Exhibition

Matthew Darbyshire - Furniture Islands

2 Aug 2009 – 21 Aug 2009

Regular hours

Sunday
12:00 – 18:00
Thursday
12:00 – 18:00
Friday
12:00 – 18:00
Saturday
12:00 – 18:00

Cost of entry

free

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OUTPOST Gallery

Norwich
England, United Kingdom

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  • Norwich
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About

For his exhibition at OUTPOST, Matthew Darbyshire brings together around 60 currently relevant design objects — from Crocs clogs to Raf Simons loafers; an Ikea ‘Gormleyesque' Torim paper lantern to its Isamu Noguchi predecessor; an amorphous 1960's Murano fruit bowl to an example of todays blob-like Alessi table-top range; standard shop-fitting acrylic display boxes to Kartell's more precious looking cut crystal plastic home storage units; a highly polished rounded-edged sidetable to a wipe-clean semi-circular nursery desk; a sophisticated Terence Conran rug evoking the hard edge abstract motifs of the 1960's to that of almost identical format taken from the Barnard Marcus Estate Agents around the corner and so on….. By reflecting upon old, new, national and international movements in art, architecture and design, Darbyshire hopes to identify some of the forces which affect our tastes and influence the look and feel of where we live. Simply stating the facts, Darbyshires viable compositions of familiar elements strive to counteract what he regards as the reveling tendency of many of todays over-aestheticised and fetishized formal sculptural arrangements by rather aiming to echo and satirise the actual contexts and contents they call to mind - the shop window; the home; the corporate lobby; the chill-out zone; the learning academy; the idea store; the community drop-in centre; the style hotel; the commercial gallery's client room or the public institutions research laboratory - to articulate an indictment of our accepted and evidently favoured preference for globalised sameness. His cross section of desirable commodities reflect the different origins, histories, cultures, faiths, social classes and demographics at play, and through their shared and standardized material, form and palette imply harmony and co-existence on the one hand and an underlying tension and incompatibility on the other. It is through this collapse of boundaries and mergence of origin, history and context that each individual object attempts to unravel, explain, critique and analyse itself and its neighbouring counterpart, and it is through the emergence of similarities, comparisons, repetitions and alliances that Darbyshire hopes questions can be raised and, ultimately, warnings implied. Matthew Darbyshire graduated in 2005 from the Royal Academy Schools, London after completing his BA (Hons) at the Slade School, London. Recent exhibitions include Funhouse at Hayward Gallery Project Space and Altermodern Tate Triennial (2009), Blades House at Gasworks, London (2008) and Colour and Style, Ibid Projects, Remap (KM) in Athens, Greece in 2007. About Contemporary Art Norwich Contemporary Art Norwich (CAN) is the city's celebration of international contemporary visual art curated by seven partners: OUTPOST Gallery, Norfolk & Norwich Festival, EASTinternational, Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich Arts Centre, Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norfolk Contemporary Art Society. CAN09 is produced by Norfolk & Norwich Festival, a regional leader in creative learning, contemporary performance and visual arts. OUTPOST presents for Contemporary Art Norwich 2009 consists of two main strands: three solo exhibitions of new work by artists of international standing; alongside ‘Outhouse', a series of short residencies at an off-site location in the city centre. Each exhibition at OUTPOST will deliver an in-depth experience of challenging new work. This is the third exhibition of three solo shows by internationally acclaimed artists: Lynn Hynd (June), Jamie Shovlin (July) and Matthew Darbyshire (August). for more information please contact questions@norwichoutpost.org or see www.norwichoutpost.org

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