‘Paradigm Store’
HS Projects curated the second major group exhibition at 5 Howick Place, ‘Paradigm Store’. ’Paradigm Store’ examines the interface between art and design and the latent socio-economic and political forces that underpin it through new and recent work by seventeen UK and international artists.
Spread over five floors and 80,000 sq ft, HS Projects brings together a diverse line-up of emerging and established artists to explore issues of the decorative and the functional through a mixed range of media, proposing new ways of re-considering our environment and social structures. From immersive, site-specific installations and large-scale sculptural works to paintings, performance and film, the exhibition aims to investigate artists’ unrivalled engagement with art and life through reference to the readymade, 20th Century Modernism, architecture, specific histories and origins, as well as the subversion of language and modes of popular culture.
Highlights of ‘Paradigm Store’ include a new ‘still-life’ ceramic arrangement by British artist Simon Bedwell; an ‘art store’ installation by artist duo Cullinan & Richards; an animated rock garden by Harold Offeh; a collage installation of cut-up fragments and clay bricks by Paula Roush; a sculptural relief by Theo Stamatoyiannis which questions the boundaries of sculpture and architecture; a free-form installation by Beatriz Olabarrieta that combines low-fi building materials with video; and new collage sculptural structures by Anne Harild. A film by Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes inspired by Japanese ‘sangaku’ is shown in the UK for the first time, courtesy of the Cartier Foundation, alongside other works making a UK debut by Kendell Geers, Claire Barclay, Nike Savvas and David Shrigley. Other participating artists include Yutaka Sone, Maria Nepomuceno, Ulla von Brandenburg, Elizabeth Neel and Tobias Rehberger.
During the private view there was a performance by artist collaborators Meta Drcar and Dori Deng featuring three female dancers responding to the architecture of the space; as well as a live performance of sculptural objects by Harold Offeh based on his series of work looking at elements of historical 17th and 18th century gardens as sites of artifice, spectacle and theatre.
‘Paradigm Store’ was funded by Invesco Real Estate (IRE) and Urban & Civic, the joint developer behind 5 Howick Place with Doughty Hanson & Co Real Estate.
‘Paradigm Store’ was at 5 Howick Place, Victoria London, from 25 September – 5 November 2014.
‘Translating Spaces’, Anne Harild
‘Translating Spaces’ was a project with inhabitants from Drapers City Foyer in Bethnal Green, East London. Drapers City Foyer is a place that offers supported accommodation for young Londoners aged 15-23, who need the support to enable them to get their lives back on track and move on to independent living.
The aim of the project was to explore the place where the young people live and take the building as a starting point for a visual journey. Using animation and photography, the participants investigated the Drapers building, exploring its visual language and the individuals’ identity within this place. They used materials and form they found there as building blocks and translated this information into new works of art or versions of this environment, exploring ideas related to place and ideas of living and dwelling in contemporary Britain.
One of the main ideas they explored during the project, was the idea of ‘translation’, not in the traditional sense where one language is translated into another, but rather in an intuitive process led manner where they let the physical environment direct their ideas and where the works became curious and investigative visual translations of the environment, making visible otherwise overlooked qualities of this place.
Suggestion was also something which the participants explored in many variations, looking at how an almost abstract form can suggest the idea of shelter as well as being just a collection of lines. They worked with drawing in many different experimental ways, drawing with line three-dimensionally in space as well as drawing with water on a large scale within the environment. Drawing was also the basis for most of the films as they used it as a way to document and investigate the place, these drawings became the foundation and the raw material for the works.
Thinking through making, directed most of the works and the participants let the materials form their ideas, responding in an open way. This process-led investigation was essential for all the works as they became documents of a process, capturing the creation of an artwork over time. Time was important and seems an essential subject for all the participants who are living in temporary accommodation for an unknown duration. Working with animation, all the works are time based but they also explored this idea consciously, letting the works document and capture a process and a series of artistic decisions made over a period of time.
‘Translating Spaces’ was commissioned by HS Projects and funded by the Insight Community Arts Programme (2002 – 2015).
The project ran from January to June 2014.