Lot, Bristol

On the way back to Temple Meads after the John Cage show below, I stopped off at Lot to see the three shows they were running. It was my first visit, and I was really surprised by the size of the place: three floors of potential exhibition space. I was interested to see what had been made of the venue.

The Monitor exhibition in ground level space was a collection of artists using the screen as a key site for their practice. Including screensavers by Juneau Projects, as well as video and painting by nine other artists, the show failed to really occupy the huge space of Lot's corner plot. Making an exhibition space as large as that look full using only monitors would be a challenge for any curator, but I suspect that the bunching of work toward the back wall of the gallery was more to do with power point accessibility than curatorial intent.

Most of the work was fairly forgettable too, unfortunately, with a few important exceptions. I very much liked Ben Sadler's Shower, which depicted a man's head and clothed shoulders under running water, the video slowly looping and reversing. I didn't spend enough time with this piece, but the time I did spend was marked by a sense of stasis and dramatic suspension, slow repeated drips and loops building a sense of tension and intensity. Few of the other works displayed such subtlety. Juneau Projects' piece felt like an exercise in branding, David Trigg's painting owed a lot to Dan Hays, and Sandy Smith's mac-henge was not as interesting as other similar work using reclaimed or recycled technology (such as Hyperscape or the Access Space videowall). I did very much enjoy Caroline McCarthy's Microkitsch, a video loop of a chicken rotating which was shown on a 1980s Cub monitor, the sort that used to accompany a BBC Micro and which looks very much like a prototype microwave oven.

The exhibition on the middle floor of the space was interesting but badly laid out and badly documented. I have no details about who the artists were in this show, although some of them looked very familiar, particularly the installation of crumpled graph paper and CMYK wall drawings. It would be unfair to make comment on much of the work, because I can't put it into a context without even a title for the show.

The top floor contained a large array of artists' multiples, many of which seemed to be for sale (although there was no invigilation or sales desk on that floor). Often with shows such as this, the quality of the work is variable, and there was some very ordinary work here. I was very taken with Emma Boland's black Melancholia rosettes, and would have bought one if I'd had the cash, and I was also very interested in Akiko and Masako Takada's delicately carved envelopes. These were ordinary business-style envelopes turned inside out, with the internal patterning which is usually used to make the contents more difficult to read without opening cut away to form a delicate skeleton, a stationery butterfly wing. Very beautiful work, taking the everyday and revealing both its complexity and its function. The only other piece that caught my eye in a sort of superficial way was some hand-printed wallpaper by Lizi Sanchez of people making gestures of faith.

Overall, it was a very welcome antidote to the disappointment of the Cage show, but I have to be critical of the professionalism of the operation. Not everyone who views artist led shows comes on the private view, and not everyone who writes about the show will have received a press release. These materials really need to be available throughout the duration of the show, or if not, then they need to be disseminated on a regularly updated website. I know Lot is nearing the end of its programme, due to the redevelopment of that part of Broadmead, but that shouldn't mean a compromise to the longevity of the exhibitions that have taken place there. Update the site. It's that simple.