About
The Taste of Stone 13th July- 2nd August
Backlit Gallery, Nottingham
Preview 12th July 7pm
Opening Talk with Ashley Gallant 5pm
Open 12- 5pm daily
Backlit are working with Nottingham based artist Frank Kent to develop the concept of our moveable gallery walls. The exhibition will demonstrate these functional objects under a different guise; focusing on a haptic and sensory experience of the architectural space.
Kent refers in this exhibition to The Eyes of The Skin, Architecture and the Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa, a text that has been influential in architectural theory. Pallasmaa argues against the primacy of the image in favour of a more rounded experience which makes use of all the senses. Kent's sculptural, architectural and painterly forms explore the physicality of our engagement with architectural space, joining the architecture, the body and the artwork as part of a whole experience. Kent is engaged in a practice which begins in painting but which moves through disciplines, evading categorization. These forms can at once be understood through the language of painting, the physicality of sculpture, the narrative of performance and the choreography of architecture.
Frank Kent is a Nottingham based artist whose work examines the lives of his paintings, documenting the absurd scenarios and moments between exhibitions. His works often move from site to site, absorbing influences from their environments on to the painting's surface. Kent is currently working from a studio at Primary, Nottingham and is soon to start a postgraduate diploma at the Royal Academy Schools in London. His recent exhibitions include UNinhabited at a World War 2 bunker in Essex. Kent was Nottingham Castle Open Grand Prize winner in 2011.
Project Space: Curatorial Residency with Carsten Recksik
As part of his international curatorial residency at Backlit, Carsten Recksik will present four emerging
German artists in the project space. Recksik is particularly interested in how societies' consumption of images has become such a significant part of everyday life. An endless stream of production, circulation and recycling from which you cannot escape.
The art world, in particular, is affected by this. More and more artists and art mediators are using the world wide web to inform more and more artists and art mediators about what is really important - the rest are happy watching cat videos. We see what we see through the lenses of our cameras and on the screens of our laptops. Websites, online archives and hard drives are overflowing.
Even the renowned British art critic Matthew Collings uses social networks to send images rather than words around the world. Matthew Collings added 253 photos to the album Art Basel via iPhoto, 10 minutes ago, 12 Likes. Matthew Collings added 153 photos to the album Sotheby's Evening Sale, 3 hours ago, 46 Likes.
A whole generation of artists are influenced by this imagery overdose. Found material is sampled, remixed, constructed, chiselled away, classic sculpture 2.0. Is reality creating images or vice versa?
This exhibition features the art of Boris Dornbusch, Marie von Heyl, Florian Meisenberg and Tim Wolff. This group of German artists seeks to address this question by creating a next-generation vision of contemporary culture.
