the science of imaginary solutions

The Science of Imaginary Solutions

The Science of Imaginary Solutions

10 June – 17 September 2016

B R E E S E | L I T T L E

Introduction | 07 – 013

Installation Views | 14 –025

Catalogue Entries | 26 – 115

N.B. An asterisk* indicates worknot included in the exhibition

Back Cover:

Stephen ThompsonThe Lewis Chessmen

1872Vintage Albumen print

46 x 36 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Front Cover:

Albert Renger-PatzschWoodland Orchard in Winter

1930 - 39Gelatin silver print

17 x 22.9 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Opposite:

Ian Hamilton FinlayBarque

Circa 1987Slate

28 x 38.5 x 9.5 cmCourtesy Austin Desmond, London

The Science of Imaginary Solutions(A series of objects forming an incomplete historyfrom the 8th millennium B.C.E. to the present day)

Anonymous, Charles Avery, Marcel Broodthaers, Steven Claydon,Alexandre da Cunha, Matthew Darbyshire, Ruth Ewan, Ian Hamilton Finlay,Barry Flanagan, Lucio Fontana, Andy Holden, Yayoi Kusama, George HenryLongly, Ella McCartney, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Katie Schwab and David Thorpe

10 June – 17 September 2016

Object led narratives are the backbone of museological display. We rely uponthem for knowledge of a particular culture, place, or time and yet so much ofwhat we know from archaeology and history is conjecture or best guess. Theprocess turns upon a temporally and culturally specific participant filling in thedetails, evolving meaning and narrative to shape disparate objects into a coherentframework. The Science of Imaginary Solutions asserts the power of objects to tellus truths about human history, while celebrating the contingency of their meaningacross changing epochs and contexts. The exhibition queries the foundation ofknowledge in object led history, picking at the thin division between factual andfictional narratives by giving equal weight to historical artefacts and the work ofmodern and contemporary artists addressing related themes. Moving back andforth across cultures, places and periods over thousands of years, the exhibitionpresents a restless, shifting analysis of objects and their role in our understandingof humanity through material culture.

The Science of Imaginary Solutions takes its title from the work of absurdistplaywright Alfred Jarry (1873 – 1907) best known for his play Ubu the King (1896).Developed across numerous works, ‘pataphysics, or ‘the science of imaginarysolutions’, is a nonsensical philosophy, existing in the realm beyond metaphysicsto examine imaginary phenomena. It exerted a significant influence upon thesubsequent movements of Dada and Surrealism.

George Henry LonglyDoryphoros2015Bright steel bar, copper silicon weld, jesmonite, cable ties200 x 35 x 63 cmCourtesy the artist and Koppe Astner, Glasgow

The exhibition’s oldest object dates from the Neolithic Revolution in the 8th – 7th

millennium B.C.E., the dawn of technology, agricultural cultivation and permanenthuman settlement. The Neolithic stone basin and pestle, roughly hewn from asheet of reddish sandstone, was used to grind grains, cereals and spices, greatlyexpanding our early diet. It sits alongside the plough and wheel as a keytechnological development of its time.

Representing one of the most turbulent moments of European history and theslow collapse of the Roman Empire, a collection of Gallo-Roman, Anglo-Roman,Ostrogothic and Migration period brooches from the 1st - 6th centuries C.E. aretestament to the ongoing importance of jewellery and its role as a form ofportable wealth. Jewellery is remarkable for the consistency of its value oversignificant passages of time, with its intrinsic beauty as relevant to its value at thepoint of origin as to the present era.

Stephen Thompson’s Antiquities of Britain, British Museum, a series of vintagealbumen photographs produced in 1872, record objects and artefacts held in thecollection of the British Museum. They include items from the Anglo-British,Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods, many of which werefound in the river Thames. As such, two historical moments are collapsed intoeach image: the date and period of the objects themselves, and that of thephotographic prints, betraying the Victorian devotion to museum collections andmuseological classification.

Vintage gelatin silver prints by Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897 – 1966), dated circa1925 to 1939, belong to the German Neue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivitymovement of the 1920s and reflect the photographer’s central belief ‘there mustbe an increase in the joy one takes in an object, and the photographer should befully conscious of the splendid fidelity of reproduction made possible by histechnique’. Like his contemporary Edward Weston (1886 - 1958), Renger-Patzschmaintained a search for the underlying essence and universality of objects.

Bronze brooch in a form of a sandal-soleRomano-British, c. 2nd century C.E.Bronze with enamel inlaysLength 4 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

Works dating from the 1960s, 70s and 80s represent the diversity of artisticpositions in the post-war period and connect the legacies of Dada and Surrealismwith Spazialismo, Conceptualism, New British Sculpture and concrete poetry.Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968) was the leading proponent of Spazialismo, whosemanifesto extolled closer relations between art and science. His work Pyramide(circa 1967) is appropriated as a mysterious object, presented here as anunexplained ritual artefact of uncertain use. Untitled (Silver Soft Shoe Sculpture)(1976) by Yayoi Kusama (b.1927) combines a feminine fetish object with clusters ofphallic growths creating a humorous, psychosexual narrative in the Surrealisttradition. With the growth of soft, organic forms an inert domestic object assumesan unsettling and uncanny appearance, while the silver acrylic paint endows thework with a superficial Pop Art allure.

Following early connections with the Belgian Surrealists including Rene Magritte(1898 – 1967), Marcel Broodthaers (1924 – 1976) continued investigation into thelimits of language and institutional critique. From 1968 to 1972 Broodthaerscreated the Museum of Modern Art, Department of Eagles, a fictional museumwhich parodied and critiqued official institutions. Les Animaux de la Ferme (TheFarm Animals) (1974) extends this objective. It resembles the grid likearrangements of educational or scientific manuals, while pairing images ofdifferent cow breeds with the names of car manufacturers. Setting image and textin opposition, the work satirises taxonomic knowledge systems and parodies themodes used to communicate them.

An artist who moved freely between an abstract, material-led practice and afigurative preoccupation with natural imagery, Barry Flanagan (1941 – 2009)contributed to discussions surrounding conceptualism, the emergent Land Artmovement and more traditional modes of sculpture. Lamb/Fish (1975) can beseen within his wider experimentation with animal forms which were anatomicallyprimitive and yet anthropomorphically expressive. Carved from Hornton stone,the hallmark of an earlier generation of British sculptors, the material speaks of aromanticised timelessness and nostalgia for a more elemental state.

Marcel BroodthaersLes animaux de la ferme1974Two sheets in offset colour print Schoeller-Parole paperEdition 75/12082 x 60.3 cmCourtesy Richard Saltoun, London

Dedicated to rigorous classicism, concrete poetry and language orientatedconceptualism, Ian Hamilton Finlay (1925 – 2006) frequently carved stone panelswith an elegant script. As a poet Finlay’s work makes allusive connections withphonetically similar words. Barque (circa 1987), chiselled in a looping font on slate,describes a sailing vessel while sounding the material of its construction and canbe connected with Finlay’s publication BARK BARQUE BAROQUE (1988).

The classical tradition and the appropriation of classical sources informs the workof both George Henry Longly (b.1978) and Matthew Darbyshire (b.1977). Longly’sDoryphoros (2015) takes the canonical and much copied work of the same nameby Polykleitos (c.450 – 440 B.C.E.) and recasts it as a metal armature with afetishistic inclusion of three dimensionally rendered right hand and shin. A TrophicCascade in the Making (2015) is part of the artist’s ongoing series of wall-mountedmarble panels combining classic sculptural materials with modern industrialprocesses. The outline of the metal armature is taken from the uppermost rightarm of the Laocoön (1st century C.E.), one of the most celebrated Greco-Romanfigure groups from antiquity.

Darbyshire’s Bureau (tableau vivant) (2016) appropriates the similarly canonicaland much copied figure of the Farnese Hercules by Lysippos (4th century B.C.E.).Exploring industrial prototyping and 3d digital printing, Darbyshire’s ongoingBureau series freely mix Greco-Roman sculptures and contemporary designclassics using hand-cut layers of material. They form part of a larger practiceexamining the concept of taste and collecting as a form of institutional critique.Ongoing analysis assesses the instinctual drive to amass objects for the home,shop or office, questioning political and economic agendas shaping taste andvalue judgements. Both Darbyshire and Longly treat Greco-Roman antiquity as asource to be freely mined along with its aesthetic ideals, developing newtechniques of mimicry and formal evolution, copying and re-representing them asopenly as the Romans copied Greek sculptures, changing scale and material atwill.

Matthew DarbyshireBureau (tableau vivant)2016Cork, ABS plastic, bamboo, MDF and acrylic170 x 30 x 30 cmEdition 1/5Courtesy the artist and Herald St, London

The wider interests of Steven Claydon’s (b.1969) work encapsulate the exhibition’sconceptual engagement with objecthood, museology and cultural artefacts.Feeding upon a diverse catalogue of nineteenth century anthropologists andevolutionary theorists, Claydon produces hybrid objects which feel both entirelyfamiliar and disconcertingly alien. They belong to a reconstructed time or place,functioning like science fiction, as a lens through which to conceptualise thepresent. Claydon’s ongoing theoretical disposition exploits the object’s potential toaccrete a mass of allusions, transitioning from mundane, functional and culturallyinsignificant to rarefied cultural artefact. Convolute (2012) presents a bi-cephalousbearded bust of ancient philosophers with weathered faces. Fabricated with acombination of resin casting and bamboo fungus, the work sits equivocallybetween ethnographic artefact, art work and geological specimen.

Comparably informed by theories emanating from the nineteenth century, DavidThorpe’s (b.1972) meticulously rendered objects are produced with traditional skillsand materials, evoking a romantic, politicised vision of the dignified craftsman. ARipening (2012) and A Rude Body (2012) resemble discrete sections of wattle anddaub panel, made using oak, sand, clay, hair, dung, slake lime and rabbit skin glue.Restrained foliage decoration adorns both; a dislocated human nipple hangs froma thin, elegant vine in one while an upright, anthropomorphic personage, withberries arranged in pairs along its length, fills another. Caught between Victorianrevivalism and future history, Thorpe’s work exudes an atmosphere of nostalgiaand a Ruskinian longing for artisanal practices.

Katie Schwab’s (b.1985) practice considers the politics of and relationshipsbetween, craft and design. Her work incorporates installations of textiles, video,ceramics and furniture, through which the artist exploits the potential of functionalobjects to explore the values, behaviours and politics of their owners, users ormakers. For this exhibition the artist has produced a suite of new plates reworkingNigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi’s Barkcloth design for Hammer Prints(1954 - 75). This silkscreened pattern, originally developed for a range of ceramictiles and interior furnishings, drew upon a history of Tapa or Barkcloth, fabrics and

Steven ClaydonConvolute2012Formica, resin, bamboo fungus, ceramic, acrylic,brass, powder coated steel169 x 40 x 40 cmCourtesy the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London

juxtaposed abstract shapes with symbols of modernity; bikes, clocks and numbers.Schwab removes these visual references to modernity and embraces the hand-made process of slip-trailing, a prehistoric pottery technique made popular inBritain in the seventeenth century. Wall Hanging (2015) is a handwoven tapestryinfluenced by the bright colours and abstract shapes of the Bauhaus weavers.

Since 2005 Charles Avery (b.1973) has been dedicated to the mapping ofOnomatopoeia, an immersive fictional realm peopled by The Islanders. Neitherutopian nor dystopian, Onomatopoeia functions as a mirror of our own world inwhich philosophical propositions are amplified, expanded and, ultimately, tested.Avery presents two new works related to the Square Circle, a radical philosophicalgroup in Onomatopoeia whose motif he describes as ‘nonsense, in the exaltedsense of the word’. The furniture and print of the Square Circle Chair (2016) andUntitled (The Square Circle) (2011) adopt the craft and design aesthetic ofpoliticised artistic movements. Mathematical philosophy and debate areforegrounded by the objects, proposing the territory of art making as thinking.Fiction and reality are interchangeable in Avery’s project, as in the bronze bustUntitled (Noumenology) (2014) with eyes closed and dramatic mineral crown.Unseen in Onomatopoeia by its inhabitants, the Noumenon is set at severalremoves into Avery’s world, its mythic status contradicted by an earthed,geological appearance. The rational and nonsensical tension of Avery’s sectsmirror the central interest of the exhibition

Ruth Ewan’s (b.1980) expansive practise takes social history as its subject. Objectsare ciphers of lived experience, often engaged with political and activist contexts.They Shall Never Pass Bonehead (2013) is a bronze cast of a plastic dinosaurpartially melted in a firebomb attack on the Freedom Press Bookshop inWhitechapel. The work references Ewan’s examination of the fluidity andephemerality of ideas and the process of transference into three-dimensions,preserving memory. The mechanisms of historiography and orthodoxy ofobjecthood are redrafted, maintaining a living history and allowing historicalcontinuity through the present and into the future.

Charles AveryUntitled (The Square Circle)20166 Colour screen print with gold leaf84 x 57 cm (unframed)Edition 1/100Courtesy the artist, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam and Pilar Corrias, London

Alexandre da Cunha (b.1969) likewise investigates materiality and display,describing his process as ‘pointing’ as opposed to ‘making’. He directs attention toobjects that are often overlooked in unexpected or contradictory combinations,reinterpreting the Duchampian readymade. Ambitious structures are formed fromcombined utilitarian and traditional sculptural methods, calling for new ways oflooking and open ended interpretation, engaging ideas of Arte Povera and Fluxus.Da Cunha presents two works consisting of concrete, sand and bottles,1736070909 (2009) and 1622101115 (2015), referencing a high modernist aestheticwith playful reference to presentation methods, the interchangeability of materialsand cycles of industrial manufacture.

Perception and the manipulation of physical properties forge the basis of EllaMcCartney’s (b.1985) approach. Taking light as her primary material, obsoletephotographic processes are revived through the application of experimental anddefunct scientific methods. Light is used to examine the ‘aura’ of objects, a studythat parallels elements of the New Objectivity agenda and Renger-Patzsch’sphotographs included in the exhibition. McCartney’s unique photogram combinesa form of temporary collage with one of the earliest photographic processes,challenging our knowledge of familiar materials and giving way to a larger bodyof research focused on transformation over time.

Andy Holden’s (b.1982) practise conflates cultural theory with an eclecticencyclopaedia of interests. Holden’s amorphous, totemic sculpture Felt touchesonly observed (2016), shown for the first time, indicates ‘thing-ness’ at work in hisapproach at large, set against the conditions of art production. The oozingplaster forms of similar works have been presented by Holden as ‘part cake, partstalagmite, part pastel hangover’. The medium of Homebase paint grounds themin the time of their own construction. Despite its sculptural solidity, Felt touchesonly observed maintains a jaunty cartoonish character in line with Holden’songoing research into the history of animation, recently realised in Laws of Motionin a Cartoon Landscape (2016).

Alexandre da Cunha17360709092009Concrete, sand, bottle37 x 13 cmCourtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Neolithic Grinding Basin and Pestle8th – 7th Millennium B.C.E.SandstoneBowl 62 cm x 40.5 cm / Stone 11 cm x 8 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The exhibition’s oldest object dates from the NeolithicRevolution in the 8th – 7th millennium B.C.E., the dawn oftechnology, agricultural cultivation and permanent humansettlement. The Neolithic stone basin and pestle, roughlyhewn from a sheet of reddish sandstone, was used to grindgrains, cereals and spices, greatly expanding our early diet.It sits alongside the plough and wheel as a keytechnological development of its time.

Provenance: from collection EH, Bavarian privately ownedsince the 1980s

Romano-British Brooch in the Form of a Sandal-soleCirca 2nd century C.E.Bronze with enamel inlaysLength 4 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

Representing one of the most turbulent moments ofEuropean history and the slow collapse of the RomanEmpire, a collection of Gallo-Roman, Anglo-Roman,Ostrogothic and Migration period brooches from the 1st -6th centuries C.E. are testament to the ongoing importanceof jewellery and its role as a form of portable wealth.Jewellery is remarkable for the consistency of its value oversignificant passages of time, with its intrinsic beauty asrelevant to its value at the point of origin as to the presentera.

An uncommon type of sandal-sole brooch of symmetricalform with pointed toe. Inlaid with blue enamel, five dots ofyellow enamel inserted to represent hobnails. The hingedpin now lost. With hanging loop at the heel.

Provenance: Collection of John Hayward, UK

Roman Fibula with Letters Reading MARSCirca 2nd century C.E. BronzeHeight 3.4 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

In the form of the interlinked letters MARS LL, with traces of silvering

Gallo-Roman Owl Plate Brooch2nd - 3rd century C.E.Bronze with enamel inlays2.6 x 2.8 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

A cast bronze plate brooch in the form of an owl in profilewith head facing forward. The eyes circled with orangeenamel (missing from one eye), the wing forming a cell forred enamel inlay. Striations to the tail, body and wingindicating feathers. Part of the pin and catch plate surviveon the reverse.

Provenance: From the collection of Alan Harrison, found inNorth East Lincolnshire

Gallo-Roman Fibula in the Form of a Flying Bird2nd - 3rd century C.E.BronzeLength 4 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

Depicted in flight with small outstretched wings and raisedspherical head with short beak and punched eyes. Thebody and wings decorated with incised diagonal lines andpunched circles.

Provenance: Private Collection, UK

Gallo-Roman Long Plate Brooch with Enamel Inlays2nd - 3rd century C.E.BronzeHeight 4.9 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The central hollow disc is decorated with a band ofalternate black and white enamel surrounding an inner ringof bright blue. It is flanked by inlaid terminals of adornedcrescentic lunettes set with white enamel terminating in asmall disc of red enamel with a bright blue area of enamelbetween.


Late Roman Brooch in the Form of Flying Bird3rd - 4th century C.E.BronzeLength 4.6 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The stylised bird depicted in flight with trapezoidaloutstretched wings and tail decorated with stampedconcentric circles, the same pattern representing the eyes.The body raised in relief above the wings and tail.


Visigothic Fibula in the Form of a Stag4th - 6th century C.E.BronzeLength 3.6 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The stylised animal is shown with a long head crowned bywreath-like antlers with a serrated outline, the eye androunded body decorated by punched circles aroundcentral dots, short nicks and an incised cross flanked byparallel lines to the back and belly. Short legs stand on aground line decorated with incised lines.


Late Antique Migration Period Brooch in the Form of anEagle5th century C.E.BronzeHeight 3.5 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The bird is depicted frontally with outstretched wings, thehead curved gracefully over, the long, curved beak gentlytouching the right wing. The body in slight relief above thewings the back of this section concave, a raised square withindented cross possibly representing the talons.


Ostrogothic Fibula in the Form of a Cicada5th - 6th century C.E.BronzeLength 5.5 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The narrow triangular body, flanked by a pair of sharplypointed wings, terminates in a triangular head withprotruding rounded eyes; a recessed band delineates thethorax. The pin now missing, but part of the iron springand catch still remaining.


Ostrogothic Fibula in the Form of a Cicada6th century C.E.Tinned bronzeLength 7.6 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The narrow triangular body, flanked by a pair of sharplypointed wings, terminates in a rectangular head markedwith a series of diagonal grooves representing the eyes,two parallel lines delineate the thorax. The pin now missing,but part of the spring and catch still remaining.


Ostrogothic Fibula in the Form of a Cicada5th - 6th century C.E.Tinned bronzeLength 2.8 cmCourtesy Rupert Wace Ancient Art, London

The short triangular body, flanked by a pair of pointedwings decorated by short etched lines, terminates in arectangular head marked with a series of diagonal groovesrepresenting the eyes; two parallel lines delineate thethorax. The pin now missing, but part of the spring andcatch still remaining.

Stephen ThompsonAntiquities of Britain, British Museum1872Vintage albumen prints36 x 46 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Stephen Thompson’s Antiquities of Britain, British Museum,a series of vintage albumen photographs produced in 1872,record objects and artefacts held in the collection of theBritish Museum. They include items from the Anglo-British,Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine, Gothic and Renaissance periods,many of which were found in the river Thames. As such,two historical moments are collapsed into each image: thedate and period of the objects themselves, and that of thephotographic prints, betraying the Victorian devotion tomuseum collections and museological classification.

Top left: British helmet of bronze, with embossed designsand red enamelled studs. Found in the Thames. Bronzehelmet of early Roman work. Found at Tring, Hertfordshire.

Top right: Chess pieces carved in walrus-ivory, 1150 C.E.Found in the Isle of Lewis, Hebrides. The pieces consist ofKing, Queen, two Bishops, two Knights, two Warders(Castles), and four Pawns.

Bottom left: Five specimens of Venetian lace glass, 1520C.E.*

Bottom right: Three specimens of white Venetian glass,1520 C.E.


Top left: Circular boss of British shield of bronze, withembossed and engraved designs. Long boss of shield ofsimilar work. Spoon-shaped object in bronze. All found inthe Thames. Enamelled bronze plate, probably from horse-trappings. Found in London.*

Top right: Majolica dish, probably Sicilian, 1450 C.E.Inscription St. Catherine preserve us.*

Bottom left: Four glass vessels discovered in Anglo-Saxoncemeteries (1) Hoath, near Reculver, Kent. (2) Kent (3)Bungay, Suffolk (4) Coombe, Kent.*

Bottom right: Five specimens of Roman Glass found inEngland (1, 2) Barnwell, near Cambridge (3, 4, 5) Colchester(4) a cup with races in the circus, and the names of thecharioteers round the rim.*


Top left: Four specimens of Venetian glass, enameled and gilt, 1500 C.E.*

Top right: Four Flemish drinking glasses, 1550 – 1650 C.E. (I)satirical emblems against the king of Spain (2) arms ofMaurice and Philip Henry William, Prince of Orange (4)Portrait of William II, Prince of Orange.*

Bottom left: Four specimens of Anglo-Roman earthenwaremade in the Roman potteries at Caistor, Northamptonshire(1) Found at Chesterford, Essex (2, 3) Colchester (4)London.*

Bottom right: Leaden inscriptions of Northern Italy. Greekinscription upon lead respecting a decree, Latin inscriptionupon a thin leaden plate – a letter of Pope Gregory III tothe city of Bologna, desiring them to co-operate with theExarch to restore Ravenna to its former state of allegiance.Dated Rome, March 738 C.E.*


Top left: Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon period (1) Sword-knife (scrammasax) found in the Thames, a portion onlyshown; the blade inlaid with an inscription in Anglo-Saxonrunes being the alphabet, and the name Beognoth (2)Silver ornament with Anglo-Saxon runes from the Thames(3, 4) Bone combs from Lincoln, one of them inscribed withScandinavian runes, Thorfast made a good comb. (5, 6, 7, 8)Silver brooch and other ornaments found in Tuscany; onone of them is a monogram.*

Top right: Marriage casket of Limoges enamel with lovescenes, 1200 C.E.*

Bottom right: Circular bronze disc, of unknown use, foundin Ireland; four spoonlike objects, of bronze, found inLondon and at Crosby Ravensworth, Westmoreland.*


Left: Anglo-Roman bronze head of the Emperor Hadrian,and colossal right hand; perhaps from the same statue, 117– 138 C.E. Found in London.*

Middle: A quadrangular iron Bell, with portions of a bronze.Shrine inlaid with silver, niello, and enamel, being theBarnan Coulawn, said to have belonged to St. Culan,brother of Cormac, King of Cashel (died 908 C.E.), theShrine is of the 12th century.*

Right: Anglo-Roman statuette of bronze, inlaid with silverand niello, 50 C.E. It is supposed to represent Britannicus.Found at Barking Hall, Suffolk.*


Left: Anglo-Roman leather shoes, and sole with iron nails.Found in London.

Middle: British Shield of bronze, with embossed designsand roundels of opaque red glass. The ornamental plate ofthe handle is at the side. Bronze Sword-sheath. Both foundin the Thames.*

Right: British horse’s Bit of bronze, enamelled. Found nearHull. Bronze horse’s bit from Polden Hill, Somerset. Pair ofbronze armlets, with enamelled ornaments, found nearDrummond Castle, Perthshire.*


Left: Medieval ivory triptych made for John Grandson,Bishop of Exeter, (1327 - 1369). The Crucifixion, Coronationof the Virgin, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. Laurence, and St.Thomas of Canterbury.*

Middle: Anglo-Saxon antiquities discovered in 1853, in anAnglo-Saxon cemetery on Harnham Hill, Salisbury.*

Right: Three leaves of ivory Diptychs to contain wax forwriting, 309 C.E. (I) an apotheosis, conjectured to be that ofRomulus, son of the Emperor Maxentius, who died in theyear of his consulship, 309 C.E. (2) an Angel with orb andsceptre; Byzantine work 950 C.E. (3) scenes from theNativity and Baptism.*


Anglo-Roman unfinished plate of Roman enamel, found inthe Thames, 275 – 276 C.E. Two-handled Vase of bronze,once richly enamelled; found with Coins of the EmperorTacitus, in the English Channel, off Ambleteuse, Normandy.Both specimens are probably of English workmanship.*

Albert Renger-PatzschStudy of Machine GearCirca 1925 – 28Gelatin silver print17.7 x 12.7 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Vintage gelatin silver prints by Albert Renger-Patzsch (1897– 1966), dated circa 1925 to 1939, belong to the GermanNeue Sachlichkeit or New Objectivity movement of the1920s and reflect the photographer’s central belief ‘theremust be an increase in the joy one takes in an object, andthe photographer should be fully conscious of the splendidfidelity of reproduction made possible by his technique’.Like his contemporary Edward Weston (1886 - 1958),Renger-Patzsch maintained a search for the underlyingessence and universality of objects.

Albert Renger-PatzschCows grazing with steamship behind (Landscape in Northern Germany)1930Gelatin silver print17.2 x 17.2 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Albert Renger-PatzschBirken am Mohue ufer (Woodland Orchard in Winter)1930 - 39Gelatin silver print17 x 22.9 cmCourtesy Private Collection, LA

Lucio FontanaPiramideCirca 1967Metal, pink lacquer11 x 13 x 13 cmEdition 30/50Courtesy Austin Desmond, London

Lucio Fontana (1899 – 1968) was the leading proponent ofSpazialismo, whose manifesto extolled closer relationsbetween art and science. His work Pyramide (circa 1967) isappropriated as a mysterious object, presented as anunexplained ritual artefact of uncertain use.

Marcel BroodthaersLes animaux de la ferme1974Two sheets in offset colour print on Schoeller-Parole paper2 x 82 x 60.3 cmEdition 75/120Courtesy Richard Saltoun, London

Following early connections with the Belgian Surrealistsincluding Rene Magritte (1898 – 1967), Marcel Broodthaers(1924 – 1976) continued investigation into the limits oflanguage and institutional critique. From 1968 to 1972Broodthaers created the Museum of Modern Art,Department of Eagles, a fictional museum which parodiedand critiqued official institutions. Les Animaux de la Ferme(The Farm Animals) (1974) extends this objective. Itresembles the grid like arrangements of educational orscientific manuals, while pairing images of different cowbreeds with the names of car manufacturers. Setting imageand text in opposition, the work satirises taxonomicknowledge systems and parodies the modes used tocommunicate them.

Barry FlanaganLamb/Fish1975Hornton stone on a wooden base26 x 63.5 x 14 cmCourtesy Austin Desmond, London

An artist who moved freely between an abstract, material-led practice and a figurative preoccupation with naturalimagery, Barry Flanagan (1941 – 2009) contributed todiscussions surrounding conceptualism, the emergent LandArt movement and more traditional modes of sculpture.Lamb/Fish (1975) can be seen within his widerexperimentation with animal forms which wereanatomically primitive and yet anthropomorphicallyexpressive. Carved from Hornton stone, the hallmark of anearlier generation of British sculptors, the material speaksof a romanticised timelessness and nostalgia for a moreelemental state.

Yayoi KusamaUntitled (Silver Soft Shoe Sculpture)1976Shoe, cotton & acrylic paint26 x 9 x 26 cmCourtesy Austin Desmond, London

Untitled (Silver Soft Shoe Sculpture) (1976) by Yayoi Kusama(b.1927) combines a feminine fetish object with clusters ofphallic growths creating a humorous, psychosexualnarrative in the Surrealist tradition. With the growth of soft,organic forms an inert domestic object assumes anunsettling and uncanny appearance, while the silver acrylicpaint endows the work with a superficial Pop Art allure.

Ian Hamilton FinlayBarqueCirca 1987Slate28 x 38.5 x 9.5 cmCourtesy Austin Desmond, London

Dedicated to rigorous classicism, concrete poetry andlanguage orientated conceptualism, Ian Hamilton Finlay(1925 – 2006) frequently carved stone panels with anelegant script. As a poet Finlay’s work makes allusiveconnections with phonetically similar words. Barque (circa1987), chiselled in a looping font on slate, describes asailing vessel while sounding the material of its constructionand can be connected with Finlay’s publication BARKBARQUE BAROQUE (1988).

George Henry LonglyDoryphoros2015Bright steel bar, copper silicon weld, jesmonite, cable ties200 x 35 x 63 cmCourtesy the artist and Koppe Astner, Glasgow

The classical tradition and the appropriation of classicalsources informs the work of George Henry Longly (b.1978).Doryphoros (2015) takes the canonical and much copiedwork of the same name by Polykleitos (c.450 – 440 B.C.E.)and recasts it as a metal armature with a fetishistic inclusionof three dimensionally rendered right hand and shin. ATrophic Cascade in the Making (2015) is part of the artist’songoing series of wall-mounted marble panels combiningclassic sculptural materials with modern industrialprocesses. The outline of the metal armature is taken fromthe uppermost right arm of the Laocoön (1st century C.E.),one of the most celebrated Greco-Roman figure groupsfrom antiquity.

George Henry LonglyA Trophic Cascade in the Making2015Waterjet cut marble, waterjet cut steel, steel brackets80 x 55 x 10 cmCourtesy the artist and Koppe Astner, Glasgow

Matthew DarbyshireBureau (tableau vivant)2016Cork, ABS plastic, bamboo, MDF and acrylic170 x 30 x 30 cmEdition 1/5Courtesy the artist and Herald St, London

Darbyshire’s Bureau (tableau vivant) (2016) appropriates thecanonical and much copied figure of the Farnese Herculesby Lysippos (4th century B.C.E.). Exploring industrialprototyping and 3d digital printing, Darbyshire’s ongoingBureau series freely mix Greco-Roman sculptures andcontemporary design classics using hand-cut layers ofmaterial. They form part of a larger practice examining theconcept of taste and collecting as a form of institutionalcritique. Ongoing analysis assesses the instinctual drive toamass objects for the home, shop or office, questioningpolitical and economic agendas shaping taste and valuejudgements. Both Darbyshire and Longly treat Greco-Roman antiquity as a source to be freely mined along withits aesthetic ideals, developing new techniques of mimicryand formal evolution, copying and re-representing them asopenly as the Romans copied Greek sculptures, changingscale and material at will.

Steven ClaydonConvolute2012Formica, resin, bamboo fungus, ceramic, acrylic, brass,powder coated steel169 x 40 x 40 cmCourtesy the artist and Sadie Coles HQ, London

The wider interests of Steven Claydon’s (b.1969) workencapsulate the exhibition’s conceptual engagement withobjecthood, museology and cultural artefacts. Feedingupon a diverse catalogue of nineteenth centuryanthropologists and evolutionary theorists, Claydonproduces hybrid objects which feel both entirely familiarand disconcertingly alien. They belong to a reconstructedtime or place, functioning like science fiction, as a lensthrough which to conceptualise the present. Claydon’songoing theoretical disposition exploits the object’spotential to accrete a mass of allusions, transitioning frommundane, functional and culturally insignificant to rarefiedcultural artefact. Convolute (2012) presents a bi-cephalousbearded bust of ancient philosophers with weathered faces.Fabricated with a combination of resin casting and bamboofungus, the work sits equivocally between ethnographicartefact, art work and geological specimen.

Steven Claydon*The Book Repeats Its Self / The Handsome Neanderthal2009Engraving on glossy copper88 x 88 cmEdition 1/5 (unique colours series of 5 + 1 AP)Courtesy Austin Desmond, London

David ThorpeA Ripening2012Oak, sand, clay, hair, dung, slake lime, pigment, rabbit skinglue56.5 x 43 x 7 cmCourtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

Informed by theories emanating from the nineteenthcentury, David Thorpe’s (b.1972) meticulously renderedobjects are produced with traditional skills and materials,evoking a romantic, politicised vision of the dignifiedcraftsman. A Ripening (2012) and A Rude Body (2012)resemble discrete sections of wattle and daub panel, madeusing oak, sand, clay, hair, dung, slake lime and rabbit skinglue. Restrained foliage decoration adorns both; adislocated human nipple hangs from a thin, elegant vine inone while an upright, anthropomorphic personage, withberries arranged in pairs along its length, fills another.Caught between Victorian revivalism and future history,Thorpe’s work exudes an atmosphere of nostalgia and aRuskinian longing for artisanal practices.

David ThorpeA Rude Body2012Oak, sand, clay, hair, dung, slake lime, pigment, rabbit skin glue60 x 47 x 7 cmCourtesy the artist and Maureen Paley, London

Katie SchwabWall Hanging2015Hand-woven tapestry; wool, dowel, American white ash33 x 79 cmPhotograph Erin BusswoodCourtesy the artist

Katie Schwab’s (b.1985) practice considers the politics ofand relationships between, craft and design. Her workincorporates installations of textiles, video, ceramics andfurniture, through which the artist exploits the potential offunctional objects to explore the values, behaviours andpolitics of their owners, users or makers. For this exhibitionthe artist has produced a suite of new plates reworkingNigel Henderson and Eduardo Paolozzi’s Barkcloth designfor Hammer Prints (1954 - 75). This silkscreened pattern,originally developed for a range of ceramic tiles andinterior furnishings, drew upon a history of Tapa orBarkcloth, fabrics and juxtaposed abstract shapes withsymbols of modernity; bikes, clocks and numbers. Schwabremoves these visual references to modernity andembraces the hand-made process of slip-trailing, aprehistoric pottery technique made popular in Britain in theseventeenth century. Wall Hanging (2015) is a handwoventapestry influenced by the bright colours and abstractshapes of the Bauhaus weavers.

Katie SchwabPlatter (black on white)2016Glazed stoneware39 x 39 cmCourtesy the artist

Katie SchwabPlatter (white on black)2016Glazed black clay31 x 31 cmCourtesy the artist

Katie SchwabPlate (white on black)2016Glazed black clay22 x 22 cmCourtesy the artist

Ian Hamilton FinlayBarqueCirca 1987Slate28 x 38.5 x 9.5 cmCourtesy Austin Desmond, London

Charles AveryUntitled (The Square Circle)20166 Colour screen print with gold leaf84 x 57 cm (unframed)Edition 1/100Courtesy the artist, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam and PilarCorrias, London

Since 2005 Charles Avery (b.1973) has been dedicated tothe mapping of Onomatopoeia, an immersive fictionalrealm peopled by The Islanders. Neither utopian nordystopian, Onomatopoeia functions as a mirror of our ownworld in which philosophical propositions are amplified,expanded and, ultimately, tested. Avery presents two newworks related to the Square Circle, a radical philosophicalgroup in Onomatopoeia whose motif he describes as‘nonsense, in the exalted sense of the word’. The furnitureand print of the Square Circle Chair (2016) and Untitled (TheSquare Circle) (2011) adopt the craft and design aesthetic ofpoliticised artistic movements. Mathematical philosophyand debate are foregrounded by the objects, proposingthe territory of art making as thinking. Fiction and realityare interchangeable in Avery’s project, as in the bronzebust Untitled (Noumenology) (2014) with eyes closed anddramatic mineral crown. Unseen in Onomatopoeia by itsinhabitants, the Noumenon is set at several removes intoAvery’s world, its mythic status contradicted by an earthed,geological appearance. The rational and nonsensicaltension of Avery’s sects mirror the central interest of theexhibition.

Charles AveryUntitled (Chair #2)2016Patinated bronze, maple wood87.5 x 45 x 44 cmAP from edition of 6 + 1 AP Courtesy the artist, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam and Pilar Corrias, London

Charles Avery*Untitled (Noumenology)2013 - 14Bronze, card, nylon, acrylic88 x 30 x 24 cmCourtesy the artist, Grimm Gallery, Amsterdam and PilarCorrias, London

Ruth EwanThey Shall Never Pass, Bonehead2013Cast bronze10 x 10 x 4 cmEdition of 1/5 + 1 APCourtesy the artist and Rob Tufnell, London

Ruth Ewan’s (b.1980) expansive practise takes social historyas its subject. Objects are ciphers of lived experience, oftenengaged with political and activist contexts. They ShallNever Pass, Bonehead (2013) is a bronze cast of a plasticdinosaur partially melted in a firebomb attack on theFreedom Press Bookshop in Whitechapel. The workreferences Ewan’s examination of the fluidity andephemerality of ideas and the process of transference intothree-dimensions, preserving memory. The mechanisms ofhistoriography and orthodoxy of object hood areredrafted, maintaining a living history and allowinghistorical continuity through the present and into thefuture.

Alexandre da Cunha16221011152015Sand, bottle, concrete29.7 x 13 cmCourtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Alexandre da Cunha (b.1969) investigates materiality anddisplay, describing his process as ‘pointing’ as opposed to‘making’. He directs attention to objects that are oftenoverlooked in unexpected or contradictory combinations,reinterpreting the Duchampian readymade. Ambitiousstructures are formed from combined utilitarian andtraditional sculptural methods, calling for new ways oflooking and open ended interpretation, engaging ideas ofArte Povera and Fluxus. Da Cunha presents two worksconsisting of concrete, sand and bottles, 1736070909 (2009)and 1622101115 (2015), referencing a high modernistaesthetic with playful reference to presentation methods,the interchangeability of materials and cycles of industrialmanufacture.

Alexandre da Cunha17360709092009Concrete, sand and bottle37 x 13 cmCourtesy the artist and Thomas Dane Gallery, London

Ella McCartneyPhotogram2016Unique photogram76 x 116 cmCourtesy the artist

Perception and the manipulation of physical propertiesforge the basis of Ella McCartney’s (b.1985) approach.Taking light as her primary material, obsolete photographicprocesses are revived through the application ofexperimental and defunct scientific methods. Light is usedto examine the ‘aura’ of objects, a study that parallelselements of the New Objectivity agenda and Renger-Patzsch’s photographs included in the exhibition.McCartney’s unique photogram combines a form oftemporary collage with one of the earliest photographicprocesses, challenging our knowledge of familiar materialsand giving way to a larger body of research focused ontransformation over time.

Andy HoldenFelt touches only observed2016Building plaster and emulsion paint120 x 50 cmCourtesy the artist

Andy Holden’s (b.1982) practise conflates cultural theorywith an eclectic encyclopaedia of interests. Holden’samorphous, totemic sculpture Felt touches only observed(2016), shown for the first time, indicates ‘thing-ness’ atwork in his approach at large, set against the conditions ofart production. The oozing plaster forms of similar workshave been presented by Holden as ‘part cake, partstalagmite, part pastel hangover’. The medium ofHomebase paint grounds them in the time of their ownconstruction. Despite its sculptural solidity, Felt touchesonly observed maintains a jaunty cartoonish character inline with Holden’s ongoing research into the history ofanimation, recently realised in Laws of Motion in a CartoonLandscape (2016).

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Installation PhotographyTom Horak

the science of imaginary solutions

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