Camera Narcotics

In November 2011 I joined a curatorial team of five curators. The name of our collective is BYXY Projects.

January 2012, exhibit a; was our first curated exhibit together and in my opinion a wonderful way to start the year!

Here are the highlights! (From the setup to the finished Product)

Images taken by Myself & James Bell

exhibit a;

‘…the physical exhibition’s raison d’être must be conceived of as an experience structured around the exigencies of tangible space… Space is the vehicle for the exhibition’s meaning.’

Carson Chan, ‘Measures of An Exhibition: Space, Not Art, Is the Curator’s Primary Material’, 2011

Throughout the virtual domain, the implied relationships between artist, curator and audience become ever more complex. The ease of collating images online offers every browser a non-discriminatory curatorial power; and such freedom – despite its two-dimensional, pixellated quality – necessarily disrupts the debate.

This shifting of the spectrum of display provokes from some a curatorial call to arms; and, once again, the foregrounding of physicality is named in central defence. The contemporary challenge remains one of renovation: the re-articulation of the exhibition space as embodied, yet constructed, experience.

This project, then, exists in an extant discourse, acknowledging the instability of both physical and terminological structures. If art exhibition once implied the display of the fnished work, it has been a framework already subject to heavy interrogation. Both critiques of – and collusions with – the White Cube model have been in play for decades; from site-specifc architectures of a space in fux to the underscoring of its potential for subversion.

Incorporating ideas of exhibition-making as a collaborative act involving artist, curator and viewer, each artist participating in this project again re-articulates the narratives of the exhibition space. In questioning perspective and function, correction and error, the fctions of the fxed display and the processes of authorship, each critically addresses the limits of the paradigmatic gallery site.

This undertaking – it is hoped – demonstrates both an awareness of and a contribution to the cultural discourses of exhibition-making. It makes no audacious claims of attack on the gallery walls, for these are far larger than ourselves – and besides, they hold up the roof. Its intentions are simple: to provide an unusual and fulflling experience for whatever viewer that chooses to attend.

The word ‘immersive’ will not be used during this project.

‘exhibit a;’ is a project that brings together several artists to explore themes of the gallery space, the notion of an exhibition and the effect this has on creative output and viewership. This exhibition will be shown in a white-walled gallery space; the exhibition as a whole will be fully curated by BYXY Projects.

Featured artists :
Bernat Miller | George Ramsay | Matthew Stock | Rei Matsushima | Rajaul Hoque

and the debut performance of Lost/Faith/Art from Absent Theatre Company, written by Eleanor Rodda and directed by Amy Gunn.