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Brian Griffiths
The
Body and Ground (Or Your Brittle Smile),
2010
canvas,
scenic paint, ropes, webbing (various), fibre glass poles,
plastic poles, vintage travel souvenir patches, pennants, net
fabric, tarpaulin, duck tape, thread, string, bags, concrete,
sand, fixings
canvas
structure: 350 x 580 x 450 cm
Courtesy of Vilma Gold,
London
BRIAN
GRIFFITHS
The
Invisible Show
12
January – 19 February
Opening
Wednesday 11 January, 6:30 – 8:30pm
Vilma
Gold is delighted to present ‘The Invisible Show’ by
Brian Griffiths.
Filling the gallery space with concealed cuboid
structures, Griffiths considers whether an exhibition can be
an absurd feet of invisibility. H. G Well’s protagonist in
The Invisible Man (1897) attempts to hide his
transformation from the world through excessive bandaging and
disguise. His attempts are futile of course, for in the end he
succeeds only in becoming more conspicuous by the very effort
of his concealment. Likewise, it might transpire that
Griffiths’ attempts to cloak his exhibition in skins of beige
tarpaulin only serve to make its invisibility all the more
explicit.
The
show will be of ‘readymades’, of sorts: The mass produced
multiple in the form of the cuboid metal frames, and what
Griffiths refers to as the ‘fabricated found object’ in the
form of the tarpaulins covering them; these being singular,
touched, expressive yet understated surfaces.
In a
sense Griffiths treats the gallery space as a microcosm, an
enclosed universe of its own. The universe becomes the
ultimate gigantic container: A gigantic beige container; a
cosmic latte, unibeige, skyvory, an everything container.
Within it are stored more containers; smaller ones, forever
non-colour, uni-colour. The objects might mark separate units;
bounded entities shifting through the world, our cities and
our houses, perpetually experiencing others and ourselves
through this constrained condition. Dressed up in their worn
and torn fabric, they ask the viewer to look at them, into
them, to fill the gap. They appear rather make-shift,
temporary, used up, insufficient even, but lacking any of
Griffiths’ recent pop imagery their theatricality is played
out with vastly reduced means.
The
title The Invisible Show flips worryingly from a
perfunctory description to nonsense. It elicits rash questions
and sets the imagination off to freak shows, illusionists and
stunts. As with Wells’ novel, Griffiths’ new sculptural works,
despite all their corners, vertical services, lines and
cumbersome space attempt to mingle in with the whiteness of
the gallery; to disappear, to become insignificant. Lacking
the gallery’s stability and purity however, these baggy and
used objects might only serve to bring its artifice of
neutrality into sharper relief.
Brian
Griffiths was born in Statford--Upon-Avon (1968) and lives and
works in London. He has had solo exhibitions at A Foundation,
Liverpool (2007), Arnolfini, Bristol (2007), Galeria Luisa
Strina, São Paulo (2005), and Camden Arts Centre, London
(2004). Griffiths is currently included in British Art Show 7:
In the Days of the Comet, a Hayward Touring Exhibition at
Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery and he was included in
exhibitions at Tate Britain, London, Hayward Gallery, London,
Nottingham Contemporary, Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow
and at The Mattress Factory, Pittsburgh last year. In 2011
Griffiths’ first monograph was published by Koenig Books. In
2010 Griffiths was nominated for the Fourth Plinth Commission,
Trafalgar Square, London. He will have a solo project with the
Grundy Gallery, Blackpool
VILMA GOLD
6
Minerva Street
London E2 9EH
T:
+44 (0) 20 7729 9888
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