Jennifer Douglas, Paul Merrick: 'Identify your limitations, acknowledge the periphery' VITRINE, London
Jennifer Douglas, Untitled (Painting #10), 2015, Floor paint and carbon paper pigment on canvas, 120 x 150 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Workplace
Paul Merrick, Untitled (Warrior), 2015, Plasterboard, mastic sealant, found image, 63 x 63 cm, Courtesy of the artist and Workplace
Identify your limitations, acknowledge the periphery
Jennifer Douglas, Justin Eagle, Sean Edwards, Ditte Gantriis, Maria de la O Garrido, Lauren Godfrey, Ludovica Gioscia, Felicity Hammond, Holly Hendry, Karin Hueber, Alix Marie, McGilvary / White, Paul Merrick, Lucia Quevedo, Charlie Godet Thomas, Aethan Wills, and Madalina Zaharia.
Wednesday 13 July 2016 - Saturday 10 September 2016
Private View: Tuesday 12 July 6.30 - 9pm. VITRINE, London.
Boundaries, encasement, and entrapment – how does the vitrine mediate the subject or the object? Available for viewing, yet significantly distanced from its spectator the vitrine is often questioned within museums and institutions. By acknowledging the vitrine’s confinements how might one adopt these elements to both activate an artwork and abolish boundaries?
VITRINE, London is delighted to present an ambitious group exhibition with site-speci c works by 18 British and International artists that will look at the notions of limitations, instruction-based practice, and the role of the vitrine within exhibition making. This exhibition will naturally manifest forms of the wunderkammer.
Engaging with the architecture of the space (a 16-metre vitrine enclosed behind glass), artworks have been created in an attempt to push the boundaries of the space in unexpected arrangements commenting on institutional display and ideas of artistic production.
Instructions and limitations act as a catalyst for this ambitious exhibition, for which artists have been invited by co-curators Alys Williams and Chris Bayley to devise a site-specific artwork that inhabits the restrictions and potential of the gallery space. Accepting chance in the realisation of an artwork, the exhibition looks at the ties among artists, artworks, the exhibition and its curators.
The project was first initiated via an email instructing artists to produce a site-specific artwork that inhabits the limitations of the gallery space with one ‘rule’: Works must be restricted to sit within the vitrine, utilising any elements of the space you wish, be it the floor, the ceiling, the lighting, the walls or the windows... The exhibition explicitly employs notions of chance and its outcomes are determined by a procedure that cannot be predicted, pushing the vitrine to its limits.
VITRINE is focused on artistic experimentation and development; material, process and installation led practice at its core.
Founded in London in 2012, grown from a project space since 2010, VITRINE invites and fosters the development and presentation of new work in spaces in London and Basel, at art fairs internationally and through off-site projects. VITRINE’s spaces on Bermondsey Square, London, and Vogesenplatz, Basel, promote a new model of exhibition-making. Whilst enclosed behind glass, the works extend beyond the gallery boundaries into the surrounding public space. Exhibitions viewable 24/7 and viewing rooms by appointment.
VITRINE commissions SCULPTURE AT a public sculpture programme (Bermondsey Square, since 2014) and presents an array of events and experiences to enhance and support its international programme.
Workplace Gallery is a contemporary art gallery run by artists.
Based in Gateshead UK, Workplace Gallery represents a portfolio of emerging and established artists through the gallery programme, curatorial projects and international art fairs.