PV Tonight 4 July 6.00pm to 8.00pm

‘13’ curated by Henry Coleman and Rupert Norfolk
5 July to 3 August 2007

Alighiero e Boetti, Daniel Buren, Peter Fillingham, Ceal Floyer, Giuseppe Gabellone, Elizabeth Kent, Dave Muller, Chris Ofili, Claes Oldenburg, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Paul Thek, Maija Timonen, Richard Tuttle.

Preview Wednesday 4 July 6.00pm to 8.00pm

Open Monday to Saturday 12.00 pm to 5.00 pm. Closed Sunday.

This group exhibition, curated by artists Henry Coleman and Rupert Norfolk, will run through July and early August 2007, and present a variety of historical and contemporary works within International Project Space, Birmingham. Coleman and Norfolk have reconstructed the gallery’s exhibition space in order to create a suitable environment for their chosen works, which range from floor-based sculpture, painting, letterpress and Xerox, multiples, photography, and mixed media installation.

The majority of the works in ‘13’ were selected from the many objects that Coleman and Norfolk have installed in the homes of private collectors, through their work as art handlers and technicians, an occupation that runs parallel to their artistic and curatorial practices. The exhibition’s starting point came from one of these artworks; Paul Thek’s Thirteen (1979/1980), which consists of a small painting depicting the number thirteen, roughly worked in light blue dabs against a dark blue ground. The canvas’ stretcher is mounted in a faux-gold bamboo frame, to which is fixed a museum lamp, and for Coleman and Norfolk, Thek’s work initially expressed a simple beauty and humour that seemed unusually vital and palpable, even while it was being unpacked.
 
With regard to the transition of these works from the privacy of the home to the public context of a contemporary art gallery, ‘13’ aims to address a more human environment in which to experience works of art, and in this sense the project serves a dual purpose. The first is purely an attempt to rescue works from their concealed setting and make them available to a wider audience, while the second is an endeavour to evaluate the content of each work, which in relation to Thek’s practice in particular proposes a more creative, empathetic, personable, and ultimately domestic site for looking at contemporary artworks.

In an interview with Richard Flood, Thek described the setting for his works: ‘I wanted the room to look good for people. I was tired of going into galleries and feeling like I was in a line-up. They’re all so brightly lit and there’s no place to sit down [...] what a hostile environment. So it seemed the first thing to do was to humanise the environment: then you can look at a work of art.’

Again, if the works in this exhibition are united by a human approach to making and exhibiting art, then they are also concerned with ideas that centre on success and failure. As Roland Groenenboom writes in his essay for the accompanying booklet: in Western cultures ‘the number thirteen is generally associated with ideas around being ‘unlucky’ and ‘bad’ (there is even a word to describe unreasoned fear for the number thirteen: triskaidekaphobia), but on the other hand, it has the opposite connotations in other cultures, namely ‘lucky’ and ‘good’. Groenenboom goes further: ‘Thek was an artist torn between recognition and negligence from the art world, of which he attempted to humanise the institutional space with his work, whether it was through his room size walkthrough environments with the Artist’s Co-op in Europe during the early 1970s, or through his series of small works from 1979/80; whether through startling beauty or deliberately kitschy thrift store aesthetics, depending on what he thought appropriate for the occasion. Thek was an artist who always went against the grain of what was fashionable in the art world at large, against everything the art market dictated artists to do in order to be commercially successful, and with the goal to make the (art) world a better place through his artistic output. Paul Thek intentionally took a critical position, one that situated him between success and failure. He took the stance of the number thirteen – not showing the slightest sign of triskaidekaphobia – understanding the importance of being lucky or unlucky.’

Other works in the exhibition include Ceal Floyer’s Untitled (Hole) (1994/2007) a small hole drilled and filled within the window of IPS’ front door, a remake of a piece that is still situated in Goldsmiths College; Daniel Buren’s One piece in two parts on one wall (1980), which is positioned in two halves vertically on the gallery wall; Dave Muller’s Backstage at the Hamburger Kunstverein, Late June 1996 (2000), packing crates that are shipped to galleries and shown complete with the traces of their journeys in their raw state as sculpture; Peter Fillingham’s The Museum of Christmas (2007); and Chris Ofili’s small portrait The Chosen One (1999). A free booklet produced for the exhibition contains the text ‘13’ by Coleman and Norfolk, while Roland Groenenboom’s essay ‘A Significant Number’ is also included. Please contact the gallery for more details.

Henry Coleman’s recent exhibitions include ‘Los Vinilos’, El Basilisco, Buenos Aires, (2007); ‘Right On, Write Off’, Chapman Fine Arts, London (2006); ‘Memphis’, Flaca, London; ‘Friday Night’, The Ship, London (both 2005); ‘Selected Sculpture’, MW Projects, London; ‘Like Beads on an Abacus Designed to Calculate Infinity’, Rockwell, London; ‘Hollows of Glamour’, Herbert Read Gallery KIAD, Canterbury; and his solo exhibition at greengrassi, London (all 2004).

Rupert Norfolk’s recent exhibitions include ‘Counterfacture’, Luhring Augustine, New York (2007); ‘Crivelli's Nail’, Chapter Gallery, Cardiff (2005); his solo exhibition at Dicksmith Gallery, London; ‘Waste Material’, The Drawing Room, London; ‘Doubtful Works and Copies’, Transmission, Glasgow (all 2005); and ‘Living Dust’, Norwich Gallery, NSAD; ‘Like Beads on an Abacus Designed to Calculate Infinity’, Rockwell, London;  (both 2004). He has a solo exhibition at Dicksmith Gallery opening later this year.

‘13’ comes in a line of curatorial projects by Henry Coleman and Rupert Norfolk. The artists were responsible for ‘Los Vinilos’, El Basilisco, Buenos Aires, (2007); ‘Exchange’ and ‘New Originals’, Richard Salmon Gallery (2002); ‘Light Industrial Magic’, Platform, London (2000); and co-curated the seminal exhibition ‘Heart and Soul’ with JJ Charlesworth, Gary Webb, Kirsten Berkeley, and Roger Hiorns at Long Lane Studios, London (1999).

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