March/April 2010

Laura Morrison selects Paul Conneally’s blog ‘Shopputting’

Paul Conneally’s Shopputting blog caught my attention for the comedy touch he adopts when it comes to poetic, soft-core guerrilla tactics. Whatever Conneally engages with, he does so within the law (almost… I am sure there is some anti-trespassing law that he is breaking by depositing goods in shops).

Still, his is an authority-tickling, uncomfortable hand-holding humour which is expanded upon in his other blog and collaborative project Invigilator: Digbeth, whereby Conneally and his colleagues benignly ‘invigilate’ the street.

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Paul Conneally, ‘Bottoms for Topshop’, Printed Price Label Tag, Nov 2009. Label attached to clothes placed in Topshop outlets across the Midlands during November 2009 as part of ‘Bottoms for Topshop’

Both of these projects/interventions fill in a gap that we didn’t want to be reminded was there.

As with most ideologies/institutions whose practices suit us, our complicity is cringeful to acknowledge, especially when you are shopping. I wonder how people feel when they walk out of a shop with something ‘free’.  Embarrassed and defiant? Weird! Conneally’s goods carry the slogan “Shopputting, Another Way of Giving”.

I feel like he tows a line between institutional critique and a saucy curiosity in people.

‘Giving something of himself – along with ‘the finger’ perhaps.’

Laura Morrison is an artist living in London. Her most recent exhibition was ‘Meet Pamela’ at  Project Space Leeds. For a review of the show go here.