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29/7/2011

Two exhibitions

Ibid Projects, London

A space without a use
Curated by Ariella Yedgar

Flavio Favelli
Anthea Hamilton
Liang & Liang
Amalia Pica
Laure Prouvost

‘A space without a use’ is an exhibition inspired by one room. Since 2009, IBID has occupied the recently vacated three-storey workshop of Kashket & Partners, former hatters to the royal court of Russia and, more recently, appointed manufacturers of coats and uniforms to Queen Elizabeth II. Remnants of the building’s former function abound, from the faux wood-panelled showroom and clocking-in machine to the clothes presses in the back room. Like a townhouse, each chamber has a different function and character. There is a particular room that could be said to produce ‘a statute of the inhabitable’; a useless room: part manager's office, part washroom, a metal door adorning the chimney breast. It is long and narrow, and bathed in natural light. Inside this space, the works in the exhibition emphasise the ‘a-functional’, and stand for what might have populated what George Perec called an 'unattainable space'. They are themselves stand- ins or representations for things that have gone, are not yet possible or never spoken of. Located at the room’s entrance, Anthea Hamilton’s double-sided moveable screen alters the very nature of the exhibition space as it covers or uncovers the doorway, depending on the activities taking place on the film set in the adjacent room.

Laure Prouvost longs literally to push the limits of habitable space, both in her obscured video Deeper and the self-reflexive handwritten sign Ideally this wall would be pushed 4 or 5 meter further. This presence of absence is felt both in Amalia Pica’s post- party decorations (Final de Fiesta, or End of the Party) and in her homemade analogue aerial, an Unintentional Monument soon to be superseded by its digital counterparts. In another sense, seen through the prism of Jewish law, Liang & Liang’s discreet objects speak of a state beyond use. Imbued with the history of Italian architecture and design, Flavio Favelli’s hybrid objects possess a seductive elegance that belies their inherent impracticality. Lettiga II (the name for an Ancient Roman portable sofa) is reminiscent of a historical daybed, yet unusable as such, for it is inlaid with a black-and-white tile and marble checquerboard, like a Mediterranean floor. Made of pieces of black glass Archivio (Archive or Memory) is a mirror that obscures and distorts more than it reflects.

I have several times tried to think of an apartment in which there would be a useless room, absolutely and intentionally useless. It wouldn’t be a junkroom, it wouldn’t be an extra bedroom, or a corridor, or a cubby-hole, or a corner. It would be a functionless space. It would serve for nothing, relate to nothing. For all my efforts, I found it impossible to follow this idea through to the end. Language itself, seemingly, proved unsuited to describing this nothing, this void, as if we could only speak of what is full, useful and functional. [...] I imagined myself living in a vast apartment, so vast that I could never remember how many rooms it had (I had known, in the old days, but had forgotten, and knew I was too old now to start again on such a complicated enumeration). All the rooms, expect one, were used for something. [...]
(Georges Perec, ‘A space without a use’, Species of Spaces, 1974)

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Anthea Hamilton’s ‘Open Set’

Whilst IBID PROJECTS are away for their summer break Anthea Hamilton has been given the keys and will be occupying the building.
It is not a ‘show’, but should visitors want to come by what they might see is part of the space in use as a film set: the props and equipment. It is not a show.
Filming will take place throughout the three-week period. Due to the nature of the scenes it may not be permissible to view the set at all times.

For more information or images please contact Jessica Watts: +44 (0)208 983 4355 or email: jessica@ibidprojects.com

Opening reception Saturday 30 July 6–8:30 pm

IBID PROJECTS
35 Hoxton Square | London
Hours: Tuesday - Friday 10 - 6pm
Saturday 12 - 6pm
Free entry

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