Lala Crafford
Out of context, a group exhibition featuring works from various disciplines by Dirk Bahmann, Maaike Bakker, Mia Chaplin, Ruann Colemann, Lala Crafford, Jayne Crawshay-Hall, Herman de Klerk, Isabella Knemeyer, Allen Laing, Maja Maljevic and Stefan Riebel opens at the University of Johannesburg (UJ) Gallery on 22 April 2015 and runs until 20 May 2015.
Referencing French philosopher, Michel Foucault who indicated that “there can be no constants, no essences and no immobile forms of uninterrupted continuities” (adapted from Foucault 1976), this show, explores the very system, or act, of curating whereby items are re-installed, re-hashed and revised to construct new meaning.
Out of context questions to what extent installation influences the making and remaking of knowledge, exploring the boundaries imposed by the construct of ‘the exhibition’ and thereby breaking down a system which once was. In conjunction, the artists themselves explore the dynamic relationship between contexts and constructs within their work. The featured works respond to the notion of useless systems, and the idea of extracting components no longer representative of their source.
As artists work within the confines of art-making, an artwork forms part of the artist’s system of expression. Extracting work from this system inspires a new construction of knowledge – represented by the exhibition itself – where the curator’s agenda is established. Thus, the work is repositioned, setting a game of broken telephone into motion. The artist’s system is deconstructed, rendered both dysfunctional and functional within the new system of meaning.
As such, Out of context explores to what extent the extraction of work from a singular system can be considered as a revision of knowledge, to what extent the installation can be considered as an activator of knowledge, and to what extent the exhibition as a whole can be seen as a devisor of knowledge.
The guest curators of this show are Maaike Bakker, UJ Alumna (FADA) and recipient of the Chancellor’s Medal 2014, and Jayne Crawshay-Hall.
More: VISUAL ART EXHIBITION: OUT OF CONTEXT – MyPR.
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