Dumb Objects
2009
An exhibition curated by myself and Emily Speed at Wolstenholme Projects Liverpool
Dumb Objects brings together artists who are in the business of transforming and imposing their own readings onto objects; making them say new things.
Rebecca Day, Leo Fitzmaurice, Kevin Hunt, Hilary Jack, Moira Kenny, Tamarin Norwood, Susan Massey, Ian Rawlinson, Rose Smith, Jack Welsh.
http://www.wolstenholmeproject
www.emilyspeed.co.uk
exhibition text by Jo Moore
http://crash.undreaming.net/ab
Dumb Objects brings together artists who are in the business of transforming and imposing their own readings onto objects; making them say new things.
Rebecca Day, Leo Fitzmaurice, Kevin Hunt, Hilary Jack, Moira Kenny, Tamarin Norwood, Susan Massey, Ian Rawlinson, Rose Smith, Jack Welsh.
http://www.wolstenholmeproject
www.emilyspeed.co.uk
exhibition text by Jo Moore
http://crash.undreaming.net/ab
DUMB OBJECTS
We place our trust in objects, which quietly receive us. The chairs onto which we fling our tired bodies. The doors that glide open as we approach, permitting us to never break our stride. The bookshelves, which quietly bear their loads: the plant-pot and the flower.
Returning from the outside world, I take off my shoes, I hang up my bag. I survey my living-room: the chair, the chair, the little red table; the dining-table, the window, the waste-paper basket; the horrible curtains, and, beyond them, the houses across the street, which look like dolls’ houses, quaint and somnolent. Nothing has changed. These objects, which I trusted to be still and to behave, and not transform, or dance around, or float towards the ceiling, have not betrayed me.
We live a companionable life; myself, the chair, the chair, the little red table; the dining-table, the window, the waste-paper basket; the horrible curtains and the houses across the street. We conduct no conversation, but our silence is amicable. And this is how it is with the things that surround us. We look at them, but we no longer see them. They do not speak, and we do not hear them. They are dumb objects – their forms, which are their souls and very voices, obscured by function, worn away by familiarity.
And sometimes they grow old and tired and frail, and we forget that we had loved them and cast them away, for a new one can always be bought. And sometimes we lose them, or perhaps they leave us, slipping mute and invisible away; and we seek for a while and we pine for a while – but a new one can always be bought.
But what becomes of our old things? What are the after-lives of objects? They, scattered seedlike, take root in a state between being and not-being; a strange, penumbral space. We understand that a broken mirror is not a mirror. The naming of objects is truly the naming of uses, which glare upon the surface, so that we cannot reach nor even see the solid thing beneath the name. When a mirror is no longer a mirror, what is it?
We might call it useless.
The exhibition Dumb Objects unpicks the relationship between use and identity. In liberating broken and commonplace things from their usual contexts, the artists permit them to speak in new voices, to take on new forms; to fledge, to emerge, like butterflies or birds. A reminder that all things are mutable, all things are possible; that even the most solid or broken of things may shift its shape; may live again: an act of ordinary magic.
Jo Moore
2009
The Artists:
Rebecca Davy’s primary subject is painting, the seductiveness and sensuousness of pushing paint on canvas. The images she uses, whether they are people, places or objects are chosen in order for her to arrange a composition that is full of luminosity, light, and colour, often with a hint of the uncanny. http://www.re-title.com/artist
Leo Fitzmaurice's work is currently focussed on the physical manifestations of information within our everyday environment. He reworks advertising, signage, packaging and print to reveal other, often surprising, aspects of this material so ubiquitous we often take it for granted. http://www.leofitzmaurice.com/
Kevin Hunt makes sculpture using found, redundant objects, particularly furniture which is reconfigured into something new. This act may at times be premeditated but regularly turns out to be more casual, allowing for serendipitous and chance happenings. The objects used are often rendered functionless by the act of beautification or their function is shifted, eradicating any original purpose whilst exposing an inherent aesthetic that has always lay within. http://www.kevin-hunt.co.uk/
Hilary Jack works across media in socially interactive research based projects, which often take place in the public domain and involve the collection, "repair" and redistribution of discarded material found on city streets, in charity shops and on ebay.
http://www.hilaryjack.blogspot
Moira Kenny works using audio and film as a tool for communication. Taking up the invitation to record comments relating to the artists’ work showing in the Dumb Objects Exhibition 2009, Kenny will enter the private world of the viewer through a set of headphones and found objects classed as Sony Walkman machines. The recoding will challenge the ordinary way of seeing, the presence of her opinions permeating the negative space of the building and the brain filling in the blanks and questioning the thought process.
http://diaryofamiddleagedartis
Susan Massey's work includes: sculpture, painting and video; where she contrasts the everyday with the strange - combining found objects, waste materials and paint to construct three-dimensional compositions. Her paintings and videos often depict mundane scenes or objects, aiming to capture a sense of oddness in the ordinary.
http://susanmassey.co.uk/
Tamarin Norwood works as an artist and writer. Her texts, videos, performances and domestic objects engage the friction between visual art and writing; expression and experience; artwork and everyday life. Against a background in language and translation, Tamarin’s current work explores the integrity of authorship and the possibility of creating multiple narrative entry points and exit points. To this end she applies textual strategies of multilingualism, translation and repetition to non-textual artefacts, creating quietened or ‘flattened’ works that draw attention to their own artifice. http://www.tamarinnorwood.co.u
Ian Rawlinson is an artist based in Manchester, UK. Since the late nineties he has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally. His solo work is focused on the production of sculpture and drawings which reflect his interest in modularity, repetition and the everyday.
http://www.ianrawlinson.net/
Rose Smith takes glee in finding everyday, 'pick-up-able' objects and changing them in subtle, subversive ways. By altering the objects (coins, sunglasses, inhalers, packaging) she hopes to give them a second life and allow their value or form to be reconsidered by those who find them. dots@thesecretprojcts.org
Jack Welsh employs pre existing objects and found materials that are then positioned within newly created paradigms. These hybrid objects frequently suggest narratives that thrive on the tensions and relationships between the materials utilised in the work and preconceptions of existing forms and objects. http://www.jackwelsh.co.uk/
We place our trust in objects, which quietly receive us. The chairs onto which we fling our tired bodies. The doors that glide open as we approach, permitting us to never break our stride. The bookshelves, which quietly bear their loads: the plant-pot and the flower.
Returning from the outside world, I take off my shoes, I hang up my bag. I survey my living-room: the chair, the chair, the little red table; the dining-table, the window, the waste-paper basket; the horrible curtains, and, beyond them, the houses across the street, which look like dolls’ houses, quaint and somnolent. Nothing has changed. These objects, which I trusted to be still and to behave, and not transform, or dance around, or float towards the ceiling, have not betrayed me.
We live a companionable life; myself, the chair, the chair, the little red table; the dining-table, the window, the waste-paper basket; the horrible curtains and the houses across the street. We conduct no conversation, but our silence is amicable. And this is how it is with the things that surround us. We look at them, but we no longer see them. They do not speak, and we do not hear them. They are dumb objects – their forms, which are their souls and very voices, obscured by function, worn away by familiarity.
And sometimes they grow old and tired and frail, and we forget that we had loved them and cast them away, for a new one can always be bought. And sometimes we lose them, or perhaps they leave us, slipping mute and invisible away; and we seek for a while and we pine for a while – but a new one can always be bought.
But what becomes of our old things? What are the after-lives of objects? They, scattered seedlike, take root in a state between being and not-being; a strange, penumbral space. We understand that a broken mirror is not a mirror. The naming of objects is truly the naming of uses, which glare upon the surface, so that we cannot reach nor even see the solid thing beneath the name. When a mirror is no longer a mirror, what is it?
We might call it useless.
The exhibition Dumb Objects unpicks the relationship between use and identity. In liberating broken and commonplace things from their usual contexts, the artists permit them to speak in new voices, to take on new forms; to fledge, to emerge, like butterflies or birds. A reminder that all things are mutable, all things are possible; that even the most solid or broken of things may shift its shape; may live again: an act of ordinary magic.
Jo Moore
2009
The Artists:
Rebecca Davy’s primary subject is painting, the seductiveness and sensuousness of pushing paint on canvas. The images she uses, whether they are people, places or objects are chosen in order for her to arrange a composition that is full of luminosity, light, and colour, often with a hint of the uncanny. http://www.re-title.com/artist
Leo Fitzmaurice's work is currently focussed on the physical manifestations of information within our everyday environment. He reworks advertising, signage, packaging and print to reveal other, often surprising, aspects of this material so ubiquitous we often take it for granted. http://www.leofitzmaurice.com/
Kevin Hunt makes sculpture using found, redundant objects, particularly furniture which is reconfigured into something new. This act may at times be premeditated but regularly turns out to be more casual, allowing for serendipitous and chance happenings. The objects used are often rendered functionless by the act of beautification or their function is shifted, eradicating any original purpose whilst exposing an inherent aesthetic that has always lay within. http://www.kevin-hunt.co.uk/
Hilary Jack works across media in socially interactive research based projects, which often take place in the public domain and involve the collection, "repair" and redistribution of discarded material found on city streets, in charity shops and on ebay.
http://www.hilaryjack.blogspot
Moira Kenny works using audio and film as a tool for communication. Taking up the invitation to record comments relating to the artists’ work showing in the Dumb Objects Exhibition 2009, Kenny will enter the private world of the viewer through a set of headphones and found objects classed as Sony Walkman machines. The recoding will challenge the ordinary way of seeing, the presence of her opinions permeating the negative space of the building and the brain filling in the blanks and questioning the thought process.
http://diaryofamiddleagedartis
Susan Massey's work includes: sculpture, painting and video; where she contrasts the everyday with the strange - combining found objects, waste materials and paint to construct three-dimensional compositions. Her paintings and videos often depict mundane scenes or objects, aiming to capture a sense of oddness in the ordinary.
http://susanmassey.co.uk/
Tamarin Norwood works as an artist and writer. Her texts, videos, performances and domestic objects engage the friction between visual art and writing; expression and experience; artwork and everyday life. Against a background in language and translation, Tamarin’s current work explores the integrity of authorship and the possibility of creating multiple narrative entry points and exit points. To this end she applies textual strategies of multilingualism, translation and repetition to non-textual artefacts, creating quietened or ‘flattened’ works that draw attention to their own artifice. http://www.tamarinnorwood.co.u
Ian Rawlinson is an artist based in Manchester, UK. Since the late nineties he has exhibited widely throughout the UK and internationally. His solo work is focused on the production of sculpture and drawings which reflect his interest in modularity, repetition and the everyday.
http://www.ianrawlinson.net/
Rose Smith takes glee in finding everyday, 'pick-up-able' objects and changing them in subtle, subversive ways. By altering the objects (coins, sunglasses, inhalers, packaging) she hopes to give them a second life and allow their value or form to be reconsidered by those who find them. dots@thesecretprojcts.org
Jack Welsh employs pre existing objects and found materials that are then positioned within newly created paradigms. These hybrid objects frequently suggest narratives that thrive on the tensions and relationships between the materials utilised in the work and preconceptions of existing forms and objects. http://www.jackwelsh.co.uk/
