Our piece for ‘a show, about the show’ with Scaffold Gallery in Manchester is coming along nicely, the final proposal is below.
William Cost and Millicent Place stir the art world this month with their new exhibition. Inspired by fictional depictions of anonymous worlds, this fresh take on traditional notions of art does not fail to disappoint. While focusing on the cultural practices that develop around unspecified activities, it attempts to make the things we see more mysterious and open to the interpretation of our own imaginations...
This is a brief introduction of an exhibition by William Cost and Millicent Place, two artists who previously had a two person show at Bank Studios & Gallery. Fiction plays a big part of our practice and twisting the current world into something that resembles its former self but causes a second glance is an aim for the things we construct. Our idea is to have a piece of left over wall text from a fictional exhibition of two fictional artists. We are painting a disparaged picture of a show that is never seen but its concepts and themes described.
The work’s value is in the individual’s ability to discover it, and to invest their energy in thinking about the work and add their own meaning to it all. It’s in the sector of knowledge, which is different, it’s accessibility is limited to those with an imagination. The time it takes for you to get the artwork and then the duration of time that the artwork stays with you after you’ve seen it are certainly linked. It’s about thinking about the idea of disclosure, and giving the spectator space to imagine their own thing, rather than giving them everything on a silver plate.
As part of Luke Willis Thompson’s exhibition at Chisenhale he introduced a screening of ‘Portrait of Jason’ by Shirley Clarke. Jason Holliday was a brilliant figure from the New York underground, rumoured to have sat for a Warhol screen test, which has since been lost. The film, shot on 16mm black and white film, is composed of non-linear takes, in which Holliday, prompted by the director, recounts and performs episodes of his life for the camera. In his introduction he spoke about the strength of the film embodied in Holliday who, despite being exposed to a sense of racism and homophobia from Clarke and her crew, has an ability to evade being fixed by the set-up in one particular rendering. The result is an ambiguous exchange, one which questions who is really being portrayed and who is being undone by this filmed situation. For the content it feels incredibly long but it is truly a disturbing but fascinating film.
