Tim Etchells

About

Gasworks presents the video 'Art Flavours' and the text piece 'City Changes' (both 2008). This is Tim Etchells' first solo exhibition in a London public gallery, showing work previously unseen in the UK. 'Art Flavours' reflects Etchells' interest in the encounter between different discourses and cultural frames, exploring the potential for communication and miscommunication between them. Produced for Manifesta 7, in Italy, 'Art Flavours' sees Etchells organising a meeting between the Italian critic and curator Roberto Pinto and the ice-cream maker Osvaldo Castellari. Pinto was entrusted with summarising art historical practice through four main categories: The Body, Memory, Spectacle and The Archive. Castellari's role was to translate the concepts into four ice-cream flavours. 'City Changes', the second piece on show at Gasworks, is constructed around a game of linguistic manipulation. Using the format of A4 documents, the piece consists of twenty text works displayed in sequence. Starting with a description of a city in which nothing ever changes, the following texts present evolving and often contradictory versions of the same city. Like a game of Chinese whispers, the initial representation is reworked and rewritten. The additions and deletions are made visible by a tracking of changes that shows different colours for each modification. Tim Etchells (1962) is an artist and a writer based in the UK. He has worked in a wide variety of contexts, and is the artistic director of the world-renowned performance group Forced Entertainment. For more information see: www.timetchells.com and www.forcedentertainment.com