Support Structures is a group show bringing together artists exploring the ‘fixed instability’ of the human condition. The exhibition provides a meditative space centering the notions of care and fragility as a collective responsibility. This mode of relationality evades linearity of time, avoids contractual relationships and instead embraces reciprocity and responsiveness by assembling works which elicit an affectual response. As opposed to adapting a representational approach, the exhibition stems from the experience of relatives and loved ones, the support networks.
Works by Alina Szapocznikow and Louise Bourgeois focus on the moment of intuitive, reconstructive shift towards the interest in frailty, both in terms of the choice of materials and the visual language. For Szapocznikow and Hesse in particular, cancer diagnosis has profoundly shaped their artistic efforts, leaving their legacies inherently bound to the ineffable physical and psychological experience. The precision of Maren Karlson’s paintings abstracts the mechanical nature of organisms, suggestive of ribcages, spines or car engines. The approach of quietly marrying the technological and organic are expanded by other artists included in the exhibition, such as Geumhyung Jeong, whose video reclaims a subtle but transformative dance of a complex mechanism.
Support Structures is on view starting Thursday 22 June 6-8 PM - 29 July at Gathering, 5 Warwick Street, London
