Joy before the object

Joy before the object was an exhibition I curated (under the name Hoxton Distillery - the gallery I ran with John Hansen in East London) at Seventeen Gallery, London 12th April to 25th May 2019. It featured the artists Brian Bress, Simon Cunningham, Hannah Hewetson, Joey Holder, Anouk Kruithof, Erin O’Keefe, Simon Linke and Richard Paul. http://www.seventeengallery.com/exhibitions/joy-before-the-object/

Joy before the object text:

Placing, nudging or kneading material, or finding analogues for such activities; in any case the medium is contingent: a painting or perhaps a photograph; something halfway between a representation and its referent; or the actualisation of a known symbol not necessarily designed to be made manifest. These are all possibilities now. This surely echoes our own joy before the object: multi-layered - image stacked upon image - or objects caressed, firmly grasped or desired from a discreet distance. Physicality, absent it seems from the bulk of our activities, is present here in varying degrees - in some cases only in a fixed agitation, with traces of gesture in a scale resonant with our own bodies. We can’t quite get behind some works, despite the invitation, but with others we are free to. We can’t touch, obviously, but take pleasure - or stock - of the results of others’ marks, these things, and recognise in them our own contingency, our own analogous subjectivity.

These 3D backlit images of paperweights use the technology of the lenticular to simulate binocular vision. Inspired by German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk’s book Bubbles, which deals with contingent and permeable containers through which the interpenetration of subjects can happen – think of magnetic fields, Mesmerism, the transfer of blood vapours in Classical Greek notions of love, breath in bubbles or sound heard in the womb. The lenticulars posit a halfway point between object and depiction, exploiting the transparent nature of the glass to suggest a perceptual slippage into the interior of these spheres.