About
Artist Alan Rankle is curating 'Sublimate Sublime Subliminal' the upcoming exhibition showing concurrently at two important venues in London, The Lloyd's Club and the Underdog Gallery.
Rankle believes âa curator needs a vision that goes beyond considering individual artworks, it's in the interactions between works where a new dialogue emerges.' The peculiar sequence of words that form the exhibition title each has strong specific meanings with pre-existing discourses. Rankle hopes to explore the human presence in nature and how we respond culturally in these acutely changing times.
Lloyd's Club, a Georgian building located in the heart of the City of London, will be transformed into a Salon of experiential artwork that promises an engaging journey through four floors of contemporary artistic practice. The location provides an exciting opportunity for contemporary art to infiltrate the walls of the City.
The Underdog Gallery, a significant cutting-edge venue will show large-scale pieces in contrast to the 'cabinet exhibition' at Lloyds.
Rankle is primarily known for his innovation in landscape painting and his recent collaborations with Kirsten Reynolds. Like several artists in the exhibition who work in varied media, Reynolds's practice includes collage, printmaking, sculpture, painting, drawing and the creation of works using sounds, electronics, light and found objects. She doesn't differentiate between her musical output and fine art; the timing and energy dynamics found in music can be visually attached to drawing. Reynolds uses redundant technology with inherent material limitations but doesn't become preoccupied with the machine-like medium.
Rankle places emphasis on the virtuosity found in art, and this exhibition is laden with dynamic correlations between artists and the themes themselves. Ideally the viewer becomes absorbed in a work of art; to a certain extent one can become estranged, unaware of the forces at work, experiencing a sublime loss of control both in the formal qualities of the art and in the sheer levels of captivation.
Bent Holstein's discreetly romantic paintings and prints require the beholder to take part in the act of seeing the unusual in otherwise familiar scenes. Critic Ole Lindboe attributes Holstein with âan almost hedonistic sensuousness and a refined elegance.'
Eva Schlegel's fascination with the risk of unsecured falling or crashing as a metaphor for detachedness, combined with the act of overcoming gravity is represented by images of women and men in skirts and suits flying and free- falling. An endeavour to visually embody that which is fleeting.
Sarah Lloyd states âRankle's work pushes us to be sensationally, emotionally and intellectually aware of inner and outer signifying contexts, to take responsibility for our own thoughts, feelings and perceptions, and to be awake to what they
resonate with and connect us to and why it matters.' Using his artistic background in the realm of curating will afford Rankle an informed perspective, as our consciousness struggles to make sense of fragmented experience through understanding and language. This exhibition hopes to engage with the embodiment of not just the three terms Sublimate, Sublime, Subliminal, but the connotations that register progression and change.
The notion of the photograph as a moment is challenged in Astrid Kruse Jensen's images. The subject, photographic material and memory merge, making the medium a part of the on-going process, thus part of a larger narrative about cognizance and living memory.
Enrico Savi uses analogue cameras (in many cases toy cameras and often a âHolga'). He manipulates light with infiltrations and superimposes multiple images on the same frame while shooting. His work thus, shapes an apparent reality, almost breaking the âbi-dimensionality' shown on photographic paper. Savi's research is based primarily on the interpretation of diversity that moulds each distinctive experience, with an interest in process not simply a reproduction.
Words by Megan Conery
