Jake Chapman
Dinos Chapman
Keith Coventry
Tony Heywood
Gavin Turk
Oliver Marsden
Conrad Shawcross
Keith Tyson
An exhibition to celebrate the unfinished dream artwork...Seven leading contemporary artists are exhibiting works which, owing to political or logistical constraints, financial or personal pressures, limitations on time or space, art world convention, or just sheer idleness, have never been completed.
A group project
An exhibition to celebrate the unfinished dream artwork
The Fine Art Society presents Unfinished Symphony. Seven leading contemporary artists are
exhibiting works which, owing to political or logistical constraints, financial or personal
pressures, limitations on time or space, art world convention, or just sheer idleness, have never
been completed. These are works the participants have dreamt of making or anticipate
making. Some are just plans but some have become artworks in their own right.
Maquettes, drawings, plans, models, notebooks, live recordings and instructions will be for
sale in various formats. Some contributions will be the only incarnation of the anticipated work
and ironically act as the final piece, some will develop in to the work through sequential events,
and some may eventually be realised as a result of the exhibition and the finding of a patron to
enable them.
Tony Heywood has made a work that physically and theatrically transforms over time (detail
pictured). At an unspecified moment in the gallery, the initial work, a trembling model of the
Dag Hammarskjold tower in New York, will explode. This sacrificial act will reveal a jewelled
form containing the preserved seeds of endangered species of international wild flowers. The
owner is then faced with the choice of destroying or preserving this new art work in order to
give life to the seeds inside, creating a realm of moral dilemma.
Keith Tyson was the creator of ‘The Artmachine’ in 1991. It uses complex computer
algorithms to generate proposals for an endless number of artworks. Treating the world as a
giant database, it makes decisions about every aspect of form and content. Tyson then
decodes the Artmachine’s messages in order to physically realise the artwork. The work in
Unfinished Symphony consists of 100 framed Artmachine proposals available to buy as one
installation in which format it has toured with the Hayward touring show “You’ll Never Know:
Drawing and Random Interference”, which travelled to Harris Museum and Art Gallery, Preston
25.3.06 - 18.6.06, The Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea 29.7.06 - 24.9.06, The Lowry, Salford
30.9.06 - 18.11.06, New Art Gallery, Walsall 01.12.06 - 07.01.07 and Tullie House Museum and
Art Gallery, Carlisle 13.1.07 - 25.2.07. Tyson won the Turner Prize in 2002.
The Fine Art Society is one of the world's oldest art galleries, with premises in both London and Edinburgh. The company specialises in British art and design from the 17th to the 21st centuries and has traded from 148 New Bond Street, London, since its foundation in 1876.
The New Bond Street gallery was totally refurbished in 2004-5 and the New Gallery created to show work by
contemporary artists. The Fine Art Society were pioneers of the one man exhibition and have mounted numerous groundbreaking, provocative and original exhibitions since its inception in 1876.
Opening 10 october 2007
The New Bond Street Gallery
The New Bond Street, 148, London
Admission free