Review: James Cauty - A Riot in a Jam Jar

James Cauty  Riot in a Jam Jar L-13

After burning a million pounds in 1994 to the amazement of the public, James Cauty appears to have found yet another way of getting people to start asking questions about the world we live in. Riot in a Jam Jar is, for all intents and purposes, what it says it is – scaled down models of riots placed in jam jars. However, there’s nothing so straightforward about the exhibition itself.

On walking through the works, you might find yourself inclined to content yourself with the meticulous precision and detail on show, or marvel at the stories that have been paused, bottled and perched on a plinth for your entertainment. Indeed, there’s not only an aesthetically pleasing aspect to the exhibition, but also something slightly comical about it all. On seeing a scaled down model of Charles and Camilla’s car, having been splattered with paint on their way to the theatre during the student riots, it’s hard not to find some element of humour as you peer through the glass (and not just because the event itself had a few of us sniggering at Camilla’s facial expressions). I would argue, however, that the core to this comic aspect of the works might in fact lie in what all these jam jars represent – the interest of the media in finding the ‘action’ of an event, that is to say, what will turn heads, what will get us all interested and lastly, what is the image or ‘tag-line’ that will turn the story into a consumer product. Titles of the works include, "Student Rage- Fees Riot Parliament Square", "Off Wiv There Ed" and "Kettle 2. In fact, what James Cauty has done is not only depict the riots in scaled-down form and packaged them in a souvenir-esque consumer form, but in doing so he has mimicked the media and therefore ridiculed their inherent methods of journalism.

This is a fun but intelligent show; full of astute irony intertwined with more serious undertones. It’s a fine emotive cocktail, an interesting use of the medium, and undoubtedly worth a look.   Max Costley - June 2011