dislocate 1. disturb the normal connection of. 2. disrupt; put out of order. 3. displace.
DISLOCATION includes work by nine artists who, in different ways, question notions surrounding the physical siting of art objects or metaphorical siting within art objects. The work attempts to examine through a variety of working processes the fractures opened up between the site and the object and / or the site and the subject. 'Site' can be used to define either the space occupied by the object in real time, or else a more elusive, virtual space alluded to within the object itself where the perception of time becomes more fluid.
Olaf Breuning’s images deliberately reveal the artificiality inherent within constructed photography, treading a fine line between art and kitsch. Actors are dressed as apes, reminiscent of those in Kubrick’s '2001: A Space Odyssey'. The viewer remains unsure whether these shadowy presences lurking in the undergrowth are passive observers or would-be aggressors.
'The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.' - L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between. Teresa Chen’s 'A Merry Christmas' functions as an archive, containing photographs of herself and immediate family taken every Christmas from 1963 onwards. The work addresses the Chen family’s status as Chinese immigrants to the USA and their ongoing relationship to an adopted culture.
Marianne Engel’s photographs depict strange and sinister occurrences taking place on isolated rural roads, referencing horror movies, fairytales, Freudian notions of the Uncanny and the films of David Lynch. Mysterious lights shine in the twilit sky and human figures appear mutated and morphed together as if in the throes of some supernatural ritual.
Rebecca Geldard describes life from the subset of two cities - London and Zurich - in three short texts. Part analysis, part narrative, each 'story' communicates a sense of displacement: the point where one life pops out of the socket of another.
Paul Harper's video work is concerned with exploring the role of the artist through the temporal processes of repetition, breakdown and transformation. 'Dream Works' re-present art objects that have existed fleetingly in the artist's dreams. The images act as an unstable half way point between the object as it is initially generated by the unconscious during dream sleep, and the real three dimensional object itself which does not exist either.
Fergus Heron's Untitled Seascapes draw equally upon histories of painting and photography. An emphasis is placed on the psychological affect of the appearance of the sea from the edge of the land, the beginning of an unknowable elsewhere.
Paul Lee's abstract paintings, constructed out of ephemeral materials such as matches and used Fed Ex boxes, suggest ideas of migration and rootlessness as he shifts between New York and London. Lee's working processes imbue otherwise banal, everyday objects with a fragile, melancholic beauty.
In Adrian Lovis' 'Grating A Bust of Beethoven', an unseen performance reduces an object of remembrance and celebration to pure matter and displaces its image to the minds eye of the spectator. 'In Its Own Place and In the Place of Another' consists of 2680 postcards of a horse, referencing both Carl André's and Alfred Steiglitz' separate 'Equivalents' series. All three pieces attempt to reconcile a position between the here and now and transcendence of the imaginary.
Marjolaine Ryley's work explores familial relationships and the way in which we experience these as tied to specific rooms, houses, and places where we have lived. 'Passage' depicts the aftermath of a fire. Soot covers the domestic furnishings while pictures that have been removed for cleaning leave traces of their presence. These are juxtaposed with images of the transient spaces one inhabits while waiting for news of a sick person: hospital waiting rooms, the houses of relatives and neighbours.
Additionally the International Slipknot Archive Zurich is pleased to have formed a relationship with K3 Project Space. For the duration of DISLOCATION, K3 will act as a temporary home for the archive's current content. The archive will be made available for public consumption.
DISLOCATION has been curated and organised by Paul Harper with Clare Goodwin and Sandi Paucic at K3 Project Space.
DISLOCATION is supported by the British Council and the Arts Council England.
15.11.2003, sp