I Would Like to Join a Club and Hit Myself with It

About

Castlefield Gallery (CG) is delighted to present its annual Head to Head exhibition; I Would Like to Join a Club and Hit Myself with It. CG is working with Manchester Art Gallery to explore the concept of Culturefield, artist Ryan Gander's imagined place with the perfect conditions for creativity. The exhibition coincides with the renowned British conceptual artist's major solo exhibition, Make every show like it's your last, at Manchester Art Gallery (3 July - 14 Sept 2014). With his piece Porthole to Culturefield Revisited, that will be shown at CG, Gander suggests the value of keeping a place like Culturefield in mind as a source of creative energy, even though it may be forever out of reach. Alongside Porthole to Culturefield Revisited, CG will present new work by Robert Carter, Helen Collett, Monty, Lois MacDonald, and Joe Fletcher Orr, five Northwest—based artists who like Gander, continually restructure, critically yet positively, the many art worlds they find themselves working within. Gander's complex and unfettered conceptual practice is stimulated by queries, investigations or what-ifs, rather than strict rules or limits. For example, what if Degas' Dancer could step down from her plinth, remove her tutu and explore the exhibition space that surrounds her. Or, what if the government's Department for Business, Innovation & Skills (BID) ran a campaign encouraging imagination among the British population, an idea that will be explored in Imagineering, 2013. The works on display will also highlight Gander's multidisciplinary process. Similarly Carter, Collett, Monty, MacDonald, and Orr each deal with ideas and work across a range of mediums, realizing their work in a variety of forms with the exhibition at CG including everything from a neurological examination of flies, to buying and investing in fine wine. This exhibition is an opportunity for CG to continue its 30 years of exhibiting early-career artists alongside artists of international standing, providing artists with the support, time and space necessary for them to develop experimental and risk taking art. However, this Head to Head exhibition not only puts the artists and their work into dialogue but also highlights the relationship between CG and Manchester Art Gallery, and the role that each play in the contemporary art ecology.