The Yellow Wallpaper, Cob Gallery

The Yellow Wallpaper features new works by six female artists made in response to ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, a Gothic short story written by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Artists Eve Ackroyd, Becky Allen, Gabriella Boyd, Adeline de Monseignat, Suzannah Pettigrew and Flora Robertson will present works in a variety of media at The Cob Gallery, London from 22nd June – 21st July.

Written in 1892 for The New England Magazine, the text was hailed as a polemic feminist work that vividly explored female tropes of domestic space, motherhood, hysteria and the ‘strangeness’ of the female body. The work in this exhibition celebrates this beautifully wrought and terrifying story, reflecting on interior spaces, the power of imagination, and the role of medicine in pathologizing femininity.

The narrative describes a young female writer’s descent into madness at the hands of her physician husband whose misguided treatment for her ‘mild hysteria’ is to keep her secluded in a country house. Forbidden to work, write or socialise she is wracked with increasing bouts of paranoia as the yellow wallpaper of her room becomes a source of hallucinatory horror. Finally she rips the paper down to release a phantom woman trapped behinds its pattern.

Perkins Gilman wrote the story to challenge the medical discourse of the time after experiencing a near brush with insanity. Suffering from mental health issues she was prescribed the ‘rest cure’ by her doctor only for her condition to rapidly deteriorate. Eventually she abandoned the treatment and was restored to a sound mind. New interpretations of the story by contemporary artists tap into female imaginative and creative power – something explicitly suppressed by the ‘rest cure’ prescribed in female hysteria cases in the nineteenth century.

Curated by Natasha Hoare and Roxie Warder.

Patrick Keiller – The Robinson Institute

Patrick Keiller is one of the most exciting and accomplished film makers in the UK. His films follow the investigations of ‘Robinson’, a fictional character who travels the breath of the UK uncovering hidden local histories and linking them to the global situation of these locales now.

I was lucky enough to attend a talk given by his recent collaborator on Robinson in Ruins, Doreen Massey, who discussed their work together over the past few years. She argued against space as a smooth surface through which a single agent moves. Rather she sees space as a mixture of the striated – a partitioned field of movement which prohibits free motion – and smooth – conductive to rhizomatic growth and nomadic movement. As such she undermines a binary of the two types of space, seeing the landscape recorded in Keiller’s film as earth and boundaries, the land as commodified as the people on it. She also discussed temporal simultaneity or a multiplicity of stories which we must address, in that we should be aware of people sleeping in China and protesting in Syria – and outward lookingness. We all exist in the same moment, across the globe. Afterall it is from our countryside that planes took off to bomb Libya, it is not this place of nostalgia and thatch – an image which Massey felt alienated from anyway given her own working class urban upbringing. Lingering images of foxgloves remind the viewer that our own presence on the planet is but an aberrational blink of an eye, that the geological plates that make up this island have shifted over millions of years, and that to the Foxglove our presence is insubstantial. As the plates continue to shift and cycles of nature to take place despite ourself, we must construct our own sense of rootedness – here is just an intersection of trajectories, both human and non-human.

Here is the link to her essay for more information: http://thefutureoflandscape.wordpress.com/landscapespacepolitics-an-essay/

Keiller’s installation at the Tate – The Robinson Institute, is a collection of works from the Tate collection which chart the development of capitalism and considers the origins of the current economic crisis. It is a wonderful multivocal, multivalent installation of paintings, drawings, books, sound pieces, film, photographs and sculptures erected on metal frames to create an equating display. His film is being shown as part of it, and through the work one can take a journey like that of Robinson, to uncover, reenact and drawn a narrative from artifacts presented during your tour.

Interview – Andy Holden on the Dan Cox Library of Thingly Time, Cubitt Gallery

Cubitt Gallery, a non-for-profit space in Angel, North London, recently hosted an exhibition by artist Andy Holden. Consisting of a library / installation, Andy’s works, and a group show ‘Language of Flowers and the Stars’, it explored the unfinished concept of Thingly Time as espoused by the artists close friend and philosophical collaborator Dan Cox, who tragically died in a cycling incident in Dalston last year.

The exhibition thus charts the developments of concepts and theory through an amalgamation of literary and aesthetic sources in conversation or dialogue between two people. The group show is thus an exemplification of the concept, and a visual way in for the viewer. The exhibition was accompanied by a series of reading groups, in which key texts were discussed in non-hierarchical format, and often accompanied by performance or music.

– Do you think artists have more freedom in the curator role?

There are possibly some advantages, perhaps the relationships to the objects is slightly different, asking to borrow without a hierarchy, as a fellow maker, the reverence is different, not less, but different, or what you’re asking of the works or artists, or perhaps just being less aware of the protocol and conventions. But it depends what curator, with good curators I doubt the approach is so different.  With the “Language of the Flowers and the Stars” it was an exhibition within an exhibition and almost all of the artists I asked to contribute had come out of a dialogue built up over time, who on a gut level I knew had concerns within their practice that were directly linked to the idea of Thingly Time.  Although I also had a extra freedom as it was not really my concept I was curating, Thingly Time was the unfinished concept, announced by Dan Cox to me on the day of his death, and this notion is something at once very ambiguous and very precise.  It’s something we’d talked a lot about in the lead up to my show at Kettle’s Yard, before Dan deterritorialsed, so it’s an idea that I feel I understand, not easy to articulate in words, but, hopefully, possible to manifest through a selection of works and objects.

– Is an exhibition such as the Dan Cox Library of Thingly Time an artwork in itself?

I’m not sure it matters.  It helped me to think of it as an exhibition within the Library, a space that I am self-appointed custodian of.  I thought of it more like a panorama, or a diorama, in the sense of “through that which is seen”, a free standing picture viewing device linked to landscape.  It provided a vista which surrounded the library, but was also a space of research, providing concrete possibilities of objects that could, when placed together, shed light upon the nature of Thingly Time.  The whole nature of the “in itself” is perhaps thrown into question by Thingly Time, which is closer to an object-orientated view, or attempts other ways to re-think the “in itself” though a re-examination of duration.  The works and object, I would hope, resist being assimilated into some total work, still functioning as Things, however it was a presentation also concerned with making these pieces available as research, gateways to other bodies of knowledge, and together providing a space that allowed the visiter to perhaps grasp something of Thingly Time.

– Your work deals with layers of sedimented material, and this show seems to be an archeological excavation in itself. Did you consciously develop the display to mirror the form of your work?

Hard to say, but that analogy, between sediment, accretion, and the formation of a thought process is one that is relevant to Thingly Time.  How objects, and thoughts form, across time, becoming visible, objects that reveal their duration, and the strata lines of sediment  in relation to the pages of the books is at the heart of the exhibition, and this could be thought of as an excavation.

– How important is literature to your practice as an artist?

In terms of my new role as custodian to the Dan Cox Library for the Unfinished concept of Thingly Time, quite pivotal. The library also hosts reading groups which took place each week. Hosted by myself and Francesco Pedraglio it had contributions from Francesco and Paul Becker, David Raymond Conroy and Gil Leung.  The third week I presented together with Ed Atkins and we talked about Roberto Bolano.  Ed recommended I read theSavage Detectives, which had been part of Dan’s Library. For Bolano literature has the power to shed blood, to really change things, an act of upmost importance.  More and more this is something that I would subscribe to.  For Dan, books, both theory and literature were everything; as custodian of the Library books are the key material, and the sentiment found Bolano that bubbled in Dan, is one that I will hope the work facilitates.

– The sad death of Dan Cox cut short the theory of Thingly Time, do you hope for a visitor to complete, or multiply, it through accessing the library?

It’s not something I think can be completed.  Much of the exhibition is also about the urgency of dialogue, and friendship.  The book shelves exist on islands of carpet that have printed on them copied passages from Flaubert’sBouvard et Pecuchet, a book for me that above and beyond it’s satirical questioning of knowledge becomes about advancing through dialogue, traversing the horizontal plane of text, and those moments of dialogue from which spring glimmers and possibilities of something more concrete, something perhaps knowable after all, made possible through friendship.  But Thingly Time I think, hopefully as the curated element shows, is something already shared by other artists, something in the air, and I hope the combination of the works and the books in the Library will allow viewers to really immerse themselves and contribute to the endless extension of the concept of Thingly Time.

Untitled (labour) Symposium at Tate Britain

Untitled (labour) Symposium was organized by Phd researched Lauren Rotenberg, and T.J.Demos of UCL’s department in Art History. It set out to investigate current conditions of artistic production in relation to new forms of labour. Speakers addressed the impact of ‘immaterial labour’ on new aesthetic forms and uses of art, how artists both embody and contest the precarious working conditions of immaterial labour, and art’s potential to serve as immanent critique of capitalism.

As ever, the symposium format was reasonably frustrating in its giving eminent speakers the time frame of 15 minutes to speak about their research. The standard contestation of terms occurred during the q&a’s with the audience – what is immaterial labour? Is there such a thing? Hasn’t this term been widely contested and abandoned now?

The symposium really came down to old dichotomies of art and politics, ie does art serve to mirror the conditions of its production, or can it become a laboratory through which to effect new and resistant models of being.

Lauren Rotenberg’s research explores the positioning of the artist as the perfect exemplar of immaterial labour, producing dematerialized works (since the 1960’s) and participatory art as social critique. The concept of immaterial labour itself is born of a shift to an economy of services and knowledge production. Under this labour has been transformed from working in factories, to providing innovation, creativity and imagination. With the increasing acceleration of capitalism a surplus has only been able to come about through potential or ‘labour capacity’ – according to Marx. (Stewart Martin) Subjects under these conditions are produced by and for capital, a force of biopower.  As such is there a space for radical autonomy left in artistic practice?

Pascal Gilane discussed the strategies employed by artists in Post-Fordist times. His sociological analysis positioned artists as entrepreneurs who must function in specific ways, through an engagement with a ‘scene’ or artworld which is in effect the new factory. In Post-Fordist times Gilane saw the boundaries between ‘worlds’ collapsing, eg domestic, market, industry, civil, fame. These must now be navigated by the individual, flexibly. Artists and curators are valued for their ‘good’ ideas, which must be new, or opportunistically use the environment that they are taking place in to make their work ‘new’ – those engaging their services are doing so understanding the potential of their work. The combination of this art scene, and the need to produce and control the copyright of your ideas creates a bio-political control that stages freedom, but conversely  yokes you to work. Of the artists he interviewed for his study a majority move into art related careers or pluralize their practice eg working as a graphic designer and on autonomous work. The most Post-Fordist solution of all was to hybridize – make your work, whatever it is, and decide it is autonomous.

Stephano Harney, a Business researcher at Queen Mary School traced the origins of immaterial labour as being in management, and the influences of logistics on today’s neo-liberal economies. Logistics, as a strain of managerial thought, wishes for the controlling agent implicit in ‘strategy’ to be got rid of. They posit a self-regulating system – tied to the mechanics of capitalism – which is completely autonomous, and continuously connected and networking. This is the dream of globalization in which people and goods move in a smooth movement at increasing speeds. He positioned biopolitics as being undefeated by strategy, that carnival is accompanied by riot, and not preceding it. He saw the artist as a figure whose subjectivity is vulnerable to logistics and logistical populations. He also discussed the problems of education, ‘care without care’, being the maxims that teachers must espouse to fulfill their contractual obligations, without being physically able to connect with the huge classes they deal with. Transferable skills, taught at universities, seem to enable the student to plug in to other employment, to transcend individual subjectivity and the organic. Teachers are in face being forced to create good logistical subjects.

Hito Steyeri, artist and filmmaker, presented an exploratory and radical talk on the subect, tracing the freelancer etymologically back to the free ‘lance’, or mercenary, and recommended viewing Seven Samurai as the best exemplar of how to be a freelancer, and the challenges that subject faces today. She also discussed the privatization of the military as corporate warriors.

To be continued…

 

On Geometry and Speculation – An exhibition for the 4th Marrakech Biennale.

Moroccan born, Netherlands based, curator Hicham Khalidi, former director and creator of TAG in The Hague, has brought together a world class range of artists for the exhibition On Geometry and Speculation.

Working across a range of media these abstract, new media inflected, works speak to the Islamic tradition of mathematical representation due to the prohibition of depicting the world by imaging. Each Islamic pattern was developed by artists as an explication of the divine through algorithms rendered in geometric form. Through these forms artists and artisans sought to show the unity of one God and the harmony of the universe. Algorithmic patterns are central to new media art in which artists establish a code which is then followed by mechanical means.

Through its invocation of Islamic traditions in mathematics, philosophy and aesthetics a local context of Marrakech has been brought to bear, both in the theme of the show and in its display. Two pieces take place in different parts of the city from the main show, with Mike Rijnierse installing coloured tubes of light in the Ensemble Artisanal and Esther Polak and Ivar van Bekkum performing Spiral Drawing Sunrise at the Cyberpark – a fitting digitalized rendered of the rising sun performed by a solar powered robot tethered to a central pole which drops a trail of specially collected desert sand.

The exhibition is to take place at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Visuels de Marrakech, a school founded by wealthy Swiss investors who believe in the importance of cultural practice to emerging nations. Fittingly Amalia Pica’s film piece is a intervention on a public statue of Napoleon and considers Rosseau’s On Education.

Exhibiting artists include Martijn van Boven (NL), Marjolijn Dijkman (NL), Navid Nuur (NL), Esther Polak (NL), Ivar van Bekkum (NL), Mike Rijnierse (NL) and Bram Vreven (NL) Tom Tlalim (IS/UK), Julia Dault (US), Germaine Dulac (FR), Aurélien Froment (FR), Berit Greinke (UK), Alessandro Altavilla (UK), Lisa Oppenheim (US) and Amalia Pica (UK/AR).

The Biennale itself is in its 4th year, and the central exhibition is being curated by Nadim Samman and Carson Chan. Named ‘Higher Atlas’ it features over 30 artists in an ambitious group show at the Theatre Royal. The impression each tourist has of Marrakech is of an ancient city, chaotic smog choked streets thick with suicidal scooters, donkeys and bikes with souk vendors clamoring for your custom. The Biennale should go far to show the international community that Marrakech is a city with a will to globality and the resources and imagination to achieve it.

Brixton Art Walk – Fox and Squirrel

This Saturday Fox and Squirrel art walkers were treated to exclusive access to artist studio’s in Brixton. Low rents, available space and its proximity to Camberwell College of Art and Goldsmiths make it an ideal area for artists to base themselves in. We entered into this private world of the artists’ studio, visiting Eve Ackroyd, Eleanor Purseglove, Phoebe Mitchell and Sarah Praill.

The former three artists are based in the Stockwell Road Studio complex which sprawls over one floor of a commercial building. Each space had an entirely different feel, and we explored the role the studio plays in each artists practice. Each painter reflected on the role of photography as a starting point for much of there work, necessitating a great deal of research in books, and their own image making. Eve’s paintings are powerful and indexical works abstracted from found images in magazines and newspapers. She reflects on the saturation of image in our culture, and the way in which they frame experience. For Phoebe formal gardens and Rococo paintings form a starting point for her oil paintings, which are made through a process of stripping back layers of paint until the perfect composition is achieved. Eleanor’s work centered on hotels and their multifaceted cultural meanings – in her paintings these spaces are abstracted interior images which play on the hotel as an exotic destination, and a seedy or menacing interstitial space. Each artist felt that they were at a moment of transformation in their work, the privilege of visiting them in their studio is that we were able to gain an insight into this moment – something a gallery experience excludes.

Sarah Praill’s studio was above the hustling arcades of Brixton Market itself. Her space was permeated by the delicious smells of the restaurants below and the sounds and music of the food halls. The space was dotted with small ‘presences’; sculptures and drawings made from studies of objects in the British Museum.

We ended the walk with a visit to Photofusion, London’s largest independent photography space. To see the first solo show of artist Natasha Caruana. Natasha’s work is grounded in research, drawing from archives, the Internet and personal narratives. The exhibition shows four bodies of work, The Red Purse, The Other Woman, Married Man, and the more recent A Fairytale for Sale. The group was especially drawn to Married Man, a series of photographs documenting occasions when the photographer arranged dates through dating websites designed for married men to conduct affairs. Each man was photographed so that their identity would be concealed, and in addition Caruana recorded the conversations secretly, using a digital recorder hidden in a red purse. The artist questions the men as to why they are willing to put their legally binding relationships at risk, while also questioning what an artist’s ethical responsibilities should be.

Pontus Hulten’s Institut des Hautes Etudes en Arts Plastiques

Over the course of my research for an exhibition at Chelsea College of Art and Design in May 2012 I have come across a remarkable art school experiment by the curator par excellence Pontus Hulten.

Pontus was the creator of the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the most ground breaking museum in 20th century European history. Despite this His legacy is cruelly undermined in France, and his school in particular faces being written out of history. The MAC in Marseilles currently has in its possession the archive of the school and all the recordings of the school’s meetings. But they languish there, inaccessible. The only history which exists for the school is 2 books of transcriptions in French, and the testament of the 80-100 students who went through it.

The Institut itself was an experimental school for artists directed by Pontus Hulten,  Daniel Buren, Serge Fauchereau and Sarkis. These contradictory figures provided an unparalleled nexus of artistic and curatorial talent which managed to bring some of the most exciting thinkers in the world into speaking at the school. From Jean Francois Lyotard to Ed Rusha, Mike Asher to Bourdieu, small student groups of 20 a year would be treated to intense day long sessions with philosophers, architects, film makers, scientists and mathematicians.

I spoke with artists / curator and teacher Delphine Bedel who attended the school and who is determined that both Hulten and his legacy is not forgotten. Below are some notes from our discussion:

– One applied to the Institut with a form and a tape of yourself explaining why you wanted to apply. If successful you would also present your work for 20 minutes. The school was open to practicing artists from around the world and the classes were truly international. Each session, there were three a week, would be taught in French.

– Pontus’ vision for the school was driven by the examples of the Bauhaus and the Black Mountain College. As such the students took part in discussions lead by a plethora of individuals from different disciplines. Each session was recorded on magnetic tapes. Many of the speakers would decide to discuss or show different components to their work than was usual for their practice.

– The school was in Paris and consisted of one small building with an archive / library which was donated by some Belgian collectors. Catalogues for exhibitions were continually added to this and publications made to fund the school. The top floor had an office where the students and ‘teachers’ would meet around a round table.

– Each week the students would present their work for 30 minutes. There was no end of degree show, as the emphasis at the school was on providing a space for discussion, not exhibition to the public.

– Pontus ideally wished for all the students to live on site and share accommodation. Funding shortages did not make this possible.

– Each year had a different topic. Whilst Delphine was there the topic was ‘Reseach in Art’ an extremely forward topic given centrality of research to contemporary art at this now.

– Funding allowing the students would be taken to destinations such as Korea and St Petersburg to realize shows.

– Eventually the meagre funding that was provided to the Institut was cut, and the school closed. This was largely due to the politics which existed between Chirac and Hulten and the lack of public face which the school had.

Main tenets of the school:
– Theory driven
– Transmission of ideas
– Relating to artists
– Experimental
– Bound to Pontus and his incredible network
– No institutional means or structure
– Oral tradition
– Broad and inclusive vision of what art can be
– School as a Gesamtkunstwerk and an open field of research

 

Anna Barriball, Fruitmarket Gallery

Last weekend I visited the grey gothic city of Edinburgh. It was a beautiful stay, not least because I visited the fantastic Fruitmarket Gallery for their Anna Barriball show. I have loved Anna’s work ever since seeing it at the Saatchi Gallery as part of their Newspeak British Art Now show. It was a delight therefore to revisit those work which had first excited me, and to introduce newer ones.

The work above was a stunning video piece in which Anna filmed a piece of tracing paper as it was sucked against the fireplace at her home. It seems as if the house is breathing, and that the artist has managed to trace this breath, to make the architecture live.  In the video documentary accompanying the exhibition she said that she discovered the effect when she was moving out of her flat and wanted to make a rubbing of the fireplace’s mouldings for her records. As she pressed the paper up against it this gentle sucking effect was demonstrated. Shown in a small dark room with a highly polished floor the video seemed to become part of the viewing space.

Anna’s work was beautifully show in the Fruitmarket space, with framed rubbings juxtaposed with new freestanding (ish) paper sculptures made by the artist wrapping herself in paper, and a mind bending site specific piece in which she had drawn a repeated  pattern of pencil marks along the length of the wall. The thought of the eventual loss of this piece at the exhibition’s close was a poignant reminder of its transience and the fragility of the tracings she makes.

Acoustic Mirrors at the Zabludowicz Collection

This Friday I found myself braving the cold to visit Camden for Acoustic Mirrors at the Zabludowicz Collection. The event was produced and conceptualized by the Curating courses at the RCA and Goldsmiths. It was a lively evening with people drinking and chatting throughout creating a forum for voicing art theory and plans for the weekend. The large room was set up variously as a film studio, radio studio and lecture theatre. Light bulbs hung from the ceiling creating a spotlit cafe / bar vibe, and drinks were charged. The talks were by gallerists, theorists and artists and covered the general theme of the evening – questioning how we experience an artwork when we have not seen it.

An exhibition element was the display of records of the collection’s works in filing boxes dotted about on tables whose supporting structures were made of old doors and other bits of architectural trash. Thus you could read the provenance of a work, its dimensions, the artists name etc.

The talk I attended was by Gil Leung. She discussed a plethora of metaphors for better understanding our relationship to the art object, which were recorded and broadcast on the radio station which had been set up. It was difficult to follow the talk as there was so much chat in the room, and the majority of people were really just looking each other up and down rather than listening. This made me consider how the students would evaluate their show – by the number of people who physically attended the show, or by those listening in on the radio?

It was an interesting event, one that I feel was strongly framed by the curatorial emphasis on dematerialization. One wonders if there would have been quite such a focus had there been more actual artists involved. The love of building, evidenced in the construction of the tables, the radio booth and bar, also seemed to suggest the curators wish to move outside of the production realm and into a more sculptural / artistic one. Back to the same questions again of artist/curator, curator/producer. Where does one fit on this sliding scale? Is curatorial work in itself enough for an exhibition?

Below – Radio Booth

Gasworks Talk – No Lone Zone, Tate Level 2 Gallery Exhibition

Last night I attended a talk at Gasworks around No Lone Zone, the new exhibition at the Tate Modern’s level 2 Gallery (the most exciting space at the Tate Modern, in my humble opinion.)

The exhibition has been curated by Iria Candela and Taiyana Pimentel in association with Gasworks. The Tate curator introduced the concept of the exhibition – No Lone Zone is a military term which applies to a restricted area in which at least two individuals must be within visual reach of each other to oversee a critically sensitive procedure – eg nuclear testing. This term has been used by the curators metaphorically to explain certain societal situations relating to geography and postcolonial relationships. The curator also discussed Judith Butler’s bio-politics and society in which the body is a vulnerable site as it responds to the world around it. The discussion also turned to ideas of visibility and power.

The three artists involved are David Zink Yi, Cinthia Marcelle, the collective Tercerunquinto and Teresa Margolles (not at the talk).

David Zink Yi talked about his previous work and upbringing in Peru, born to a Chinese mother, and the effect moving to Germany had on his consideration of himself as an artist. He works across video and sculpture creating works that reflect on his own identity, the stories of characters in Peru who occupy an interstitial relationship to Peruvian culture and far flung origins such as Italy and China. A beautiful previous work was a large barrel sculpture. He learnt the technique from an elderly Peruvian man, who was in turn taught the process by David’s father, who was German in origin. His work for the exhibition are huge ceramic tentacles based on those of the Giant squid – a deep sea creature never seen alive, but only as a carcas. These works are technically complex, and their materiality was an obvious concern for the artist. Also their metaphorical elegance was discussed, the extraction of meanings multiple – understanding someone better when they are dead, the use of ceramic coming from his upbringing in a Chinese home. David was keen not to fix these meanings, saying that video work can be read as a linear narrative because of its form, but that a sculpture is a point from which the viewer can extract a myriad of meanings and associations.

Cinthia Marcelle discussed her video works. These are formal and geometrical propositions carried out by workers according to her choreography. One involved doubling numbers of fire throwers blocking traffic in her native town of Brazil. The unplanned reaction of the traffic contrasting to the beauty in numbers shown by the actors. My favorite that she discussed were actions undertaken by workers in a quarry nearby, in which they drove their vehicles in geometrical shapes (circle, figure of eight) to create a drawing. These were filmed from above, and felt like an interesting move forward from land art – a form that included the working man / woman. In these ‘propositions’ Cinthia is keen that the actors are very aware and therefore invested in the work that they are making. She enjoys this transformation of the workers work from mechanistic, to artistic. She finds that she always gets back something that she is not expecting, despite the strictures of her choreography. She agreed however with Tercerunquinto that art is not there to change people’s lives, but to alter the artists subjectivity.

Tercerunquinto are a collective operating in Mexico City. Their practice is incredibly sensitive to the locale that they are working in, and revolves around architecture, public art and social use. For the work pictured below, Public Sculpture Project in the Urban Periphery of Monterrey, 2003, they built a concrete platform in a space on the periphery of the city, attempting to show that the periphery operates like the centre. The space was in a legal loophole which allowed this community of squatters or dispossessed to live there, sorting rubbish, but they were frequently disturbed by police etc. The platform was used by this community gradually to stage various community actions – from meetings, to a place to meet for medical assistance. The collective sat by and documented its use. As such the platform was the apparatus of a social experiment. Slowly the platform became privatized by one individual, who turned it into his kitchen – here the incursion of private onto public space is clearly demarcated, proving the echo of the centre on the periphery. The group were well aware of the pitfalls of artists coming to an area to work, and they were as careful as possible not to replicate power structures upon the marginalized people with whom they worked. Again they talked of art not as something that changes lives, but that challenges artists to think about academic problems.

I look forward to seeing the exhibition, which opens to the public on Friday 27th January.