious urge to toy with the juggernaut of subjectivity – to build mantraps, bombs and threatening lacunae to thwart the glibness and capriciousness of artistic creation before it even gets off the ground. The work records false starts within the psyche:his playfulness is not to be mistaken for chance or a lack of seriousness.

Coombes’ video sketches are reminiscent of a very early Paul McCarthy, but in this case his repetitions do not lead to physical but mental and artistic exhaustion. He comes at his task from countless angles until every intonation and knee-jerk is exorcised (he speaks to himself, makes his belly button talk in ‘Nigel’, and shouts at passers-by on the street through soundproof double-glazing in ‘Hey Kid!’ and ‘In Da Club’). The Alexandrianism of certain Glasgow contemporary art bubble is easily popped with his sharp slapstick. Near the TV monitor a little jesomite man squats on stinging nettles like a debauched Sadean figurine. On the walls, pages from someone else’s imaginary diary record the everyday shit we all wade through, with the increasing violence we suppress bubbling like mad up through the fault lines of sentences.