Recurrence Exhibition Press Release

For the group exhibition Recurrence at Cookhouse Gallery, Lizzie Cardozo, Simon Job, and Dayou Geng present a wide array of their latest sculptures. Following the Arte Povera tradition of using found objects as material, the artists are preoccupied with exploring the ontological transformation of objects. 

Job’s current practice primarily consists of mudlarking in the Thames River and finding ill-conceived paintings at markets. The sculptural nature the scavenged items take on is an exploration of use-value. Job’s found paintings are turned inside out, re-stretching the canvas in order for them to be reinvented as abstract paintings—shrouding their original aesthetic value. Similarly to Job, Cardozo’s work is preoccupied with found materials. Her most recent sculptures follow a trajectory of increasingly using different materials in tandem with her focus on fabrics. Steel frames, clay rocks, and plexiglass act as support to literally uphold the focal points of the sculptures. The sculptures carry with them a tension created by the contrast of the fabrics and their scaffolding. Cardozo often uses suspension to make her objects suggest their physical relationship. Geng’s artwork in the exhibition shows contradictory materials and their relationship when existing in the same space. A video installation is juxtaposed with the video’s objects in their physical form but stripped of their role in the video; showing the re-contextualising of the objects and how their displays are constantly modifying each other.  

The ethos of the exhibition follows Deleuze and Guattari’s theory of de-territorialisation and re-territorialisation. The negation of an object’s function is inextricably linked with a repurposing of it. The materials used by the artists are found objects that are transposed into self-reflexive artworks drawing attention to their make-up and inherent contradiction when displaced. The curation attempts at venerating the notion of the reterritorialised material shared in the three artists’ work. The artists’ oeuvres navigate their shared central theme of displacement through the materials and objects they use. The tension (literal or conceptual) and repurposing of materials are ultimately an exploration of the fragility of an object’s given function and what a materiality of displacement can look like.

Curated by Tristan Petsola, Dayou Gheng, and Sotheby’s Institute and MADE IN BED MAG’s Saman Tehrani.

Recurrence opens at Cookhouse Gallery at Chelsea College of Art on Thursday 16 January at 5 PM.

Contributor, MADE IN BED

Tristan Petsola