Information below about an exhibition which I have curated and organised, at Chelsea College of Art & Design:

some undisclosed points of remove
Melanie Counsell, Sara MacKillop, Anne Tallentire, Sabine Tholen, Joëlle Tuerlinckx

Old College Library, Chelsea College of Art & Design, University of the Arts London
19 April  – 13 May 2013

An exhibition of work by five artists based in the UK and Europe, all of whom are represented in the collection of artists’ books and exhibition catalogues at Chelsea College of Art & Design. Taking place in Chelsea’s Old College Library, the project’s starting point was a selection of publications with each artist invited to contribute an additional work, to be installed in the space together. ’some undisclosed points of remove’ is the result of that invitation and includes several pieces made specifically for the occasion.

The selection of these five artists is but a fraction of all those represented in Chelsea’s Special Collections, yet it is a grouping that quietly demanded to be seen together. Several comparable interests run through their respective practices: the specifics of space, with its ‘languages’ and temporal dimensions; the conditions of viewing; and modes of dissemination and display. In the exploration of these ideas, each of the artists draws on a sensibility that combines an intuitive, associative approach with a distinct formal precision and material economy. Together the works in this project mark out a dialogue, both assured and tacit, with the Old College Library space itself: a paneled, balconied room and the original library of the military medical college, built 1904, whose extended buildings Chelsea occupies today.

Offering an insight into five artistic practices, the exhibition prompts questions about the nature of site-responsivity and contemporary readings of institutional/spatial critique. And, against a backdrop of a resurgent interest in artists’ publications, the show invites a discursive look at the relationship between books and wider creative practice.

Melanie Counsell (b. Cardiff, 1964) lives and works in London. Recent exhibitions include solo projects at Works Projects, Bristol; and Galerie Jennifer Flay, Paris; as well as group exhibitions at Glyndŵr University, Wrexham; and FRAC des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou. She has undertaken several commissions for public institutions including Chapter in Cardiff and Artangel, London. In 2007 she was the recipient of a Sargant Fellowship at the British School at Rome.
Sara MacKillop (b. Bromley, 1973) lives and works in London. She has recently exhibited at Clockwork Gallery, Berlin; Spike Island, Bristol; White Columns, New York; DCA, Dundee; Salle de Bains, Lyon; and Jessica Bradley Art & Projects, Toronto.
Sabine Tholen (b. Bonn, 1974) is based in Geneva. Recent projects include solo exhibitions at Ribordy Contemporary and Stargazer, both in Geneva; and group shows at Espace Kugler, Geneva; Aargauer Kunsthaus, Aarau; Villa Bernasconi, Grand-Lancy; and the Centre pour la Photographie, Geneva.
Anne Tallentire (b. Ireland, 1949) lives and works in London. Recent solo exhibitions and projects include Hollybush Gardens, London; the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin; Picture This, Bristol; and Object of a Life, published by Copy Press, 2013. She was the sole representative for Ireland at the 1999 Venice Biennale. Recent group shows include The Technical Museum, Vienna and La Galerie and Contemporary Art Centre, Noisy-Le-Sec, Paris.
Joëlle Tuerlinckx (b. Brussels, 1958) is based in Brussels where she has recently had her first retrospective exhibition at Wiels Contemporary Art Centre, showing at Munich’s Haus der Kunst from June 2013. Other recent solo projects include exhibitions at Galerie nächst St. Stephan, Vienna; Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin; Stella Lohaus Gallery, Antwerp; and the Sabatini Building & Palacio de Cristal, Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid.

Opening hours: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday 9.30am – 7.30pm; Wednesday 10.00am – 7.30pm; Friday 9.30am – 5.00pm; Saturday 10.00am – 3.45pm

Two images, one being in itself a ‘two’: A photograph, printed in positive but with its iridescent, inflated whites swimming and lightly bursting over its surface, somehow taking on the character of an image seen in negative. A motif that reminds me of the possibility (the need?) for things to reside between one state and another. A small image in a book, two circles cut out from coloured squares – a cool yellow and an earthy red. Suggesting themselves at first glance as one another’s inverse (reminiscent in their form, with their little shadowed arcs, of a ying and yang). But, not quite: merely somewhere on a spectrum of alike and different. It’s ‘that’ space again… of the composite or between.

Circle wall tiles by Peggy Angus. From Arber, Katie: Patterns for post-war Britain; the tile designs of Peggy Angus (Middlesex University Press, 2002).
View from window of Casa Morandi, Bologna, Saturday 25th September 2010

“The documents relating to the course [...] comprise four bundles of around eight hundred little notecards altogether, containing the bibliographic indications, some summaries, notes, and projects on abandoned ‘figures’, the whole accompanied by several commentaries; a series of cassettes and computer disks (around twenty) on which are recorded the quasi-totality of the twenty-six hours of oral presentation; and finally, of course, the manuscript of the course properly speaking, which takes up 180 pages written in blue ink on sheets of 21 x 29.7cm. The writing, regular and legible, is dense. It takes almost all the page, which nevertheless includes a larger left-hand margin that Barthes uses to indicate the references to the texts he cites (name of author, page of the book), to underscore the key term of the page or paragraph or to indicate in one word the point of his argument. These marginalia, like those he used in ‘A Lover’s Discourse’, guide the reading of the main text, in an exercise of clarity and orientation, but they attest well to Barthes’ involvement in an aesthetic use of the layout of the page.”

Extract from Thomas Clerc’s preface for The Neutral, Columbia University Press, 2005

Image credits: Miller, N; Abramowicz, J.