Sonia Boyce has created a collaborative game of call and response in the first room of this show. Three video screens show a choir, an audience and a man in a glittery top, convened in a church. The man grunts, coughs, yells and squeals, and the choir responds with sublime incantations. It plays on tensions between the sacred and the profane, and seems to be making a big point about art and devotion, but boy is it silly.
The second room is a collection of LPs, cassettes, CDs and 45s by artists ranging from Shirley Bassey to MIA. Names of artists are printed on the wall and visitors are encouraged to add to the exhibition by scrawling the names of musicians on post-its. Parallels are being drawn between fandom and worship, but it all feels a little contrived.
The final room works better, combining found footage of jazz singer Adelaide Hall with digital deconstructions of devotional music. It’s by far the most successful piece in the show, especially at exploring the boundaries between art and the sacred.
Eddy Frankel