Alan Michael & Stephen Sutcliffe: Ritual In The Dark

24 May – 22 June
Hotel, London

Review by Sarah Douglas

'Alan Micheal's painterly style, like his artistic intentions, is hard to pin down'.
Thus begins the text accompanying Micheal's current show in Tate Britain's Art Now space. If Micheal on his own is hard to pin down as a painter, add the enigmatic Glasgow-based video artist Stephen Sutcliffe to the mix and you're left with the thoroughly mystifying collaboration that opened on Saturday at Hotel gallery in Bethnal Green.


Alan Michael, Ritual In The Dark (1), 2007

Ritual In The Dark is an exploration by Michael and Sutcliffe, through drawings, paintings and found photographs, of Colin Wilson's 1956 crime-mystery novel of the same name. Not unlike the structure of a story, the works here can be divided into a few key visual strands. Pop art-style text paintings spell out the book and exhibition title. There are cartoons appropriated eclectically from the New Yorker and William Blake. A pencil portrait and a series of small old photographs altered with ink and bleach provide more sensitive evocations of character and intrigue. The various works are linked by an apparent visual accessibility that is soon overtaken by an overall air of impenetrability. Why this book?

Based on a very specific and most likely unknown reference point, the work here is for and of itself. I have no problem with this; one could argue that most art making is an essentially selfish act. But without offering any discernible opening for the viewer, the work leaves a closed and ungenerous impression. In his novel, Wilson is concerned with the figure of the outsider. In this exhibition, it's the audience who fulfil that role. The nature of this relationship, and questions of its reciprocity, could make for a fascinating conceptual debate around the works themselves. Within the context of the show however, there isn't enough on offer here to tempt us into tackling the real substance of the artwork – and the apparently inspiring novel.