matthew bradley, yoko kajio, gordon mattaclark, tim sterling Curator: Chris Chapman
Imagine the denouement for a Ha! Hartley character, Martin Donovan for instance, who has accidentally found himself in a Mike Leigh film. It's dawn and Donovan has just illegally climbed to the top of a television tower. There is no audio except for the sound of the wind and his movements clambering up the tower; the vision is such that we seem to be looking through his eyes. He is alone, looking out over a suburban landscape that is responsible for constructing his psyche but from which he is irreconcilably alienated. Perched atop the tower, he is situated, both mentally and physically, at the very limit of the built environment. The film finishes and we are left wondering whether he jumps, overcome by his ennui with the petty pressures of his suburban lifestyle, or climbs back down the tower and commutes to his job as a TV repairman. Now, consider that this is not the last scene of a strange Hartley/Leigh collaboration but a video work that has been looped so that it repeats this moment over and over. Matthew Bradley's 5-9 May Dawn 2001 is the stand-out work in Z, a group show at Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery, which was curated by Chris Chapman. The work was installed in the Gallery's small space, and comprises a video projection and the actual equipment used by the artist to produce it - a backpack and a handmade helmet/video camera apparatus. In the work, the artist himself dons the helmet/video, moves straight past the CAUTION KEEP OUT signs and precariously scales the tower. For the first few metres there is not even a ladder and Bradley is forced to contend with the metal