Artists: Janine Davidson | Naomi Sex | Nicky Teegan

The “archive” is a grouping of work that aspires to recoup failed visions in art, and it is [the] arrangement of these works, that attempts, through multiple agencies and media, to transform the no-place of the archive, into the no place of a utopia (1). And yet, art’s historical frame – what we think of as “canon”, is itself a type of archive, one involved in a continuous process of self reproduction. A process mediated through market forces and social conditions of the day (2). If art is memorialised from a particular vantage point, it is because those responsible for creating the archive, define and prioritise this way of looking.

The works here attempt a futile rebellion. Each presents itself in a way which articulates and appropriates the relationships between artist, artwork, viewer and exhibition site, but also uses these relations as a way of exploring the structures that condition them. The works create a visual typology, offering material for further art historical research, while at the same time experimenting with the registers involved in the act of exhibition making. Each work is not a closed, self-contained entity, but rather the product of specific historical practices and belief systems. The Anti-Room works form a type of anti-canon, one that bears the imprint of the ideas, values and conditions of existence, but rebels against them.

This exhibition is curated by ArtBox Director, Hilary Murray, assisted by Sara Muthi

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1. Hal Foster, An Archival Impulse (2004):https://s3.amazonaws.com/arena-attachments/74844/Foster_An_Archival_Impulse.pdf

2. Re-Thinking The Canon (1996): Michael Camille, Zeynep Çelik, John Onians, Adrian Rifkin & Christopher B. Steiner, pp 198-217.The Art Bulletin, Vol 78, Issue 2. 1996.