Julie Henry, video artist and photographer, is interested in people who "make it", but not even on Andy Warhol's fame allotment scheme of 15 minutes.
"The people who 'make it' in the forms generally valued by society, such as politicians, entertainers, professional sports people etc, are already in the public eye and brought to our attention on an all-too-regular basis," she says of our Beckham-fixated age. "The other people who create a place for themselves on a smaller stage are the people I find myself drawn to be involved with in my work."
And so, step forward the winner of the 1973 table skittles final on the cult Yorkshire Television bar game show Indoor League. "Senior, the young man, Senior with the pop-star haircut," says the over-the-top commentator, in a forerunner of today's combustible microphone monkeys. The prize was £100, and young Master Senior, 21 with his New Seekers locks, looked chuffed to infinity as Yorkshire cricket great Fred Trueman interviewed him. To be truthful, I was distracted by Fred puffing on a pipe in his kipper tie: the contagious cult of celebrity had gripped me!
However, Henry's use and manipulation of this 1973 footage for her new work This Sporting Life - commissioned by Impressions in collaboration with Film and Video Umbrella - supersedes any unhealthy obsession with fiery Fred.
By digitally re-working the material, using post-production techniques to insert graphics in the manner of Hawk-Eye on Channel 4's cricket coverage, she at once harks back to more innocent pleasures while passing a less than flattering comment on tradition being replaced by hard sell on today's hyped-up sports channels.
The unifying theme of Henry's four works is her fascination with "people's desire to landmark their existence in some fashion beyond their day-to-day role". In the photoworks of Talent Show, she affectionately documents two East End talent shows untainted by commercialism; the video X celebrates the chance for anyone to become a champion in a close-up study of an intense teenage arcade game player setting a record score; the Out Of Time video observes the reunion of Cambridge's Outside Boots Brigade, dancing as they did 30 years ago to their club theme tune in a display of solidarity that echoes religious and sporting fervour.
Henry's noble show is definitely worth 15 minutes of your time.
Updated: 10:55 Friday, January 03, 2003
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