I went to see Elizabeth Price‘s new show (it’s at the Jerwood Space in sunny South London) during my lunch hour. It was perfect: much of her work involves a painstakingly producing low-impact items: ‘Boulder’ is a huge, smooth ball of brown sticky tape which grows from exhibition to exhibition; the ‘Instructions Faithfully Received’ series she faithlessly creates facsimiles of more-or-less empty notices.
I find myself drawn into the compulsive element of the process of making these, of colouring the ‘5 note so completely black. I like the way you can imagine her just getting on with these pointless tasks: making the ball bigger, making the fiver blacker.
Why spend your time doing something with such little impact, I find myself wondering as I get back on the bus to a repetitive, low-impact afternoon. For all Price’s apparent low impact, I haven’t shaken this show out of my mind since lunch. Praise indeed.