12 days to go until the opening of our exhibition at One Thoresby Street in Nottingham. ‘Thoresby Street Thursdays’ are a series of exhibitions showing the work of artists who have a studio here or used to. Each exhibition features two or three artists. They’ve been running since March – with approximately 2 exhibitions each month. Our show is the 2nd to last. They are quite exciting, off the cuff shows -in which people seem to be showing work they are trying out.
Alexander Stevenson and I have been given an exhibition – which is interesting because we’ve never seen any of each other work in real life – only on the internet!
We began by talking about the idea of reading reviews and imaging the artwork discussed in them. When I was in college I read a review that I thought sounded incredible, then saw the work and was terribly disappointed that it wasn’t what I imagined. I then realised ‘ah ha! I can now make the work I imagined… that work is still to be created!!’.
I’ve often wondered about curating a show in which artists remake work from reviews of work they’ve never seen. Which I imagined to be playful, almost like the game ‘consequences’ in the way that the results would be a bit arbitrary, but interesting anyway because of the process of it. Perhaps the original work could be behind a screen the whole time – to be revealed at the private view like Blind Date!!
What had not occurred to me is that while I was trying to draw exhibitions from reviews that I could end up feeling so much like a thief in the night! I thought I had a good intention but somehow it felt more like I was glibly touching on someone else’s concerns, in a one off way, that didn’t sit right with me at all – like i was drawing sarcastic drawings – no one wants that! or do they?
Anyway, there’s still something that fascinates me about this idea though so I will perhaps return to it.
Alex is going to be doing a durational interactive performance from the 2nd August to 9th in the space. He will be asking audience members to try and draw pieces of work – I think largely sculptural work – from reviews – and then amalgamating those drawings as the piece goes on. I’m really excited to see all this play out!
I have taken a slight side step and photocopied all the reviews published in art magazines in August 1998 – which was the month that I originally started art college. I had been inter-railing and my mum had opened the letter I received from Leeds College of Art and Design that had a suggested reading list of art magazines. When I returned there was a stack of magazines in my room, magazines that I’d never seen or heard of before – like a new previously unknown continent – full of magic, wonder and loads of stuff I did not understand at all… not even nearly.
So at the moment I am thinking there will be some kind of installation of all these photocopies and I’ve been making some drawings of gallery spaces from the images in the reviews.
