PAST-FORWARD
15 May - 3 August 2008
Curated by Vincent Honoré for the Zabludowicz Collection at 176
The outcome of Vincent Honoré’s year-long curatorial residency with the Zabludowicz Collection, Past-Forward will be the third exhibition at 176, featuring more than 30 international contemporary artists whose works manipulate, re-play and disrupt existing structures of cultural production. The exhibition will include important works from the Zabludowicz Collection, by artists including Susanne Bürner, Nathan Mabry, Sigmar Polke, Damien Roach and Andro Wekua. It will also include works from other collections, as well as a specially-created installation by Claudia Wieser and an ambitious site-specific commission by Florian Slotawa. The exhibition will capture a specific conceptual strand of contemporary art practice.
Appropriation and revision are recurring techniques in Past-Forward, often performed with humorous irreverence or indifference to the original source material. These practices reflect a sceptical attitude towards high art. They question the means and ends of artistic production in the face of an increasingly globalised culture. Such themes are apparent in Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard’s Walking After Acconci (redirected approaches) (2005), which appropriates the visual language of MTV to revise and update early experimental video and performance art. These trends testify to a change in the development of contemporary culture at large; they signify an age in which images and concepts are re-formed, re-informed and re-codified to create new meanings.
The works in Past-Forward make apparent their conceptual and formal origins. These origins, whether art historical references or modes of industrial production, are treated without reverence, and are used as elements of syntax in a renewed aesthetic language. Walead Beshty, for example, engages with early photographic practices to map not only physical manipulations but also his processes of production, while Damien Roach references 20th-century philosophy and popular culture in his sculptural installations.
The exhibition has been conceived in response to 176, addressing its multiple layers of history, as well as to the Zabludowicz Collection itself. This will be particularly evident in two major new installations created especially for Past-Forward. Claudia Wieser will be producing a photocopied wall and ceiling installation, while Florian Slotawa will create a vast fresco.
The following artists will be exhibiting: Saâdane Afif (France, 1970), Justin Beal (USA, 1978), Nina Beier and Marie Lund (Denmark, 1975 & 1976), Walead Beshty (UK, 1976), Susanne Bürner (Germany, 1970), Nicholas Byrne (UK, 1979), Haris Epaminonda (Cyprus, 1980), Mark Flores (USA, 1970), Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard (UK, 1973 & 1972), Sebastien Gögel (Germany, 1978), Alban Hajdinaj (Albania, 1974), Mathew Hale (UK, 1962), Elliott Hundley (USA, 1975), Bethan Huws (UK, 1961), Elad Lassry (Israel, 1977), Nathan Mabry (USA, 1978), Fabian Marti (Switzerland, 1979), Kris Martin (Belgium, 1972), Przemek Matecki (Poland, 1976), Sigmar Polke (Germany, 1941), Tobias Putrih (Slovenia, 1972), Damien Roach (UK, 1980), Florian Slotawa (Germany, 1972), John Stezaker (UK, 1949), Jack Strange (UK, 1984), Sara VanDerBeek (USA, 1976), Ulla von Brandenburg (Germany, 1974), Andro Wekua (Georgia, 1977) and Claudia Wieser (Germany, 1973).
Vincent Honoré is an independent curator based in Paris, and has previously worked at Palais de Toyko, Paris and Tate Modern, London. He is the first curator-in-residence at 176 and has been working with the Zabludowicz Collection since February 2007.
Past-Forward will be accompanied by a publication designed by London-based collective Åbäke, which will include contributions by Ben Borthwick, Ilsa Colsell, Vincent Honoré, Andrew Hunt, Raimundas Malašauskas, Michael Ned Holte and Elizabeth Neilson.
176 facilitates and hosts residencies for one artist and one curator each year, enabling them to realise projects for the Zabludowicz Collection and the exhibition space at 176.
Image credits:
Fabian Marti, Drive-in, 2007, Inkjet print on paper. Courtesy Zabludowicz Collection and Alexandre Pollazzon Gallery, London
Jack Strange, Believe, 2006, Mixed Media. Courtesy Zabludowicz Collection and MOOT, Nottingham
Kris Martin, 100 Years, Steel. Courtesy Private Collection, Munich and Sies + Hoke, Dusseldorf
Download the gallery guide here
Download the schools pack here
PAST-FORWARD EVENTS
A series of evening performance events, weekend talks and panel discussions were held from May - August, exploring the disruption, manipulation and re-playing of existing structures of cultural production highlighted by the works in PAST-FORWARD.
Daily Gallery Tours, 2pm
Every Thursday - Sunday at 2pm a member of the 176 staff will give a brief introduction and personal tour of the current exhibition.
Thursday Late Nights,fortnightly 7pm
22 May: Nina Beier & Marie Lund present ‘The Imprint’, a live intervention
5 June: Late night - Gallery open till 9pm
19 June: Panel Discussion: Zowie Broach and Brian Kirkby of Boudicca, Robert Eaglestone, Robin Rimbaud aka Scanner, Bob Sheil and Jan Verwoert
3 July: Panel Discussion: Joan Gibbons, Vincent Honoré, Gil Leung, Gustav Metzger, Bart van der Heide and Sophie von Olfers
17 July: Jack Strange curates an evening of performances by Esmeralda Valencia Lindstrom & Julia Calver, Eddie Peake & Sam Hacking, Green Eggs and Ham, Jack Strange and Salomon Rogberg
31 July: Damien Roach launches the patten AV show, featuring brand new songs from the forthcoming album ’Sketching the Tesseract’ and fully synchronised video projections. Support from tape maestro, Sculpture.
Sunday Talks, fortnightly 2pm
Writers, curators and artists lead in-depth explorations of a single artist in the show, examining their practice and role in the exhibition
18 May: Ellen Mara De Wachter, 176 Exhibitions Curator talks about Walead Beshty
1 June: Elizabeth Neilson, Curator and Head of Collection, and Ellen Mara De Wachter, Exhibitions Curator, introduce Past-Forward
15 June: Rachel Withers, writer and art critic
29 June: Jon Bird, professor of art and critical theory at Middlesex University
13 July: Ben Borthwick, curator, in conversation with Alban Hajdinaj
20 July: David Campany, writer, in conversation with John Stezaker
27 July: Karin Ruggaber, artist
Young People’s Talks, selected Sundays 2pm
Young people talk about works in Past—Forward, leading a discussion about the pieces and their role in the exhibition.
22 June & 6 July
