Looking at People Looking at Art in the Gallery from the Studio
By appointment only, contact curator@amodestshow.org
Division of Labour Gallery at Paradise Works
Paradise Works Gallery, First Floor, E Philip St, Salford, M3 7LE
Part IV in Division of Labour’s Looking…. series
Artist Kieran Leach’s sensibility is based primarily around making and the history of making. Some critics have noted a conceptual and empirical approach to Leach’s sculptures that could be read as humorous insular activities, in-jokes, self-referenced nods to art making and history. Or new perhaps these works re-address a split that Conceptual Art created in the divergence of skill in craft-based labour and newly recognized artistic skills with immaterial production.
By staging this show in both the artist’s studio and the new project or gallery space Leach and Division of Labour each open up discussion of the shared transnational location of art making and art display, how communities share and develop knowledge.
The artists could be seen as self-controlled worker making art in isolation and at the same time working collectively in clusters or ‘innovation systems’ they, we, transfer knowledge through “flexible production structured around short-term relationships between artists (that is for example; private views, talks, studio groups and parties) and external partners” (galleries, collectors, group shows, talks, parties, critics and curators)
1 Roberts, J. 2007 The intangibilities of form Skill and deskilling in art after the readymade, New York Verso
2 Bain, A. 2005 Constructing an Artistic Identity Work, employment and society 19 1 25-46
3 Leadbeater, C. and Oakley, K. 1999 The independents: Britain’s new cultural entrepreneurs
(A private view event will be held on the 21st July 6-8pm)
Kieran Leach
20/07/22
29/08/22
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