BEHIND
allsopp&weir, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Simon Evans, Sven Johne, David Maljkovic, Laura Lancaster, Damien Roach, Agathe Snow, Sue Tompkins, Bedwyr Williams
Monitor gallery is pleased to open its 2008-9 season with Behind, curated by Ilaria Gianni. This group show featuring several international artists takes a groundbreaking artistic and curatorial approach by placing completed artworks alongside elements from the preceding stages in the creative process, with a view to analysing the process that leads up to the creation of a work.
Behind has involved artists from diverse backgrounds, with different research methods and interests.The show will feature the documentation, archive material, sources, references, data and impressions behind each of the works included in the exhibition.
More than an exhibition in the traditional sense, Behind strives to be a kind of ‘cabinet’ displaying a critical strategy behind the artistic process itself. As Dominic Eichler states so eloquently, “even though art works aren’t generally footnoted, references are now more than ever used as artistic material like lumps of clay to a potter” (Frieze #117, September 2008).
allsopp&weir, Nina Beier & Marie Lund, Simon Evans, Sven Johne, David Maljkovic, Laura Lancaster, Damien Roach, Agathe Snow, Sue Tompkins and Bedwyr Williams were all asked to reason out the creative process that culminated in their works by retracing their individual stages of artistic research.The artists reacted to this input by questioning their methods, rethinking their actions and shedding light on their moments of profoundest thought.
Sven Johne, Nina Beier&Marie Lund, David Maljkovic and Laura Lancaster responded to the Behind concept by opening up their archives, collections and essential research behind their works, while Agathe Snow and allsopp&weir revealed the cultural references and characters that provided them with inspiration. Sue Tompkins, Bedwyr Williams and Damien Roach on the other hand focused on the completion process of their pieces.
From the diverse feedback provoked by Behind it has emerged that this show is above all a reflection on method, on process as a concept and a look into the very personality of the artist.
With the support of Residence Barberini, Rome
