Sorcha Dallas

Fatally compromised by their status as commodities, finally artists are admitting it: aggressively ‘political’ art objects might well be useless. French collective Claire Fontaine’s contributions here suggest as much, anyway. A lengthy video demonstrates how to pick locks using a modified hairpin and nail file. Miscreant posturing, of course; the people who’ll see and buy her work are unlikely to act on the advice. Meanwhile, the capitalized phrase ‘pay for your pleasure’ – making reference to Mike Kelley’s 1988 installation critiquing creative genius – is unobtrusively inscribed in smoke on the ceiling: an attempt, though probably doomed, to sidestep neutralization-by-purchase.

Guest curator David Throp’s three other selected artists essentially pursue a third way between agit-prop and apolitical passivity, querying the potential for change at a local level. Kate Davis’ works cloudily imply the pressuring influence of cultural history. In front of her framed print of a sketched self-portrait is a stepping stone-like line of rough aluminium tiles, recalling both Carl Andre and Richard Stella. Olaf Nicolai’s sheet of blue carbon paper waits for the viewer to say, smugly, ‘Yves Klein’; but his Vogue covers turned into mirrors (in which ‘the new you’ is really you) – remind us how far the culture industry anticipates us. All of this adds up to a quietly politicised aesthetic determined not to alienate the viewer with its own righteousness. As in Jordan Wolfson’s video of a dinner-jacketed figure reciting, in sign language, Charlie Chaplin’s speech rejecting imperial power in The Great Dictator, hope is pinned on speaking passionately, thoughtfully and, most of all, covertly.