In The Realm of Others was a living, evolving installation that echoed the makers’ working studio, complete with all the paraphernalia associated with artistic working spaces: from materials to racks for archiving works. The vital association between makers, their practice and collaborators was explored through sensitively mediated engagement within the gallery leading to moments of rare insight, and the opening up of secret worlds. The art is what happens in the collaborative process. Not necessarily the finished object; the end result. The exhibition was experienced more as an installation of the physical elements of creative collaboration.
Through an entrance of archived paintings, large rolled canvases and paper works, the exhibition opened out into a selection of large-scale, abstract paintings from over 4,000 works in the Project Art Works archive.
By presenting these works in the De La Warr Pavilion we did not propose locating them within the artistic canon or valuing them through traditional historical, critical or aesthetic means. Each work was selected because of its visceral dynamism, as a ‘trace’ of the maker’s presence or as a pure engagement with colour and the material qualities of paint or surface. The makers of these works may not be burdened by the ‘weight’ of cultural or artistic identity. Instead they demonstrate a creative freedom that can be surprising and sometimes beautifully and intuitively judged.
The display included works by Sam Smith, Darryl Spencer, George Smith and Carl Sexton all of whom have had a long association with Project Art Works.
Two films were installed centrally in the gallery – Modus Operandi, a new film by Tim Corrigan and ‘No Church in the Wild‘ an investigation of the Thomas à Becket Church in Fairfield commissioned by Art in Romney Marsh. Sound radiated outwards throughout the exhibition providing orientation and a reference point for the works and the way in which the makers and their collaborators work together.
The final rooms offered an opportunity for conversation and enquiry about the people and works in the gallery including a quiet, single area of work by Albert Geere, a painter of ‘homes’ and imagined sanctuaries.
Read Becky Barnicoat’s feature article on In the Realm of Others for the Guardian here
Watch Modus Operandi and No Church in the Wild here
From September 26, 2015
to January 3, 2016
Location: De La Warr Pavilion Marina, Bexhill on Sea, East Sussex TN40 1DP
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 01424 229 100
