Popular Problems Barry Sykes
Office Tower Wayne Chisnall
8th – 22nd March 2013 The Cass Bank Gallery London Metropolitan University 59 – 63 Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7PF
“We live our lives in the middle of things” Sherry Turkle 2007
Alice Anderson, Kyle Bean, Wayne Chisnall, Blue Curry, Nancy Fouts, Nick Gentry, Darren Harvey-Regan, Kaarina Kaikkonen, Guy Laramee, Elisabeth Lecourt, Hannah Lee, Barry Sykes.
MA Curating the Contemporary at London Metropolitan University in partnership with Whitechapel Gallery present their first exhibition: Misuse: Creating Alternatives.
This exhibition explores the extent to which objects have an impact on our lives, leaving a malleable impression, allowing our imagination to engage in a debate, questioning purpose and the possibility of reinvention. Each featured artist uses objects to manipulate, appropriate or fetishize objects by creating new sculpture, installation or simply an object with an unexpected twist.
Themes of identity, memory and of play are the found in the work of Guy Laramee, Nancy Fouts, Kaarina Kaikkonen and Elisabeth Lecourt, who expresses vulnerability through old maps fashioned into paper dresses. Whereas others like, Barry Sykes, Kyle Bean, Alice Anderson and Nick Gentry alter meanings by transforming the ‘everyday object’. Blue Curry’s cement mixer for example is not for cement, but sun cream. Darren Harvey- Regan’s photography-based practice also uses objects but instead the focus is on the photograph as an object in its own right. Finally Wayne Chisnall’s sculptures have been reworked to adapt to the unusual ‘Bank’ galley space.
The artworks connect with the audience through a mixture of familiarity and uncertainty. Whilst the original meanings of most objects are innocuous, when transformed into ‘art objects’ they become something else entirely.
Curated by: Abigail Shamah, Elisabetta Rabajoli, Myrto Katsimicha, Natalie Craven, Nina Borel, Phoebe Bradford, Cristina Ramos, Anne Sellers.
