mass. en masse. mass medium.
A group exhibition curated by Alys Williams

Group exhibition curated by Alys Williams examining context, materiality and form; through print, sculpture, moving image and performance by artists who ubiquitously work across media as part of their enquiry.

Rick Buckley, Leah Capaldi, Karen Cunningham, Justin Eagle, Keith Farquhar, James Lewis, Maria Marshall and Natasha Rees.

Traditionally, ‘Mass’ is associated with an historical consideration of how space is defined through the object or through a suggestion of object; Organising and disorganising space and our perception of it. Mass duplication of images circulates via printing, recording, casting and critical theory; digital culture speedily and efficiently streams ideas into the world faster than traditional forms of distribution and communication. Since Warhol, the transferal of mass mediums is frequently reflected in the duplication of images.

Each of the works in this exhibition has some sort of relationship to one or a number of these things and each artist works through a variety of media or materials, which are often perceived as parallels in the ways that they operate or expand an idea; Print as sculpture; sculpture as film; video as performance.

In Cunningham’s photographic diptych ‘Rock & CD’, two objects are presented at their actual scale therefore determining the size of each print. Whilst being reproduced images they are encountered as found objects or ‘ready-mades’. Alike to James Lewis’s ‘Monochromestacks’, which uses the signature Facebook blue on a series of varying scale canvases stacked against the gallery wall, these objects are encountered as carriers of information or tools of technology.

Eagle also works with series – print as object – the canvas containing the marks of a cultural identity formed through urban cultural signifiers and their repetition. In contrast, Buckley’s ‘Hand Entrapped within a mass’ is a singular silver plated bronze life-size hand transformed into and simultaneously entrapped within a solid mass.

Two works encapsulate the entire gallery space. Marshall’s video work ‘Playground’ emanates a repetitive echo of a football against a building. In the video projection the ball has escaped the image and entered the viewer’s space, the white church and boy become two aligned objects with only a shadow of their nexus remaining within the frame. Capaldi transforms the two entrances/exits of the main gallery; she introduces a choice for the visitor, a performer and scent into the space. Bringing the visitors attention back to the gallery, to consider how this space is defined and encountered.

“The end of the spectacle brings with it the collapse of reality into hyperrealism, the meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another reproductive medium such as advertising or photography. Through reproduction from one medium into another the real becomes volatile, it becomes the allegory of death, but it also draws strength from its own destruction, becoming the real for its own sake, a fetishism of the lost object which is no longer the object of representation, but the ecstasy of the degeneration and its own ritual extermination: the hyperreal.”

Jean Baudrillard ‘Symbolic Exchange and Death’

Artists’ Biographies

Rick Buckley

(b.1962) was born in the Essex, England, and now lives and works in Berlin. He studied at the Sheffield School of Art and then at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf, Germany, under Nam June Paik and Nan Hoover from 1989-1995. He has had solo exhibitions in The Netherlands, Germany and England. Recent exhibitions include: The Hard & The Fast, Book Launch, Motto, Berlin (2012); Jack’s Union, Autocenter, Berlin (solo exhibition, 2012); Thames Delta, Focal Point Gallery, Southend on Sea, Essex, UK (with Jeremy Deller, Matt Do, Scott King, Jonathan Dronsfeld, Lucy Harrison, 2012); Ins Blickfeld gerückt, Galerie de Multiples, Paris (2012); Magic Show, Pump House Gallery, London (2011); and Hayward Gallery London, UK Touring Exhibition, (Curated by Jonathan Allen & Sally O’Reilly, 2011)

Leah Capaldi

(b. 1985, Chertsey, UK) lives and works in London. She uses performance and sculpture to explore the ways in which culture influences our self-perception in relation to exploitation, power and the object. She holds an MA in Sculpture, Royal College of Art (2010). Recent solo exhibitions include: Zabludowicz Invites (2012); the Incubate Festival, Tilburg, Holland (2012), Parts and Labour at Camberwell Space, London (2012) and Prop at Vitrine Gallery, London (2012). Group shows include Give Me Strength in My Heart, Copenhagen Place, London (2012) and New Contemporaries 2011. She was a finalist for the Catlin Prize in 2011 and winner of the EXPOSURE Prize 2010 at Parasol Unit.

Karen Cunningham

(born 1976) lives in Glasgow. She graduated from MFA, Glasgow School of Art in 2003. Recent exhibitions: Inaugural Festival of Artists Moving Image Tramway, Glasgow (2012); Sculpture Garden Kritzendorf Strombad, Vienna, Austria (2012); Quad, Derby, UK (inc.Becky Beasley, Cyprien Gaillard, Ryan Gander, Paul Graham, Jonathan Monk, Rose O’Gallivan, Edit Olderbolz, 2012); Hand to Eye, The Project Room, Glasgow (2011); Nationally Touring Video screening selected by Benjamin Cook, LUX (2011); Point of Address at Outpost Gallery, Norwich (SOLO, 2010); Rotate Contemporary Art Society, London. Curated by Outpost Gallery (2010); If You Can Hold Your Breath Ceri Hand Gallery, Liverpool (2010); and ‘Lobby Group Exhibition’, CELL Projects, London (2009).

Justin Eagle

(b.1977) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 2004 and was artist in residence at The Florence Trust, London 2010-11. He had his first solo exhibition ‘A Solitary Cosmopolitan’ at Arena Gallery, Liverpool in 2010 followed by his first London solo exhibition ‘is he, isn’t she’ at VITRINE Bermondsey Square in 2011. Group exhibitions include: Art/Converters!, Studio 1.1, London (2012); Vitrine at Lombardium, Edwin Burdis/Justin Eagle, London (2011); ‘Florence Trust Summer Show’, London (2011); Fabricatecstasy, Studio 52 Hoxton Square, London (2011); ‘Monday Monday’ Cell Project Space, London (2010), ‘the milkplus bar’ Josh Lilley, London (2010), ‘TWIG’ Vitrine Gallery, London (2010) and ‘il alla a lai de l’ail’ Crimes Town, London (2010). Eagle is represented by VITRINE.

Keith Farquhar

(Born in 1969) lives and works in Edinburgh. He received an M.A. Fine Art, Goldsmiths College in 1996 following a B.A.(Hons) Fine Art Sculpture, Edinburgh College of Art in 1993. Recent solo exhibitions: ABSTRACT PRINTINGS, New Jersey, Basel (2012); Boy, Hotel, London (2012); Unpainted Nudes, Whitespace, Edinburgh (2011); More Nudes in Colour, Glasgow Tramway, Glasgow (2011); More Nudes in Colour, Offsite project for Focal Point Gallery, Southend (2010); More Nudes in Colour, Studio Voltaire, London(2010); and Keith Farquhar, Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London (2007). His work has been exhibited in group shows internationally at galleries including: Galerie Chez Valentin, Paris; Renwick Gallery at Art Miami; Hotel, London; Peres Projects, Berlin; Gio Marconi, Milan; CAPC, Museum of Contemporary Art, Bordeaux; and Polarcap, Edinburgh. Farquhar is represented by HOTEL.

James Lewis

(b.1986, London) lives and works in Paris and London. He graduated from MA Printmaking, Royal College of Art, London in 2012 following a BA (Hons) Fine Art at Kingston University, Kingston, Surrey in 2008. Selected exhibitions include: Mostyn Open 18, Oriel Mostyn Gallery, Wales (forthcoming); The bad book, Hackney Central Library, London (forthcoming); WEYA, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham (2012); IMPRINT, Platform Exhibition Space, London (2012); Blue Gas, Crate Gallery, London (2012); Yes Way!, Auto Italia South East Gallery, London (2010). He was shortlisted for The Marmite Prize for Painting IV, Constance Fairness Foundation Prize and Best
of British Art Prize and did an artist residency at Cite Internationale des Arts, Paris.

Maria Marshall

Maria Marshall was born in 1966 in Bombay, she now lives and works in London. She received a BA from the Wimbledon College of Art in London and later studied sculpture at the Chelsea College of Art & Design in London and the École des Beaux-Arts in Geneva before turning her attention to video. Marshall has had solo exhibitions at the Venice Biennial, Palazzo Soranzo (2011); Potnia Thiron Gallery, Athens (2009); Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine in Geneva (2004), Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002), Oliver Art Center at the California College of the Arts in Oakland (2000), among other venues. Her work has been included in group shows internationally, including: Faking It, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (2012-13); Artprojxs, The Armory Show, New York (2012); Kunstalle Krems, Austria (2012); Mainstream 2.1, Angus Hughes Gallery, London (2011); Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, Barcelona (2009); Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, France; and Shenzen Biennal, Shenzen, China (2007).

Natasha Rees

Natasha Rees was born in Caerleon, Wales, and lives in London, UK, working as an artist and writer. Rees has consistently exhibited in Asia, Europe and UK, over the past 6 years, namely: Studio Voltaire, London; Dicksmith Gallery, London; Artprojx, London; Collective Gallery, Edinburgh; V22, London; Salon fur Kunstbuch, Vienna; Centre for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle, Warsaw; Studio 44, Stockholm; RBR Contemporary Art, Tokyo; The Woodmill, London; XRAY/Resoaction at Frieze Art Fair, London; Whitechapel Gallery, London; Dilston Grove, London.