8/12/2006
Tom Dale
Union, London
His interventions engage the familiar and commonplace, twisting the practical into the inoperative with a determination not to be restricted by a universal preset order-of-things. For his exhibition Dale dynamically conducts nature's darkest destructive forces through the fabric of the building itself, sucking up the loaded intent of the white void and transforming the wood floor of the space into a towering black tsunami.
I live in a shack near iDEATH. I can see iDEATH out the window. It is beautiful. I can also see it with my eyes closed and touch it. Right now it is cold and turns like something in the hand of a child. I do not know what that thing could be. There is a delicate balance in iDEATH. It suits us.
- Richard Brautigan In Watermelon Sugar (1968).
A perfect social order, utopia; the individual freed from the temporal binds of social hierarchy, capitalism and work ethic in order to truly live, free from material concern. 'In Watermelon Sugar’, a novel that sprung directly from the counter-culture of the 1960’s, depicts a commune, iDEATH, which is based on the philosophy that man must lead a passive existence, remaining detached from strong emotional bonds to people and all worldly things.
With this philosophy as foundation stone, iDEATH proves to be a truly functional utopia of detachment in that each of its members, in acknowledgement and acceptance of man’s intrinsic inability to understand or control the world, looks to nature for guidance. Thus, each member becomes what modern fiction critic Harvey Leavitt calls 'an instrument of nature’. This understanding and transformation is ultimately, the reason for iDEATH’s existence.
Tom Dale’s interventions engage the familiar and commonplace, twisting the practical into the inoperative with a determination not to be restricted by a universal preset order-of-things. This apparently chaotic approach to the commonplace is imperative and model for Dale, opening up possibilities for the viewer to create his own modes of operation in the space remaining.
For his first solo exhibition at Union Teesdale Street, Dale dynamically conducts nature’s darkest destructive forces through the fabric of the building itself, sucking up the loaded intent of the white void and transforming the wood floor of the space into a towering black tsunami.
On December 26, 2004, an undersea earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale occurred 160 km off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the fifth largest earthquake in recorded history and generated several massive tsunamis, which caused widespread devastation when they hit land, leaving an estimated 230,000 people dead in countries around the Indian Ocean. The disaster, a devastating display of nature’s power, was reported by the media around the globe, simultaneously becoming ingrained in the public conscience as a pertinent metaphor for the uncertain natural and political climate in which, globally, we currently live.
Union Gallery
57 Ewer Street SE1 ONR London, United Kingdom