REVIEW: John Akomfrah's 'Vertigo Sea' - Where The Poetry of Politics Meets the Conflict
Filmmaker and artist John Akomfrah’s debut exhibition with Lisson Gallery New York presents two film installations, first shown at Lisson Gallery London in January 2016, fuses together poetic and political imagery in his interrogation of migration, identity and the African diaspora.
Large prints from his films hang around the gallery, depicting a spaceman standing abandoned on the ruins of an old house. Another sees an unfamiliar bearded fellow in a black suit sitting in an office chair on a deserted airport. Already Akomfrah has us asking questions, ‘who are these characters?’ and ‘what narrative are they apart of?’ Akomfrah is clearly a storyteller; even the still images appear to be bigger than the surface of a simple sketch or an oil painting.
All of these details, such as that of the woman who stands bathing in the yellow sunlight coming through a broken window are cinematic, detailed and highly constructed. They are clearly put together with creative flair.
His exhibition celebrates his work primarily as a filmmaker, showcasing three films in different rooms called ‘Vertigo Sea.’ One of which is entitled ‘The Airport’, a fifty-two minute film showing on three screens simultaneously. As viewers are led away from the white sterile light of the gallery into a blacked-out cinema room, the front of the space bears three large screens next to each other. The large, engulfing visuals plummet you into his work and you are totally captivated by each image. The spaceman walks through an abandoned airport, a shot of him on each screen; one wide, one medium and one close up. However the shots are often very long and can at times fail to keep the viewer interested. This plays homage to his love of fellow filmmaker Stanley Kubrik and his similar long takes from The Shining. Where he is strong in style and cinematic technique, he also runs the risk of what he is portraying becoming dull: a 40-second shot of a spaceman can be limiting. The mysterious man in a gorilla costume that appears occasionally doesn’t only fail to make sense but begins to feels like a private joke we are not invited in on.
Nonetheless, Akomfrah’s strongest element in his filmmaking technique is his 180-degree perception, helping to unfold every unfamiliar location with an unexpected freshness. As one character walks across a Spanish wasteland or another across the concrete expanse of an airport, they are captured from every angle. His choice of combining surrealist cinematography with naturalistic characters acts, perhaps, as a nod to his own feelings of isolation and his relationship with the slave trade.
Each character comes from a specific time. A young woman is dressed in 1920’s black mourning clothes. She carries a suitcase, looking for a suspected lost lover in the derelict airport. All his characters are carrying luggage, perhaps as a reference to Akomfrah’s migrant struggles and his personal growing sense of belonging. The camera slides slowly across the location absorbing all the movement on offer. The lack of cuts between the shots reflects Akomfrah’s poetry of motion. Through this effect, the characters, location and stylistic camera techniques intermarry and become one. He was not ‘motivated by a desire to present linear narratives’; rather, his characters become part of a bigger, unending story.
Olivia Topley
This review is an excerpt from Vertigo Sea at Lisson Gallery London, published in Issue 9 of After Nyne. Download or purchase the full issue here.
