RUSE: the artfulness of deceit at The Holden Gallery

Polly Checkland Harding

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RUSE: the artfulness of deceit

The Holden Gallery, Manchester
20 March-19 May 2017

Always double check opening hours with the venue before making a special visit.

Clare Strand, Skirts, 2007. Courtesy the artist.
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There’s an easy link to be made between this exhibition and How much of this is fiction at FACT in Liverpool: both interrogate questions of reality, truth and authority. However, where How much of this is fiction has a particularly political bent, Ruse at The Holden Gallery is focused on the use of illusion, diversion and transformation to manipulate people and things more generally. Take Clare Strand’s Conjurations, a series of four films depicting women performing commonplace magic tricks on a loop; capitalising on the expectation of deception that we have when it comes to magic, Conjurations instead invokes the mystery of how a trick is done.

Bridget Smith’s photographs, meanwhile, re-stage our understanding of space, photographing familiar environments of escape (such as a cinema, theatre and pleasure resort) into images that echo the sea, the movement of waves and a bygone era. The ‘trick’ here is that environments usually associated with fantasy, imagination and escapism themselves become transformed. Also on display is the complete series of Outrageous Fortune Tarot Cards, a reinterpretation by 78 contemporary artists of the classic Tarot de Marseille deck of cards – associated with both card games, tricks and fortune telling. Together, the five lead artists who make up Ruse present a compelling argument: that ideas of reality are only a matter of belief.

Where to go near RUSE: the artfulness of deceit at The Holden Gallery

Manchester
Gallery
Manchester School of Art

The Manchester School of Art, of which the Holden Gallery is a part, is a beautiful neo-Gothic building that’s part of MMU’s All Saints campus.

Manchester Metropolitan University Brooks building, Birley Campus in Manchester
Manchester
Event venue
MMU Birley Campus

Birley is Manchester Met’s world-class centre for Education and Health Professionals and the university’s flagship community campus.

The Salutation pub in Manchester
Manchester
Bar or Pub
The Salutation

This traditional boozer, surrounded by imposing flats and university buildings, was taken over by Trof (of the Deaf Institute fame). The Sally, as the regulars call it, hosts an energetic, arty crowd – and its recently expanded outside area is another good reason to visit.

Manchester
University
MMU Student Union

Manchester Metropolitan University Students’ Union building houses a bar and various other facilities for students and staff.

Manchester
Catalog Bookshop

Find Peter and his Christiania cargo bike around All Saints Park, a hop, skip and a bunnyhop from Manchester Poetry Library.

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