WEDNESDAY 12TH OCT - SATURDAY 12TH NOV 2011 PRIVATE VIEW - Saturday 15th Oct 6pm
Curated by Gil Leung
Stuart Baker, Andrea Buettner, Liang & Liang, Charles Lofton, James Richards, Ben Vickers
ON VALUE looks at the highs and lows of value's fluctuating cultural and economic form through the problem of judgment. Between use-value, value for money and moral values, the term remains ambiguous. The process of exchange is itself based upon a propensity for error and difference of opinion, where even currencies are dependent on their commodity status(1). Such vagueness around how and what we value spurs speculation as well as abuses of labour. This is particularly prevalent in cases where self-subsidised labour is traded at a loss for some form of exposure and theoretical appreciation in value. That value is so unstable and affected by judgement means that the current worth of something is generally either referred to a past market verifier or deferred to a future speculative one. Valuing anything more indeterminate that cannot be measured in some way against these referents becomes a risk. In this sense, how and what we value could be considered a problem of judgment rather than measurement - how we judge ourselves and other things.
From consensual verification to dissenting opposition, fashionable reference to obsolete currency, there is a constant fear of being judged and at the same time a fear of judging. Yet, judgement itself, having an opinion, is also having a voice. Resignation - the giving up of opinion or avoidance of judgement - does not necessarily change conditions for the better but rather perpetuates existing ones. To value without pre-validation, is, in some sense then, to take a radical and also potentially shameful position. One that is less about being right or even wrong but more about speaking up for something that speaks to you.
All works courtesy of the artists. With thanks to LUX, London.
Wednesday 12th Oct - Saturday 12th Nov 2011
DIAMOND GRILL OLIVER LARIC
The exhibition title is taken from the 1996 book of the same name by Fed Wah, which is a series of writings about his ChineseHYPHENCanadian upbringing. In Diamond Grill, Wah emphasizes the hyphen as it opens up new combinations, a space for 'mongrels and hybrids' and those 'living in the hyphen'. Homi Bhabha states that the hyphen 'gives rise to something different, something new and unrecognizable, a new area of negotiation of meaning and representation.'
Laric has registered a new hybrid orchid with the Royal Horticultural Society, named after the Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. The work is presented as living orchid in the space, as a photographic print roughly framed in OSB board and as a stack of printed postcards. The work is in response to the naming of an orchid after the Burmese president, Thein Sein, in honour of his 2009 visit to Singapore, which lead to international protest. The new hybrids full name is Doritaenopsis Aung San Suu Kyi, Doritaenopsis being an intergeneric hybrid between the orchid genera Doritis and Phalaenopsis.
Flanking the orchid are a number of wall-based panels that employ overlapping layers of small circular holograms. Commissioned by the artist, these holograms were produced in their thousands by factories in Shenzhen, China. The region is renowned for manufacturing and production of both official and bootleg goods. The hologram stickers contain imagery in the decorative Guilloche style, commonly used to convey originality when authenticating products, visa documents, certificates and paper money. The holograms also contain depictions of artworks that have been made widely familiar through excessive reproduction and mediation, such as Rodin's Thinker. One hologram depicts the blueprint of the Ise shrine, a Japanese Shinto shrine that has been ritually destroyed and rebuilt every twenty years since 690 A.D.
substantial pile of sealed Police evidence bags completes the show. The transparent sacks contain hundreds of seized bootleg DVD and CDs, kindly provided for the exhibition by the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT). The bootlegs were seized from various sources in the North west of England and having been processed as evidence were to be officially destroyed and further recycled. Having diverted and exhibited the disks, Laric intends to shred and recycle the material, modifying them into further incarnations in a future exhibition.
We would like to thank FACT for their help in making this exhibition possible.
