OBJECTIFIED | Curated by Roy Exley | CHARLIE SMITH london

Featuring:

Daniela Ambrus, G.Roland Biermann, Roy Exley, Oliver Godow, Christian Hagemann, Joséphine Michel, David Owen, Dylan Thomas, Elliott Wilcox

Private View

Thursday January 12^th 2012 6.30-8.30pm

Exhibition Dates

Friday January 13^th – Saturday February 18^th 2012  

Gallery Hours

Wednesday–Saturday 11am–6pm or by appointment

Objectified brings a range of divergent takes on the still image – still, not only because they are photographic images, but also because they convey a sense of stillness in the scenes that they portray (Stilleven – ‘quiet life’ in Dutch was the origin of the still-life genre). Evading the hook of time, they are adrift in a timeless envelope all of their own, purveying their uniquely quiet visual statements. Long gone are the days of the 19th century photographers who tried to excel at the painter’s game in attempting to emulate those classical 17^th century still-life scenes of bowls of fruit, vases of flowers or the limp bodies of dead game, with their sumptuous surface reflections and diffusions of light. While the images in this exhibition do have an important feature in common with those paintings - that is, their expression of our mortality through a portrayal of the transience of the everyday objects and scenes which surround us, or in which we are immersed - their subjects are, however, very much of their time.

There is a vastly different momentum and a different cadence of course to the transient events of our contemporary world. These differences are starkly portrayed by the photographs in this exhibition. All are harbingers of hidden narratives, but narratives with distinctly 21st century significance. That the flow of time has been halted not only hints at our finite mortality but also introduces the phenomenon of artifice. This artifice invites the play of our imaginations to tweak and transform it into something that we would like it to be or to represent. We seize upon our own versions of those narratives and possess them for ourselves, engaging with them on our own terms. If, as viewers, we enter into these narratives in order to create dialogues with the artists then they are dialogues at a distance.

The mystification or reification of the object or scene through its intensified objectification in an image can engage the viewer in two contrasting ways: in one way it appeals, no matter how minimally, to our innate desire to experience genuine awe and wonder (something of which the ubiquity of ‘spectacle’ in contemporary culture has deprived us), where its mystique taunts us. The second way touches on our urge to analyse and recognise things with which we are not familiar and, for an instant, we can be caught in a limbo, subconsciously suspended between the need to fix or categorise and the desire to be mystified. The duration of that limbo moment can vary according to the nature of the image; the relationship between the covert and the overt in its composition will be the deciding factor here. The still-life can either nurture our imaginations with its subtle, half-concealed narratives, or it can goad us towards entering into a thorough-going rational analysis. Like the gestalt effect, however, we cannot hedge our bets here – it is either one or the other. Roy Exley

Editor’s Notes:

Roy Exley is a freelance art critic, curator and photographer who has written for prestigious publications including  Art Monthly, Art Review, Contemporary, Flash Art, Art Press (Paris), Blueprint, Camera Austria, Portfolio, Creative Camera and Art World. Since 2000 he has curated eleven exhibitions in London and Paris and has been a judge for the Photosynkyria Biennale in Thessaloniki, Greece, and twice for the BOC Young Artists award. As a visiting lecturer specialising in contemporary photography, he has worked at a number of British Universities.                             

THE FUTURE CAN WAIT presents: Polemically Small

Henny Acloque Almudena Mixed Media 38.1x27.9cm 2011 £850 (+ VAT)

Alexander Adams Four Figures at a Table Gouache on paper 13x18cm 2008 £150 (+ VAT)

Dale Adcock Discussing Fate, Holding Kerosene & One Stop Brotherly Vigil Watercolour and ink on paper (2x) 29.5x20.5cm 2010 £800 (+ VAT)

Angela Bartram Dog Girl: ‘Cindy’ Pen on paper 21x14.8cm 2011 £200 (+ VAT)

Emma Bennett Last Night Pencil and enamel on paper 28x21cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

Kiera Bennett Still Life Oil on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £650 (+ VAT)

Gabriella Boyd Sockets Oil on paper 42x25.5cm 2011 £375 (+ VAT)

Jemima Brown Untitled Profile Picture Watercolour on paper 30x30cm 2010 £450 (+ VAT)

Gordon Cheung Sleepwalker Study on paper 19.5x28.5cm 2004 £1000 (+ VAT)

Hugo Dalton Gaia Ink on paper 22x34cm 2011 £999 (+ VAT)

Claire de Jong Fly Catcher Oil paint on magazine on board 28x21cm 2004 £700 (+ VAT)

Tom Doran The Murder Mile Oil on paper 11x9cm 2011 £400 (+ VAT)

Heather Eastes Egg Head and Face Acrylic and pencil on paper 22x17cm 2009 £165 (+ VAT)

Nadine Feinson Untitled 1 Oil on paper 20x27cm (28x33cm inc. border) 2011 £600 (+ VAT)

Hester Finch Mother and Child Oil on paper 27.9x35.6cm 2011 £525 (+ VAT)

Grant Foster Consequences Watercolour on paper 29x34cm 2010 £450 (+ VAT)

Rose Gibbs Body Legs Collage 42x29.7cm 2011 £150 (+ VAT)

Dominic From Luton The Irresistible Lure of Fatty Gingo Laserjet on paper 42x29.7cm 2006-2011 £999 (+ VAT)

Stewart Gough Study for Oak-Sprig Frame Watercolour, pencil, crayon on watercolour paper 42x 30cm

2011 £400 (+ VAT)

Andrea Gregson Toyshop Pen on paper 24x24cm 2007 £800 (+ VAT)

David Hancock Stef as Cheshire Pencil crayon on paper 41.5x28cm 2011 £450 (+ VAT)

Sarah Hardacre Instituto Collage: magazine cutting, book pages, paper 21x41cm 2011 £400 (+ VAT)

Andy Harper A Song to Dance to Oil on paper 28x20cm 2010 £1400 (+ VAT)

Justin Hibbs Counter Lever (Secondary Modern IV) Acrylic on archival print 41.4x31.7cm 2010 £800 (+ VAT)

Christian Hidaka Untitled (Balancing Rocks) Black ink on paper 20.5x29.5cm 2002 NFS

Sigrid Holmwood Sleeping with Stockings on Woodcut on paper handmade from old bed sheets 17x36cm

2011 £850 (+ VAT)

Paul Hosking Untitled (Blue) Watercolour on paper 42x29.5cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

Luke Jackson Journey to the End of the Night Oil on paper 30x23cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

Sam Jackson Arum Dracunculus Graphite on handmade cotton rag 21.5x15cm 2011 £250 (+ VAT)

Monica Ursina Jäger Child of Saturn #2 Ink on paper 30x40cm 2009 £970 (+ VAT)

James Jessop Red Dracula is Dead Marker on paper 42x29cm 2011 £100 (+ VAT)

Jasper Joffe My Hand Pen on paper 25x14cm 2011 £100 (+ VAT)

Chris Jones & Vicky Wright Witch’s Tit Oil and collage on book cover 34x26cm 2011 £1500 (+ VAT)

Reece Jones Screen 3 Charcoal on paper with polymer varnish 19x25cm 2011 £750 (+ VAT)

Annie Kevans George W. Bush Oil on paper 40.5x30.5cm 2011 £3800 (+ VAT)

Peter Lamb Warm Time Machine Drawing Paper collage on found drawing 21x29.7cm 2009 £250 (+ VAT)

Juliana Cerquira Leite Climb Ink on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £350 (+ VAT)

Cathy Lomax White 10 Oil and acrylic on paper 40.5x29.5cm 2010 £375 (+ VAT)

Francesca Lowe Flutter Oil on paper 29x42cm 2011 £2000 (+ VAT)

Robert Luzar Network 10.07d Ink on found paper and acrylic 20.5x13cm 2008 £200 (+ VAT)

Joe Machine Sailors Blowjob Acrylic on paper 40.5x28cm 2011 £100 (+ VAT)

Alastair Mackie Mimetes Anon (moc up 6827.psd), 2009 Photographic print 30x 40cm 2009 £600 (+ VAT)

Jasmine Maddock Lady Bird Man Acrylic and pen 20x28cm 2003 £150 (+ VAT)

Robin Mason Lorelei Souvenir 6 Waterbased medium on paper 30x42cm 2011 £600 (+ VAT)

Rui Matsunaga Rise of Time 1 Pencil on paper 29.5x43cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

 
Alan McQuillan Hollow Graphite on paper 30x21cm 2010 £250 (+ VAT)

Hugh Mendes Obituary: Capt. Beefheart Pencil on paper 41.5x29.5cm 2011 £1100 (+ VAT)

Alexis Milne Future Riot (Battle of Fruit Towers Panel 1) Graphite pencil on paper 29.5x41.5cm 2011 £600 (+ VAT)

Jock Mooney Fuck my Dead Mouth You Cunt Pen on paper 25x25cm 2010 £450 (+ VAT)

Kieran Moore Today, of all Days Pencil and Gouache on paper 36x47cm 2009 £350 (+ VAT)

Alex Gene Morrison Totem Mixed on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £650 (+ VAT)

Jost Muenster Untitled (Bands) Acrylic paint on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £1200 (+ VAT)

Gavin Nolan Elvis Graphite and ink 12x10cm 2011 £950 (+ VAT)

Margaret O’Brien Flies I, Series I Pencil on paper 30x35cm 2011 £250 (+ VAT)

Tom Ormond Limitless Energy Proposal II Gouache, pencil and collage on inkjet print 29.6x21cm 2011 £450 (+ VAT)

Tim Parr Untitled Pen on paper 29.7x42cm 2011 £1950 (+ VAT)

Claire Pestaille Bella Donna Series (Peep hole) Magazine paper collage 28.5x19.7cm 2011 £600 (+ VAT)

Danny Rolph Lower Sydenham 6 Mixed media on paper 38x28cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

Miho Sato Boy with Hat Acrylic on mailite 42x31cm 2008 £2400 (+ VAT)

Stuart Semple Dove Watercolour monoprint and acrylic on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £750 (+ VAT)

 

Benjamin Senior Stretches I Watercolour on paper 31x41cm 2010 £600 (+ VAT)

Dominic Shepherd The Hireophant Watercolour on paper 37x28cm 2011 £1200 (+ VAT)

Jamie Shovlin Index (The Mask of Satan AA) Watercolour and blackboard paint on card 28x40cm 2011 £1500 (+ VAT)

John Stark 'The Islander' Pencil on paper study 33x41.8cm 2011 £2500 (+ VAT)

Nessie Stonebridge A Piece in Fund 300 Lines Pencil and charcoal on paper 42x29cm 2011 £500 (+ VAT)

Kate Street Flowering – Still 7 Gouache on paper 13x17.5cm 2010 £350 (+ VAT)

Charles Thomson Two People in the Rain Acrylic on paper 20.5x29.5cm 2011 £100 (+ VAT)

Erik Tidemann Giant Skull Boss no. 74 Ink on paper 42x29.7cm 2011 £300 (+ VAT)

James Unsworth 'Licking of Feces and Violation of Cadavers' Pen and ink 23.8x16.8cm 2010 £600 (+ VAT)

Covadonga Valdes The Chase 1 Charcoal and acrylic on paper 10.5x14cm 2011 £400 (+ VAT)

Alex Virji Venerate 1 Inkjet print on paper 19x27cm 2011  £200 (+ VAT)

Zoe Walker & Neil Bromwich Dancing Borders (Carpal) Watercolour on paper 41x31cm 2011 £1200 (+ VAT)

Stephen Walter Coppice Graphite on paper 41.8x29.5cm 2011 £1100 (+ VAT)

Miranda Whall Untitled Printed drawing 29x42cm 2011 £500 edition on 4/£1000 edition of 1 (+ VAT)

Hannah Wooll The Watcher Acrylic, pen and wash, collage 29x21cm 2010 £350 (+ VAT)