Elaine Tam (b. Hong Kong) is an independent curator, also currently working at White Cube gallery. She graduated from Goldsmiths College, University of London, in 2013 and has since undertaken various curatorial projects in London and abroad. She uses curation as a space to experiment with relating varied theoretical and aesthetic modalities. Recent exhibitions include Standing in the Shade (Mile End Art Pavilion, 2016), Lunch break (Deptford X, 2016) andDisapperance is a trick (Fotopub, 2016). Upcoming projects include Interfaces Monthly and ENTER Media Arts Festival.
Oliver Hickmet (1992, UK) deals with the construction of mediated experience, by exploring the invented spaces we move through and the fantasies our minds inhabit around them. Recent exhibitions include Hummmmmmm, Hilbert Raum, Berlin (2016), Standing in the Shade, Mile End Pavilion, London (2016) and For You! I Would Do Anything, Tritongatan5, Gothenburg (2015).
noot.club is a collective formed by Andres Ayerbe (1990, Italy/Colombia) and Camille Leproust (1989, France). Together they work across different media in order to permeate various areas of contemporary culture, including technology, manufacturing and belief systems. noot.club have exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery, Somerset House, V&A Digital Futures and more recently Mile End Pavilion.
Juan de Porras-Isla (1991, Spain/The Netherlands) graduated from the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, where he received the Academy Award, in 2015. His outcome shifts between art exhibitions and written text. In recent months his work has been exhibited at Amsterdam Art Fair, La Casa Encendida in Madrid and UNFAIR Amsterdam, among others.
Liga Spunde (1990, Latvia) is a recent graduate of the Visual Communications master’s program at Art Academy of Latvia. Her work is inspired and influenced by events, relationships and observations of the absurd and the uncanny which can be found in everyday life. Her practice deals with the mysterious distance between objectivity and subjectivity.
Jack West (1988, UK) is a recent graduate of the MFA Sculpture program at Slade School of Fine Art. His work exists between the physical space of the studio, and a parallel virtual world of computer rendered images. Jack was awarded the Beers Contemporary Art Award for emerging artists in 2012, and is included in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2016 at ICA London this summer
'Disappearance
is a trick' begins with a classic discussion of image-object
relationships. How does one become the other? What is the liminal
space between the image and object? And to what means do artists use
both - either in the process or realization of their work?
It's
a topic that needs continuous revision, as medium boundaries have
become permeable. The photograph is no longer simply a flattened
surface of image. Nor should the image only be considered
photographic. Most often, artists playfully work between different
mediums depending on what is the most suitable form to express with.
From laser-cut steel (Jack West), to printed stickers and Joke Sticky
Hands (Liga Spunde). It may be a floating video portal to alternative
worlds (Oliver Hickmet), a cabinet of fragments of an object existing
elsewhere (noot.club), or misplaced faux-leather handbags (Juan de
Porras Isla). But these artworks do not present themselves as such to
insinuate the overtaking, or disappearance of the image. Images and
objects work in symbiosis... tag-teaming, chasing, overtaking each
other throughout the span of an artists' practice.
This
exhibition for Fotopub 2016 seeks to address and situate traditional
photographic concerns in a contemporary art context, through yet
another exercise of image-objects. What may have started as my
approaching artists via e-mail invitation to participate in the show,
had then lead to an exchange of images and ideas, which only truly
came to fruition in the process of installation abroad. What to think
then of the art object - whose participation and existence relied
predominantly on imagery? This is an invitation to think beyond the
static art objects that reveal themselves in the exhibition, and
understand these also as fluid processes and collaborations.
There
is so much to say - yet so little that can be said - about such a
complex topic that is steeped in histories preceding the camera. At
the same time, the advent of new imaging and communication
technologies is allowing for an entirely different way of work in a
digital sphere. I reflect on how this has affected outsourced artwork
fabrication, planning exhibitions abroad and the great potential of
inviting artists (some who I have never met, whose works I have only
engaged with through online documentations).
Already
I have said too much! I leave you with the exhibition text for
'Disappearance is a trick'. It loosely suggests the various forms
images can take. But in the magic of the midday sun the desert shadow
shortens to recede into the object
of
the shadow - until they become almost one.