Dadoption
Alan Dunn
Leece Street (10th-23rd October 2007)
Reviewed by
“Being a parent is great, but it’s
the hardest job you’ll get in life – and no-one can train
or teach you how to do it”.
- Joey Talbot. Builder, drugs worker and parent.
One of the interesting things about placing art in public spaces is that
the work can be left to develop a life of its own…
Alan Dunn had four billboard pieces sited on Leece Street between the
10th and 23rd of October. A some-time curator, collaborator or ‘sole
trader’ in this field, Dunn has amassed a significant number of
billboard projects over the years and Liverpool can count itself fortunate to have hosted
the lion’s share.
The recent series contained images contributed from half a dozen artists
dotted around the globe (all email correspondences), as well as himself
and some children and adults touched by the adoption process.
The emailing bit is integral. There’s an economic and immediate
approach to generating imagery and text here. Camera phone shots, scanned
and photoshopped appropriations sit with ‘beer mat’ musings
and the kids’ manic scribbles. The whole assemblage seemed to have piled up layer upon
layer and then undergone a process of tearing-away or stripping-back.
Much in the way the French ‘New Realists’ worked-out on bill
posted advertisements in 1960s Paris.
In essence, these were anxious works. They concerned the graft that goes
into the job of parenting and more specifically the difficulties confronted
when during that journey there’s the potential for a breakdown,
or the intervention of a third party. Despite this we’re offered the odd
respite, a breathing space dispersed here and there. Dunn’s long-standing
penchant for using footballing analogies and anecdotes in particular provided
a point of discourse and escape from the on-going delirium.
… the four billboards of ‘dadoption’ played to a potential
audience of somewhere around 250,000 during the middle two weeks of October.
Something’s bound to happen. Dunn has intimated that there’s
every chance one or all of the billboards will undergo a bit of surreptitious
wear and tear, he’s almost inviting it on. He’d be happy to
see pasted on or graffitied additions too and his email and website addresses
are included if anyone is moved to a response, or go over his archive
of projects which have proven to be an invaluable contribution to the
cultural life of the city.
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