SPACE Open 2003

SPACE Open 2003 is a group exhibition of 10 SPACE artists selected from open submission and two invited artists Liam Gillick and Paul Morrison contributing special projects.

Following the successful launch of the Triangle by Estelle Morris, Minister of State for the Arts SPACE Open 2003 is the first exhibition in the new gallery at The Triangle.

The Triangle was formerly a construction college but now houses 60 artists’ studios, a print workshop, sculpture studios, training & digital art suites, SPACE’s public art team and several diverse exhibiting spaces.

By the very nature of an Open the range of work is different in material and media. The selected artists do seem to be held together by a common thread – a quirkiness or sinister hint at the banal of the everyday. Maxwell Attenborough takes the viewer on a filmic journey through an intricate model forest. ‘An Allegory of Experience’ references mythology, Attenborough’s childhood memories of his fathers’ attic and the suspension of belief that brings a toy or model to life.

Louise Brierley paints dark and mythical scenes shrouded in perverse mystery. They feature creatures from the darker side of fairy tales set on the outskirts of the modern suburb.

Camilla Brueton reacts to her environment through researching the historical and social atmosphere of her surroundings. Brueton has been commissioned by SPACE to respond to the Triangle’s rich past and future. Ergin Çavu©≠o©£lu’s works explores the tension between the ordinariness of urban life and the extraordinary moments produced by the same texture. For the Open he will be showing two of his voyeuristic video works set in the urban streets after dark.

Lubna Chowdhary’s ‘Metropolis’ is a multi object work that has evolved over the past ten years. There is no hierarchy amongst the thousand objects, which refer to technology, popular culture, production, consumption and obsolescence. Each object is a visual echo of a time. Paul Eachus’ photographs of interiors suggest the workplace of an obsessive. Spilling out of cupboards, rammed into every crevice, are tightly rolled magazines and misplaced oddities that illustrate a simulated and confusing scenario.

Wilma Ehni’s work explores how objects become a representation of their owner. Rendered in wood, Ehni adds another layer of value to the everyday object by the time-consuming, delicate process of carving, replicating the identity of the object’s possessor.

Ben Judd’s video piece ‘The Future Never Looks How You Expected it to Look’ blends the painted backgrounds used by portrait photographers into a continuous painterly animation. Described as 'Old Masters' by the companies that produce them, Judd has overlain the voice of a professional interpreter who describes paintings for the blind; the words fall short of a successful description whilst transforming them beyond their original intentions.

Michael Samuels’ miniature models tell a tale on the surface of a coffee table. The scenes imply sinister happenings, never allowing the viewer to infiltrate the tiny, ambiguous world they inhabit. Neil Zakiewicz uses materials that undermine the monumentality of the grandiose and heroic tendencies of traditional sculpture. ‘Wolf’ is a heroic sculpture of a beast that plays various roles in mythology. Hacked out of a foam block the works lean and warp, threatening movement or collapse.

Special Projects by Liam Gillick and Paul Morrison Liam Gillick was shortlisted for last year’s Turner Prize after his exhibition The Wood Way at the Whitechapel Art Gallery and he has shown extensively internationally. Gillick is interested in how different contexts and institutional environments inter-relate with the properties of materials, structures and colour. He is specially commissioned for SPACE Open 2003.

Paul Morrison currently has a solo show at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. Morrison’s black and white highly stylised compositions draw on botanical imagery. More recently his work has included film, which is monochromatic and echoes the contrast in his paintings.

SPACE Open 2003
Ort: SPACE The Triangle

Künstler: Maxwell Attenborough, G. L. Brierley, Camilla Brueton, Lubna Chowdhary, Paul Eachus, Wilma Ehni, Ben Judd, Michael Samuels, Neil Zakiewicz, Liam Gillick, Paul Morrison, Fiona Boundy, Kate MacGarry, Gavin Turk ...