Exhibit #1 Small Prophecies: A Discussion

            It was difficult for me to discern the meaning behind the Small Prophecies exhibition at the Holland Project on the 30^th of January by Tim Condor at first glance. He is introduced as a mixed media artist and “master maker” with deeply personal installations drawing from a deeply personal past. This made it difficult to discern the message behind some pieces. A few installations seemed so personal to Condor that the viewer was left only with relics left over from something equating to an intricate inside-joke. However, this method of art has a subtle message in and of itself. Aiding this notion of purposefully difficult art was the lack of placards next to pieces indicating their meaning or materials as in typical gallery settings. This exhibit, however, was anything but. The viewer was freely able to take a poorly constructed booklet about 5”x5” indicating the pieces with a title, comment, and poorly drawn symbol of its matching piece. Among the most notable was “Contraband,” “Soccer Pelts,” and “My Friend Julius King.” The strangeness of the presentation of the pieces and installations combined with a self-navigatory booklet appeared to be a critique of the gallery scene itself. The exhibit itself did not take itself seriously despite the very personal inside-referencing pieces shown within the walls of this gallery. In a self-reflective institutional critique Condor joins the list of artists alike in such exploits that includes Damien Hirst. Hirst’s own work employs the macabre and extravagant in a gallery setting, commenting on the traditional gallery aesthetic standards. Condor takes this notion further by excelling in a ‘cheap’ look. This is evident in “Contraband” where multiple replicated pieces of bisque fired models of items such as candy bars and hustler magazines lay on a table. Through this piece there is an unfinished ‘cheap’ look that is achieved aesthetically; contradicting an art gallery setting in all except conceptual significance. A summation of this gallery can be presented in the phrase that confronts the gallery viewer printed on the first page of the self-navigatory book that reads, “If you want to buy something, hit me up on Tinder.” Evidently this is an unsatisfactory place to conduct a business typically seen as rather posh; the purchasing of ‘fine’ art. The colloquial expression “hit me up” also serves to undermine this formality. However the reference to the internet dating site “Tinder” perhaps serves to reveal or foreshadow the intimate nature of his pieces best understood by Condor himself.