Contents May Vary at Red Gallery in Hull Contemporary Art Continues Despite the Big Freeze By Michelle Dee. Photographs courtesy Andrew Quinn

While the city of Hull struggled against the adverse weather conditions on Friday 8th January and people tried in vain to get home after many businesses were closed earlier than usual, a group of dedicated contemporary artists were preparing for the opening night of Contents May Vary at Red Gallery in the city. Battling against all odds, the show opened on time just minutes away from the gridlocked roads and traffic chaos in the city centre. The Manchester based art collective of Alice Bradshaw, Liz Murphy and Richard Shields have in the past worked collaboratively on exhibitions.

This show saw them working individually on either side of the Pennines, without communicating their ideas to each other for the show. The collective have previously used vacated buildings, car boots and other unconventional spaces to present their work and have received awards and accolades from local and national press.

Richard Shields' practice explores the coming together of high brow and low brow art in everyday found objects. Entering the first white washed space you are faced with three pizza boxes on the three adjoining walls. The first box has its central image cut out revealing the corrugated cardboard structure which gives the box its usual rigidity. The second is complete, with a painted central image of the iconic Italian scene of the Bridge of Sighs.

The picture has been painstakingly reproduced mimicking the styles of Canaletto and Ruskin, renaissance painters of the period. The third box, which on closer inspection reveals itself to be a canvas on wood painting, shows the box as it is used, then discarded today. I learn from Richard that the use of that particular printed image on the box has been recently discontinued so lending Richard's work a sense of rarity. However, by coincidence we learn that a Hull firm uses the same image albeit on a white box not the brown as in Richard's piece. The heavy varnishing on the three boxes refers to the practice of varnishing paintings from past eras, just before opening night where they would be seen for the first time.

The middle of the Red Gallery has been altered by Liz Murphy, our second visiting artist creating a new space. A space where there is an initial feeling of secrecy and intrigue as you enter. On the far wall there are the words, 'This One is For Marni Nixon,' heavily daubed in black paint. The wall is lit by eleven desk lamps placed below the dedication that is shouting out to be heard and seen.

Marni Nixon was the voice behind many of the musical stars of yesteryear, performances; she was the voice of Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady, she brought life to Deborah Kerr's English school teacher in The King and I, and it was Marni's voice that Richard Beymer's, Tony, fell in love with in West Side Story not that of Natalie Wood: although it is widely thought that Wood was deceived into thinking they would use her recordings. The truth is Marni was doomed to sing her part from behind the stage curtain because she was deemed too unattractive and for a long time no-one knew of this shameful deceit on the theatre and film companies' part. Liz obviously feels a sense of outrage by Marni's talent going unrecognized and not being credited as part of the cast. This idea is taken further by a series of ink drawings covering one corner of the space: roughly sketched scenes from the three hit shows, but in each case Marni Nixon's face adorns the shoulders of the leading ladies. Although shining a light quite literally on Marni Nixon's closeted career, Liz suggests the secret that the film companies' were desperate to keep, in the enclosed nature of her constructed space. This piece of work seems to underline our continuing obsession with superficialities; perceived beauty and pleasing appearance holding more sway than raw talent. Would we have loved the musicals any less if Marni had been credited with those favourite songs? The third and final piece is an audio visual installation and is arguably the most powerful. Blank Newspapers asks questions about the pervasive nature of today's mass media.

As you walk into the space you immediately become aware of a hubbub of voices, emanating from four speakers placed in the four corners of the space, all conversationally repeating the word 'Blah'. By conversationally I mean as if 'blah' was taking the place of all the other words in a narrative, complete with different intonation, pauses and imagined punctuation.

As you move around the space taking in the looped footage of crumpled balls of blank paper all moving on the TV screen in the centre of the space you find your ear tuning into different Blah voices. In fact you can stand in the middle listen for one 'Blah' voice and then go and find from which corner it is coming. In this way I was drawn to one particular voice, I like to think because it seemed to stand out from the rest it was the voice of the artist responsible for Blank Newspapers, Alice Bradshaw. The opposing wall contains a row of newspaper stands in which sit blank newspapers. Alice invites the viewer to pick them up and read them. How you choose to read a blank newspaper is left up to you. On the wall are instructions on how to document this unusual reading experience and directions to where you can send your interpretations of the challenge. I feel compelled to come up with an original innovative way to read, use or otherwise interact with the blank paper. It is this interactive aspect that would make me choose Alice's piece over the other two if pushed. I like the idea that the art work could be ongoing, provoking new ideas and extending its life outside of the space where it was first seen. The opening night was attended by twenty or more people, good numbers on a night where many larger events would have just cancelled. One enthusiastic couple had walked a considerable number of miles to the show after their bus had given up on Hedon Road, thus proving the Red Gallery's remarkable appeal. www.contentsmayvary.org www.red-gallery.com To respond to Alice Bradshaw's Blank Newspaper challenge www.blanknewspaper.blogspot.com

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