Getting the Corners
Martin Boyce, Martin Creed, Angela de la Cruz, Jeremy Deller, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Lucy Gunning, Dean Hughes, Gareth Jones , Jeff Luke, David Shrigley, Jemima Stehli, T.S.U. Toronadoes
Curated by: Matthew Higgs (Guest Curator), Reid Shier (Director Curator)
Despite significant historical precendents the corner as ‘site’ has deftly avoided both academic and historical scrutiny. Positioned at the juncture between a painting ‘space’ (the wall) and a sculptural ‘space’ (the floor) the corner as a site has traditionally been regarded as no more than a mere curiosity within the development of 20the century art history, yet it remains a site to which artists continually return.
In Getting the Corners our traditional orientation of the gallery space is inverted, In moving away from the centre to the periphery the works inevitably adopt a less determined role for themselves, regecting the ‘spectacular’ nature of a traditional presentation, preferring instead to operate as if by ‘stealth’. The works in Getting the Corners – for the most part discrete, unassuming and sleight – consciously accept their diminished status. Getting the Corners makes no claims on history, rather it operates as a partial survey of the varying responses by a group of young British artists (all of whom are working within the twin legacies of minimal and conceptual practice) to this problematic scenario.