Tate Britain until January 6th 2013
ART NOW
Why go and see a series of scaled up leather
bicycle saddles scattered on the floor of the ART NOW room at Tate
Britain?
Not for the first time in her work, the artist is
reminding us that things as well as people have a biography; and goods have an
emotional as well as a monetary value, especially notable when they change hands.
The title reminds us of the 2011 London riots. Just over a year ago David
Lammy, Labour MP for Tottenham, described the rioters as 'mindless, mindless
people'. Is that what they were? Jess Flood Paddock has chosen her title in order to challenge his way of thinking.
Saddles are
easy to steal, are highly valued by cyclists, can be quickly sold and resold and
have become a sort of alternative currency. The very word ‘saddle’ conjures up
a history of speed and daring: horses, races, cowboys, highwaymen. 
In the second picture you can glimpse on
the far wall a video displaying the empty scruffy streets, barricaded shops,
barred gates and doors around London’s Broadway Market, where these bicycle
seats used to zip along. Each image moves
slowly, pausing long enough to discomfort us.
In the second picture you can glimpse on
the far wall a video displaying the empty scruffy streets, barricaded shops,
barred gates and doors around London’s Broadway Market, where these bicycle
seats used to zip along. Each image moves
slowly, pausing long enough to discomfort us.
For the viewer is inside a beautiful and well-loved
gallery, Tate Britain, standing in a quiet, well-lit room looking at these
elegant sculptures. The artist's gift is to 'tell it slant', to stop us in our
tracks, to conjure up a fresh awareness before we have time to gather up an
armful of defensive clichés. Pause for a moment and imagine streets
with a proliferation of chained up bicycles, without seats, the main stem
poking up to the sky: an eye watering picture. In the
studio the saddles are humbled, grounded, detached from what gave them
purpose and meaning in life. She's asking how far do circumstances dictate what
we see, think and feel?
The result is visceral. How far are we all
complicit? Do we all need to exchange mindlessness for mindfulness?
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