‘The Solo’, is the latest film by artist Andrew Cross to celebrate the subject without resorting to seemingly literal visual metaphors. In much of Cross’s work the subject is omni-present by it’s absence, it’s deliberate omission literally burns the retina. In Cross’s own words, ‘if people are looking at something over here, then I choose to point the camera over here’.
In ‘Passage’, commissioned in 2007 to celebrate the opening of St Pancras International and High Speed 1, Cross chose to record the changing landscape along the route of a Eurostar train travelling from Paris to London without once resorting to trains and railway paraphernalia. In ‘Passage’ the final ‘arrival’ into St Pancras, via a nearby canal tunnel and accompanied by a David Lang musical score, became a form of spiritual ascension.
‘Passage’, was Cross’s first piece with a musician and ‘The Solo’ seems a natural successor. This time Cross has collaborated with drummer Carl Palmer of rock ‘super group’ Emerson Lake & Palmer, composing multiple camera views to record the minutiae of Palmer’s performance. Yet again we are sent on an enthralling journey as if Palmer is surrounded by an audience of adoring fans and one can only get to the front by way of an impossibly restricted view. There is delight and wonder not just in appreciating Palmer’s mastery of the archetype 1970s drum solo, but also beauty in the detail ensemble of pedals, drums, and symbols. Cross’s framed views abstract the kit and focus on Palmer’s foot drawing the analogy with a foot on the accelerator pedal of a roaring engine hurtling along a track beating to fuel injected cam valves. The allusion of mechanical majesty is further eluded by the title. Is Cross paying homage to great soloists? Is ‘The Solo’ a reference to solo flight and the aviators Charles Lindbergh or Amelia Earhart’s first non-stop transatlantic flights?
So what is it that most appeals in Cross’s work? For this I have to refer to my trusty ‘Aircraft Recognition Guide’ first written by R.A Saville-Sneath in 1941 who divulges the art of observation and reveals exactly what Cross is tapping into. ’Many people, without conscious study, but possessing a trained or natural aptitude for observation, rapidly become familiar with the appearance of [items] commonly seen in their own neighbourhood. Others find that the recognition – even of types frequently seen – is unexpectedly difficult. This difficulty in recognising different types is very rarely associated with defective vision – in a literal sense. Generally, it arises from lack of knowing ‘where to look’ for certain distinctive points which, to the initiated are obvious and as easily recognisable as the features of a familiar face.’
Knowing ‘where to look’ is never an issue with Cross’s work, as he revels the visual signatures, allowing us to participate in the closed world of the initiated and the obsessive. This instantaneous, appararently instinctive, but certain recognition of, is the finished performance, the final stage of proficiency to which Cross’s piece’s one is directed.
Given most of Cross’s subjects return to his childhood observations associated with growing up on the family farm within the proximity of the British Army and the Salisbury Plain Training Area, it’s clear we are being taken on journey back to halcyon days in which the artist Andrew Cross emerged. ‘The Solo’ is part of those reminiscences of childhood and early adulthood and eloquently reconnects Cross’s primary interests in the music, landscape and socio-geography of 1970s Britain. The English journey has just begun.
The Solo, a film by Andrew Cross featuring Carl Palmer, 1-25 July 2010, Ikon Gallery , 1 Oozells Square, Brindleyplace, Birmingham, B1 2HS
