UPSIDE DOWN BUCKET GROUP EXHIBITION 2020
UPSIDE DOWN BUCKET GROUP EXHIBITION 2019 & 2020
Co-curated by Parham Ghalamdar and Fischer Mustin
Exhibition statement written by Jenny Eden
Friday 28th February to Thursday 19th March 2020
PV Thursday 27th February, 6-9pm
It seems ridiculous to attempt something knowing it will inevitably fail, doesn’t it? Futile behaviour, right? Tragic, yes? …but how irresistibly refreshing. Humorous. Welcome to the situation of painting today.
Let me introduce you to the artists [arm stretches out, Kaufman-style];
Torin Baguley, Stephen Barr, Jenny Eden, Ellis Edwards, Parham Ghalamdar, Megan Lee-Davies, Fischer Mustin, Andy Pomykalski
This exhibition is significant. It is on point. It exemplifies, through a selection of paintings, the latest and most noteworthy analysis of contemporary art practice - metamodernism.
In their seminal text ‘Notes on Metamodernism’, cultural philosophers Timotheus Vermeulen and Robin van den Akker examine our cultural landscape, saying it can no longer be determined by postmodern discourse. Instead, a new modernism has taken shape, which bursts with enthusiasm and optimism, sincerity and authenticity, away from the irony and multiplicity of being fully postmodern (Vermeulen and van den Akker, 2010).
However, everything is not rosy [did you actually expect that?]. The fundamental hallmark of this restructured modernism is that each characteristic co-exists with its opposite; enthusiasm is coupled with a permeating apathy; sincerity is also mealymouthed and cynically slippery.
Contemporary art is thought to occupy the oscillating space between these opposing poles, in what’s called a “both-neither’ dynamic”. Paintings can be both enthusiastic and apathetic, and neither of these things. This is the case for the paintings in this show – that is why they are on point. They are right on the money. These paintings are suspended in a “here, there and nowhere” scenario, a metaxis, like twitchy laughter at an Andy Kaufman show when the audience is unsure if they should laugh along, be deeply concerned or get up and go to the loo.
Kaufman knew what he was doing. He wanted you to go in, around and out of the joke. He forced you to consider what should and shouldn’t be part his act and occupy a tense in-between mind-space. He provided a mirror of our own less than conscious fears of failure, allowing comedy to play on the circumstances of the unconscious self (Christopher Bollas, 2011). Above all, Kaufman wanted you to see that failing is as necessary as not failing, and in simultaneity these conditions are very, very funny.
Upside Down Bucket is a collection of paintings by final year students and alumni from Manchester School of Art, plus special guests. The title of the exhibition epitomises the aforementioned fail turned good principle. It suggests a failed object – how can a bucket be used as a bucket when it’s upside down? – and a successful object which has accepted its deficiency and rendered new uses. Now the bucket could be something to stand on, put things on or put on your head like a hat.
These paintings are imbued with similar paradoxical metaphors, opened up by a metamodern discourse to the extent that humour is regarded, by these artists, as a vital element of painting today.
[We hope you enjoy the show...]
ٍExhibition statement written by Jenny Eden
UPSIDE DOWN BUCKET GROUP EXHIBITION AT OCEANS APART IN 2019
UPSIDE DOWN BUCKET GROUP EXHIBITION AT P.S. MIRABEL IN 2020
