Alternative Spaces | Gillian Nicol

Publication: a-n magazine

 

 

 

This launch show for cell project space will focus on artists who utilise industrial materials and/or mass production processes to create just one final piece, so perverting the manufacturers intention for the process. In so doing these artists are reacting to the everyday fabric of their culture, making a statement about its structure by mutating its constitution.

Cell is located in a building built as a lunatic asylum, but which has had various factory and industrial incarnations, so it is fitting to discuss the twisting of order within the walls of a place that has housed the disorder of the asylum as well as the order of the factory.

Time spent in a northern shampoo factory during college summer breaks produced the title of the show, overhearing snatches of comical abuse hurled at each other by the workers over the noise of the machines. It seems appropriate that art that is produced by reversing the intention of its constituent parts is called ARSEABOUTFACE.