Slide


Assembly

Sept 18 - Dec 5, 2021

There are only multiplicities of multiplicities forming a single assemblage, operating in the same assemblage; packs in masses and masses in packs.         (Deleuze & Guattari)



A collection, a set of instructions, an archive, a regime, a system. This is the Assembly. We recognize the power of an assembly that works, moves and thinks together, with apparent order and regularity. There is a potent force in the impressions and sounds of order; be they utopian or dystopian.

We have an innate desire to control a world in chaos. The will to order is considered one of the essential forces driving human behaviour, leading to such things as laws and institutional systems, rational and scientific thought, educational systems, political and public health orders....war. Art itself can be understood as a desire to order; in the development of systems, rules and organizations. At the same time creative thought can be a powerful force with the ability to break down ordering systems And when the assembly breaks down what follows? Out of the chaos new orders are swiftly born.

Through video, sound and physical construction, the three artists in this exhibition present us with the rise and fall of ordered systems; excavating or exposing flaws (or perhaps truths) that explore how we try to make sense, maintain harmony, struggle or relinquish power over a chaotic world.

Elizabeth Price

A Restoration (2016)

Elizabeth Price, winner of the Turner Prize, is known for her densely layered video and sound works combining appropriated imagery, original music and text. A Restoration introduces us to a contrary chorus of museum ‘Administrators’ who, in digital voice, describe a great collection they are sorting, ordering and interpreting from written, illustrated and photographic records. The majority of records seem to belong to Arthur Evans who excavated and then infamously reconstructed the ancient city of Knossos. In his romantic zeal Evans created a largely imaginary restoration. It becomes apparent that the administrators are beginning to share Evans’s “permissive”, creative and often revolutionary approach. As the administrators engage in a restoration (‘in satire and with love') they also create a revolutionary treatise, championing the rise of a new order from the old.

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A Restoration
Biography

I was born in Bradford, Yorkshire in 1966. I grew up in Luton, Bedfordshire and attended Putteridge Comprehensive Secondary School. I studied at the Royal College of Art, London and the University of Leeds. I create short videos which explore the social and political histories of artefacts, architectures and documents. The subject matter may sometimes be historic artworks of great cultural significance, but it is more frequently marginal or derogated things, and often pop-cultural or mass produced objects. The video narrations draw upon and satirise the administrative vernaculars of relevant public and academic institutions as well as advertising copy and other texts of private and commercial organisations. I have exhibited in group exhibitions internationally, and have had solo exhibitions at Tate Britain, UK; The Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis, USA; Chicago Institute of Art, USA; Julia Stoschek Foundation, Dusseldorf and The Baltic, Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK. In 2012, I was awarded the Turner Prize for her video installation THE WOOLWORTHS CHOIR OF 1979. In 2013, I won the Contemporary Art Society Annual Award with the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums, Oxford. Alongside my work as an artist I have always taught, and in recent years have been employed at Goldsmiths College, The Royal College of Art and the Ruskin School of Art before coming to work at Kingston University's School of Art. I teach across disciplines and levels but recently have focussed particularly upon working with artists developing formally innovative PhD projects.

Credits

>Elizabeth Price (UK) A Restoration, 2016

Two Channel, Projected Video with Sound

Fiona Tan

Archive (2016)

Born in Indonesia, Fiona Tan is known for her photography, film and video art installations. She has a rich and complex cultural background, often choosing to explore themes related to identity, memory, and history. Archive is a a fictional reimagining of the lost archive of Paul Otlet the ‘father’ of information science. At the turn of the 20th century, he set out to collect, order and share all the knowledge in the world, in the vain hope that it would lead to universal peace, harmony and understanding. His Mundaneum, a physical space housing 12 million index cards, documents and a large library, is considered a precursor to the internet. It was destroyed by the 3rd Reich and Otlet died in 1944. After painstaking research, Tan has resurrected Otlet’s mundaneum, modelling it full-scale, from a few notes and sketches. This haunting tour of his archive captures a moment between the fall of one order and the rise of another.

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Archive
Biography

Fiona Tan is a visual artist and filmmaker. She is best known for her skillfully crafted video and film installations in which explorations of memory time history and the role of visual images are key. Her installations and photographic works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions in international venues. She has written and directed to date two feature length films. Recent solo exhibitions took place at the Museum Ludwig Cologne (2019) Museum für Modern Kunst Frankfurt (2016) De Pont Museum Tilburg (2017) Izu Photo Museum Japan Mudam Luxembourg Nasjonalmuseet Oslo The BALTIC Gateshead UK Fiona Tan – Inventory at the MAXXI Rome and the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2013-14) Ellipsis at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa Japan Vox Populi London at the Photographer’s Gallery London (2012) Fiona Tan – Rise and Fall a touring solo exhibition at Aargauer Kunsthaus Switzerland Vancouver Artgallery Sackler Galleries Washington DC and Galerie L’Uqam Montreal (2010-2011). With her solo presentation Disorient Fiona Tan represented The Netherlands at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009). Her work has been shown at various international group shows including in the São Paulo Biennial (2010) Venice Architecture Biennale (2010) Documenta IX (2002) Istanbul Biennale (2001). Her work is represented in numerous international public and private collections including the Tate Modern London the Guggenheim Museum New York the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam the Neue National Galerie Berlin and the MCA Chicago.Fiona Tan lives and works in Amsterdam

Credits

Fiona Tan (Indonesia)

Archive, 2019

05:19

Single Channel HD Projected Video with Sound

Zimoun

278 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes 51 x 51 x 51cm, 2010/2021

Zimoun is known for immersive, constructions featuring large collections of identical components and robotic mechanisms that create startling, embodied soundscapes. Each assembly is allowed to develop its own individuality through a dynamic interplay of mechanism, material, and physics. In 278 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes 51 x 51 x 51cm, the artist gives instructions to build a circular, architectural tower of boxes into which visitors can enter. This “micro-world” is defined by drumming elements and strangely ordered sound created. The physicality of the elements appear in the title which itself becomes part of Zimoun’s system; naming protocols following certain principles, much like archival organizing processes. By arranging industrially-produced cardboard boxes according to simple rules, Zimoun creates a closed sound system that develops its own complex behaviour.

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278 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes 51 x 51 x 51cm,  2010/2021
Biography

Using simple and functional components, Zimoun builds architecturally-minded platforms of sound. Exploring mechanical rhythm and flow in prepared systems, his installations incorporate commonplace industrial objects. In an obsessive display of simple and functional materials, these works articulate a tension between the orderly patterns of Modernism and the chaotic forces of life. Carrying an emotional depth, the acoustic hum of natural phenomena in Zimoun's minimalist constructions effortlessly reverberates (Laura Blereau)

Zimoun lives and works in Bern, Switzerland, where he develops and realizes his work with the support of a team of assistants. His work has been presented internationally, recent displays of his work include exhibitions at the Museum Haus Konstruktiv Zurich; Museum of Contemporary Art MAC Santiago de Chile; Nam June Paik Art Museum Seoul; Kuandu Museum Taipei; Art Museum Reina Sofia Madrid; Ringling Museum of Art Florida; Mumbai City Museum; National Art Museum Beijing; LAC Museum Lugano; Seoul Museum of Art; Museum MIS São Paulo; Muxin Art Museum Wuzhen; Kunsthalle Bern; Taipei Fine Arts Museum; Le Centquatre Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art Busan; Museum of Fine Arts MBAL; Kunstmuseum Bern; Museum Collection Lambert Avignon; among others.

Credits

Zimoun

278 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes 51 x 51 x 51cm, 2010/2021

2018

278 prepared dc-motors, cotton balls, cardboard boxes