The Order of Things
News
The Order of Things Seminar - Thursday 2 March 2017
Friday, 28 October, 2016Works by Professor of Painting at Bath School of Art and Design, Maria Lalic, are currenty on show in an exhibition entitled The Order of Things. The Order of Things is a survey exhibition of thirteen international contemporary artists and seminar, curated by Andrew Bick, Jonathan Parsons and Katie Pratt and organised in partnership with The Cheltenham Trust and Practice as Research at The University of Gloucestershire. Also from the Bath School of Art & Design, works by John Wood in collaboration with Paul Harrison and works by alumni Andrew Bick and Guy Bigland are included in the show. Other participating artists are: Rana Begum, Edith Dekyndt, A. K. Dolven, Adam Gillam, Daniel Robert Hunziker, Jonathan Parsons, Katie Pratt, Neil Zackiewicz.
Drawing on the expertise of the external contributors and position papers from the afternoon session delivered by Bick, Parsons and Pratt, this seminar will show how contemporary artists have built upon, questioned and expanded the legacy of abstraction, which was such a crucial early development in the critical and theoretical development of Modern art. It will also demonstrate how artists continue to interrogate manifestations of experience, social convention and the gallery as cultural site, and explore broader ideas of how individuals and groups perceive, comprehend, and interpret the nature of human reality through visual experience. It will explore how human desire for the aesthetic can be a vital means of mediating social and political positions, emphasising the need for creativity as a core component of our experience of the world.
The title, The Order of Things, is taken from the English translation of French philosopher Michel Foucault’s 1966 book, Les Mots et les Choses, (literally translated as ‘words and things’). The book traces the origins of human thought through the arts, sciences, economics, and sociology. Underpinning Foucault’s discussion is the anthropological argument that human categorisation strategy – how we label things – is limited. Furthermore, our use of language fails us in our emotional response to Art. Taking Foucault’s book as starting point, this exhibition reflects on the inherent humanity in how artists conceptualise and structure their creativity.
Each artist considers how we order, systematize and encounter the world. Their various practices respond to the international development of non- representational art and its social role; the constant, essential exchanges negotiated between ‘words’ and ‘things’.
Here, the artists’ diverse responses to the human reflexes of organisation and perception result in painting, video, sculpture, drawing, documented performance and other media and material combinations. The viewer is encouraged to address the materiality of artwork directly. How might it be an agency to crossing boundaries between art and science? Or engage with current social and political issues? How does it celebrate the material nature of our environment in a digital-media culture? The terms ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ are reviewed with respect to how current approaches stemming from painting increasingly employ more interactive and kinetic forms, pursuing a long tradition of exploring physical phenomena through art-making.
Whilst not pictorial itself, much of the work in The Order of Things is offset by a figurative title, encouraging the audience to project the point where the artwork unites with its name. Many artworks deliberately mismatch language and image, so that the appearance or the textual content are apparently incongruous with the title. A regular theme is how a character is transformed, through repetition and context, from a squiggle to something legible and comprehensible. Conversely, other works contemplate the extent to which a symbol can degenerate before it becomes indecipherable .
Foucault’s scepticism about the interplay between language and image is reiterated as exhibition visitors are nudged to interpret and draw upon their own literary and visual imagination. Many of the artworks on display verge on the emergence of lexicons. Frequently, codes are invoked. Numerals and initials represent the indexing of individual pieces and whole series of works, so that each artefact takes its place, whether within the artist’s catalogue or a comprehensive canon.
The seminar
A seminar will take place on Thursday 2 March at The Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery and Museum, Clarence St, Cheltenham GL50 3JT.
Contributors to the seminar; curators & artists Andrew Bick, Jonathan Parsons & Katie Pratt, Katrina Blannin, artist, writer and researcher at University of Worcester. Keynote lecture, Dr Jo Melvin (Reader at UAL Chelsea) and a performance from exhibiting artist A K Dolven.
The programme is as follows:
15:00 – 17:00 - INVITED SEMINAR, Andrew Bick, Jonathan Parsons, Katie Pratt, position papers on the exhibition; Katrina Blannin, research student, University of Worcester; followed by an open q & a session;
17:00 – 18:00 - break and opportunity to tour the exhibition;
18:30 – 19:30 - Lecture, Dr Jo Melvin, Followed by Q & A with Jo, Andrew Bick, Jonathan Parsons and Katie Pratt;
19:30 – 20:30- Performance, A K Dolven with John Giorno - 'JA as long as I can'.
Followed by drinks and an opportunity to revisit the exhibition. Please register by e-mailing Christine on: cmcintyre1@glos.ac.uk and indicate if you are attending both halves or just the evening session.