A blog post by Markus Lloyd regarding the ‘Working Title’ exhibition at aspex gallery.
We’ve three artists in the gallery, being exhibited. As technician at aspex, I’m used to artists playing some part in the installation of their work – after the preview, they go away. In a way, this show is all installation – a prolonged transformation of the space – a slow-slow reverse striptease, ending up fully dressed. Still, Will, Andy and Paul (who are kickstarting Working Title) have spent the day doing what most artists do on day one in the gallery, they’ve been nesting. They’ve burrowed into the junk pile that’s accumulated in the space, nabbing what makes sense to them (no obvious squabbles, yet), and they’ve each defined themselves a space/den. Paul’s filming an expanding grid of stuff, a complex hopscotch chalked on the gallery floor with offcuts of MDF, bowls and wind-up toys. Will’s surrounded himself with toolboxes, he’s constructing a fishing rod – not a cane with string and a nappy-pin hook, no – it looks worthy of J.R. Hartley. Andy’s made his encampment right in amidst the scrap, using a tv stand for a seat and an upturned chest-of-drawers as a desk. Something’s happening, but what it is, well, I don’t know. It all seems to make sense to Andy, Will and Paul – which is the only sense you can expect of them right now.
Amazingly, the scrap heap of materials has shrunk from, well, heaps to scraps. So, please, bring us your ‘unwanted’ – gift the ‘done with’ or ‘done for’ with a new lease of ‘possibility’. Everything is latent, and the artists we’ve got working here are expert at tapping that latency. If you’ve any old vhs equipment or cassette tapes and players, old speakers, record players – old wool, cardboard boxes from domestic appliances, lamps, old computer hardware – anything really – bring it to us, become a genuine part of the process. The making of art is always so distant, secreted away in studios, in the mind’s eye of the maker: this is an opportunity to observe the journey from play to definition to object. Ask those questions you’ve never had the chance to – why have you done that? What is it you’re doing? What did you mean to occur? What? This isn’t an exhibition, it’s a show – though the artists aren’t performers, in this context they are. You, as visitor, as participant, become a principal too. You can demonstrate you’re own sensibilities by creating a work with the makeshift materials in the Interactive Area in the gallery space. There’s no hierachy in this show – everyone starts on an equal footing, with a load of old rubbish.
The experience of Working Title will be a plastic one – the makings of one artist seeping into those of another – sudden displays of ‘something’ bursting forth from ‘something else’. It’ll change with the weather, day by day – nothing is forever. So visit us a few times, as many times as you can. Bring your junk, bring yourselves, bring an inquiring mind. Participate.
Markus Lloyd.
