Engaging messages turn into a concrete jumble

These complementary shows by two young, emerging artists with stellar CVs take what they term “materiality” as their starting point. To be more accurate, it is the material beneath our feet that interests both.

In Lacon’s case, slabs of coloured concrete — with an embedded marble aggregate — combine to make a large surface, covering almost the entire floor space of one gallery.

Robertson has used around 20 per cent of the main gallery floor, which she has paved with “cobbles” made from concrete formed from discarded improvised moulds such as Tupperware and other similar types of container. If you look carefully enough you will even find a clear resin mould of one these containers, in an ironic gesture of self-reference.

Visitors are encouraged to walk on these surfaces, perhaps, as a way of gaining some understanding of the methods and message of the artists. Robertson uses a weak concrete mix, so that over a relatively short time the material breaks down. The resultant destruction then becomes an act of creation where the artist and audience become collaborators.

It’s a rather fun and engaging approach, not, of course, without artistic precedent. Indeed, there’s a complex history of art works that are purposely allowed to decompose, fragment, weather and decay as part of their aesthetic journey.

Much can be said of Lacon’s approach, although the effect of numerous visitors’ footsteps is less dramatic and more subtle.

At various points, Robertson has suspended resin moulds of sheet-roofing materials from the ceiling, while the floor of another small room is littered with tiny fragments of paper. Elsewhere, in a specially made alcove, a large chunk of expanded polystyrene rotates at random speeds, powered by an electric motor.

Some of this is engaging and perhaps even thought-provoking. Robertson’s idea is that technology is ubiquitous and informs large swathes of our environment. Perhaps this is a subtle point but it seems rather an obvious one, as does the idea of casting and moulding existing materials to give them a new slant.

The weight of critical comment that accompanies the work, in order that the visitor might make sense of it, is both daunting and, sometimes, less than helpful: “Robertson’s use of rectangular shapes across different planes, playing with the appearance of depth often created by optical illusions and geometric designs, specifically references the flatness and groundlessness of our increasingly screen-based lives”.

Sorry, but I can’t make a link between moulded concrete forms and the use of iPads, laptops and smartphones.

The point is, it’s difficult for the work to stand alone without such interpretations. Without a critical or curatorial crutch, it is diminished. Art should be strong enough to carry its own message. Here, it gets close, but not quite close enough.

Fragments by Andrew Lacon and This Mess is Kept Afloat by Kate V Robertson, Dundee Contemporary Art until Feb 25