Do exhibitions have to make sense? The people in charge at the vast, subterranean video art wonderland at 180 the Strand sure don’t seem to think so. In the past they have been masters of immersive art exhibitions in London. Their major debut, The Infinite Mix, in 2016, set a standard that all video art shows since have tried – and largely failed – to reach. This time, down in the bowels of this enormous concrete behemoth, they’ve chucked a whole bunch of video art at the walls and hoped that some of it would stick. But not much does.
It starts with Mark Leckey’s Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore, Pipilotti Rist’s Ever Is Over All and Gillian Wearing’s Dancing in Peckham – three of the most important works of video art of the 1990s. Leckey’s film, a paean to rave, youth culture and getting pinged off your nut, still has an impact almost 30 years later. Wearing’s endearingly awkward silent solo danceathon in a Peckham shopping centre is one of the definitive works of its era. And if you’re looking for contemporary influence, then Rist’s video, following a smiling woman down the street as she smashes car windows with a flower, was ripped off by Beyoncé in her video for Hold Up in 2016.
