The Soothsayer’s Chorus: a spiritual exhibition that leaves a mark, literally
Even after closing its doors, the show lives on.
Tien Albert
A man on a ladder dismantles a long metal chain from the ceiling, at the end of which is attached a large brass bell. It’s part of The Soothsayer’s Chorus, an exhibition exploring the female voice through the allegory of the Ancient prophetess Cassandra, who was doomed to speak the truth without being believed. Today is the closing day, but the works are coming down a few hours early due to torrential rain which has threatened the courtyard and what is essentially a barn that together constitute the venue, with a few (thankfully not artwork-threatening) leaks. “The whole space is crying”, says curator Bettina Prentice, who self-funded the show alongside co-curator Beth Greenacre.
Collectivity is a focus in the show, which has put on a star-studded lineup of women artists to reclaim Cassandra’s voice. Another curatorial inspiration was the 12th century abbess Saint Hildegard of Bingen, who received many mystical prophecies she believed to be from God, and, extremely unusually, was believed by her contemporaries, including the sitting Pope. Through their works, some extant and others produced for the show, the artists channel both Hildegard’s belief and Cassandra’s lack thereof, with this conviction equally sharing a spotlight with ideas surrounding sustainability, and climate change denial.
The space is steeped in an audio installation by Chilean artist Cecilia Vicuna, which features chants sung in Spanish, reacting to the destruction of glaciers in Chile. To these are added the sound of two bronze bells by Davino Semo, which viewers are invited to ring, in doing so joining the exhibition’s collective voice. Most visitors are cautious, striking the bell with utmost caution, but rumour has it that during an early visit, curator and art historian Hans Ulricht Obrist was the only one who had the courage to strike it with full force, bearing a mad grin.
On the far side of the room, repurposed stair bannisters are shaped into infinity symbols by Russian artist Nika Neelova. These flow into Katie Paterson’s hourglass, which has ominously run to its completion, like a countdown to climate catastrophe. The sand in its base, made of crushed pre-solar grains from a meteor, sits still, but finds its counterpart across the gallery in two photographs of silhouettes carved into the sand of a Cuban beach by Ana Mendieta, whose retrospective is currently on at the Tate. Together, their ephemerality suggests a nature that transcends civilisation.
Ephemerality is a running theme for the show, which was only on display for three weeks, and was timed to coincide with the sensory overload of Frieze week, though the show was well attended throughout and packed out during a glitzy collateral party organised in collaboration with sponsor Jimmy Choo.
But the chorus is more than one exhibition in an ocean of fair week chaos. Come the end of Frieze, booths empty and fly south to Paris for their seasonal migration. Later, they’ll head to Miami, and, eventually, Basel. The works at the Soothsayer’s Chorus however, remain committed to their sustainability ethos. A Toyota Hilux by Viriginia Overton, whose exposed back compartment is filled with plants and vegetation, was sourced from Scotland following an open call, and driven down for the exhibition. It is now to be placed in a sculpture garden, pending the results of a passionate search to find a suitable location for it.
Another work, Cloud Skin (White), by Saya Woolfalk, will take a shorter journey back to Prentice’s home in London, where it hangs above her dinner table. Sourcing works that didn’t require extensive travel arrangements was a focus for Prentice, who sought not to undermine the exhibition’s green ideology with carbon-heavy transportation. This came down to the venue itself; whilst the show has been in the works for three years, the barn where the works reside was picked up as a venue by Prentice just a few months before paintings went up. The barn in question is in fact the Islington studio where Pink Floyd recorded The Wall- the eponymous wall is on the far side of the room. Five decades later, it has temporarily become an exhibition space while it awaits a transformation into hybrid artist studios and flats.
So whilst the works, exhibition, and exhibition space itself may be fleeting, what follows is designed to be anything but. Intent on not contributing to the dysfunctional paradigms it evokes, the Soothsayer’s Chorus is a thoughtful experiment in remembering the afterlife of a space once it closes its doors.
