Photo: Alan Currall, How I would probably do it, 2004, video still. Courtesy of Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

Kerry Patterson tells it like she sees it at Glasgow’s Gallery of Modern Art where she checks out work by local artist Alan Currall.

Some Things I Want to Show You is Alan Currall’s first solo exhibition in Glasgow since 1995. It is on show at the Gallery of Modern Art until August 22, 2004.

A graduate of Glasgow School of Art, where he also teaches, Currall has exhibited internationally and was shortlisted for the Beck’s Futures Prize in 2003.

The show is one in an ongoing series of short-term exhibitions by Glasgow artists and is situated in Gallery Three.

The exhibition space itself is relatively sparse, containing four works by Currall in total. Two are on televisions and one is projected on to the wall. The other piece, called Head, is a recording of Currall’s voice as he describes how his own perfect body would look.

Photo: Alan Currall, Come in like this..., 2004, video still. Courtesy of Gallery of Modern Art, Glasgow

The key word to use in describing this show would be 'perseverance'. Currall’s videos require a certain amount of staying power if the viewer wants to get anything from them.

In Pretending to Live in a Safer World we watch the artist as he appears to barricade a doorway with items of furniture, walking backwards and forwards in a slightly strange fashion.

On watching the film for a few minutes, it becomes apparent that Currall is in fact removing the furniture from the door. The film is playing backwards, explaining the awkwardness of his movements.

In How I Would Probably Do it, Currall explains, "I’m just going to do a gyrational thingy," before the camera focuses in on his naked torso moving and gyrating. Once he’s finished his demonstration, in the manner of an instructional video, he reminds the viewer to: "Bring yourself back to reality in a calm and measured way and don’t leave yourself out there thinking you’re something you’re not".

Photo: Glasgow's Gallery of Modern Art

To explain this exhibition, it is best to leave it to the artist. Speaking in an interview with curator Sean McGlashan, which is published in a booklet accompanying the show, Currall says:

"I am performing when I make a work. I am performing in a way we all perform…We all have to continuously keep reconstructing a sense of who we are and what we do in order to give integrity to the myth of ourselves as a contiguous self."

While I think this is a fascinating area to explore, I didn’t feel that Currall always tackled the subject successfully. I really found this exhibition very hard work – even though I did try very hard to make sense of it all!

My frustrations were backed up by many of the people who wrote in the exhibition’s comments book, although some explained themselves more eloquently than others.

In his interview with McGlashan, Currall says, "I’ve knocked out quite a lot of stuff in the studio but …I’ve thrown so much away precisely because I was able to understand, explain and talk about them really well. It’s only work that still confuses me, which I still have trouble understanding, that interests me."

While this statement may suggest a subtext of hidden subtleties that cannot be explained in words, I’m sorry to say I did not always get his work.

I was left wondering, if the artist himself doesn’t understand all of his work, how can gallery visitors like myself be expected to make sense of it?