Building Up-Not Tearing Down
tactileBOSCH Gallery & Studios
11th – 18th December
Building Up–Not Tearing Down is the result of a four-day residency involving six young artists from Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff. As a conclusion to the series of city visits ending with December eleven the residency is an attempt to create a microcosm, or Petri dish experiment of what might happen if the three cities worked together in the realisation of an exhibition or project. The invited artists were granted complete freedom to chose their thematic remit, manipulate the fabric of the building and decide how much they would co-operate with each other.
As an exhibition space tactileBOSCH is predominantly known for performance and installation, work that by its very nature often leaves small remnants once the performance has concluded or the installation deconstructed. Many of these small reminders such as stray splashes of paint, dents in the walls and floors, hooks and pulleys in the ceiling often remain untouched during the post-exhibition clean up due to the vastness of the gallery and thus become more permanent then the original artwork. The six artists have continued in this process of augmentation and supplementation of the venue through creating a selection of delicate and unobtrusive works throughout the gallery, many of which could remain well into the future.
The artworks of Building up-Not Tearing Down do not hold an overt presence in the space nor are they pointed out through a map or set of plaques but instead the audience must search the vast space for each artists multiple contributions. It is during this process of exploration that they themselves will also become better equated with the fabric of the building that is itself a palimpsest of architectural and aesthetic features. The collaborative nature that the artists have approached in the making of the exhibition, to the extent of creating secrecy that excluded the residency organisers from knowing much of what they planned, perhaps provides a glimpse of what the Birmingham, Bristol and Cardiff trinity could become.
Curators: Neil Jefferies & WARP
Artists: Rhys Core, Fraser Cook, Sarah Farmer, Joanne Masding, Alistair Owen, Jason Pinder