10/7/2013
Iain Baxter& / Adam Chodzko
Raven Row, London
Baxter& reconfigures his seminal work from 1966, Bagged Place, a totalising scheme of plastic, in 'Rebecca's flat' on the top floor of 56 Artillery Lane. Chodzko's installation develops out of an attempt to install a giant palm tree bursting out.
IAIN BAXTER& and Adam Chodzko will each make exhibitions around elaborate installations they are building in parts of Raven Row previously closed to the public.
BAXTER& will reconfigure his seminal work from 1966, Bagged Place, a totalising scheme of plastic, in 'Rebecca's flat' on the top floor of 56 Artillery Lane. This remarkable period apartment was given intact to Raven Row by the family of Rebecca Levy who occupied the building between 1918 and 2009. Adam Chodzko's installation develops out of an attempt to install a giant palm tree bursting out of Raven Row's main gallery onto the green roof above. It weaves documentary and science fiction, connecting the palm tree to mulberry bushes, and the insects that feed off each to the agencies attempting to control their propagation.
IAIN BAXTER& (born 1936) was inscribed into art history when he founded the conceptual company N.E. Thing Co (1966–78), co-administered with his then wife Ingrid, making quasi-products and offering consultancy services. His pioneering inventions include using light boxes for his photographs in 1968, and his early use of plastic in art anticipated global plasticisation. In 2005 he put ‘&’ in his name to ‘brand his philosophy of life’. At Raven Row an exhibition contextualising Bagged Place will bring together BAXTER&'s methods of bagging and tagging including his plastic vacuum forms from the sixties. Although born in Britain (his family emigrated to Canada in his first year) BAXTER& has never had a solo exhibition in this country. He lives in Windsor, Ontario with his wife and collaborator Louise Chance Baxter&.
Adam Chodzko (born 1965) makes work across media, from large-scale installations to de-materialised interventions, often imagined through the collapse of the category of Art. Working with networks of people and places that surround him, Chodzko explores the possibilities of collective imagination and the relational politics of culture's edges. Alongside his installation Chodzko will place a number of other works that echo his interests in displacement and transposition, and the exchange between the rational and surreal. Since 1991 Chodzko has exhibited extensively, with solo exhibitions in institutions such as Tate St Ives (2008) and Museo d'Arte Moderna, Bologna (2007).
IAIN BAXTER&’s exhibition at Raven Row is curated by Fabien Pinaroli.
Image: IAIN BAXTER&, Installation view of Bagged Place, UBC Fine Arts Gallery, Vancouver, 1966. Courtesy the artist
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