Cal­lum Morton
Through This & That

Through at this and that con­tin­ues Cal­lum Morton’s inves­ti­ga­tions into large-scale urban struc­tures, recon­struct­ed as maque­ttes, or minia­tures. The project com­pris­es 12 indi­vid­ual pan­els or screens pre­sent­ed effec­tive­ly as a cul-de-sac or three walls of a square space. From the out­side view­ers are pre­sent­ed with the back of the work and the rep­e­ti­tion of the struc­tures them­selves – a view that is occa­sion­al­ly rup­tured by holes cut into the cen­tre pan­els, afford­ing views through to the adja­cent works.

The stark white geom­e­try of this arma­ture recalls the ear­ly cubic sculp­tures of Sol Le Witt whilst inside the struc­ture exposed through the image reminds one of the painter Sig­mar Polke’s cut out win­dows frames. The plinths upon which the panels/​screens are pre­sent­ed, fore­ground the painting’s sup­port as sculp­tur­al, and cre­ate an illu­sion of enor­mous scale – despite the down­siz­ing from real life vast structures.

As with pre­vi­ous projects – such as Out­er Lim­its (2006), Lost in Bonkers (2007) and Amne­sia #2 (2007) – we imme­di­ate­ly recall dri­ve-in cin­e­ma screens, a form of mass enter­tain­ment from the recent past that now per­sists as a nos­tal­gic form of pub­lic space. This form allows Mor­ton to con­flate the sta­tus of the work as simul­ta­ne­ous­ly paint­ing, sculp­ture and instal­la­tion all the while acknowl­edg­ing the effect of the cin­e­mat­ic or mov­ing image. In fact one could argue that many of these works pic­ture the evi­dence or rep­re­sen­ta­tion of pro­jec­tion as a sta­t­ic form with­out the pres­ence of pro­ject­ed light or a mov­ing image. Opti­cal ren­der­ings of per­spec­tive that mine the his­to­ry of Op Art and mod­ernist graph­ics (Brid­get Riley, Saul Bass), phys­i­cal holes punch­ing through a mir­rored screen that reposit Gor­don Mat­ta Clark holes in graph­ic form, or that orig­i­nal con­duc­tor of reflect­ed light, the eye here hov­er­ing between a series of abstract forms or com­ic illustrations.