Staging the Artwork
Megan Broadmeadow, Mona Casey, Ole Hagen, Pamela Howard, Ryan McClelland, Stuart Robinson and Thomas Vassaux
Curated by Mona Casey
23rd September – 29th October, 2015
Opening Tuesday 22nd September, 6 – 8pm
Staging the Artwork is the first in a series of ‘exhibition-events’, which investigates aspects of ‘theatre’, and its influence on artwork and on the display of the artwork within the context of the exhibition landscape.
For each of the exhibitions, the artworks reference or adopt some aspect of the language of the ‘theatrical’. Its influence can be examined, within the use of devices and structures, in video and live works, which test performance and incorporate objects and props to communicate the concepts and in works that are considerate of their formal composition and display arrangement, in relation to a spectator, viewing subject.
Elements such as staging, costuming, scenery, narrative, gesture, word, representation, and so on are incorporated both within the artwork and increasingly over the series duration, within the exhibition site, in an attempt to consider, re-consider, the inherent theatricality of the exhibition framework. The composition of the space and approach to curating the gallery environment is an evolving experiment, exploring the influence of stage-like strategies on the exhibition site, whilst considering mise-en-scene and scenographic principles as an underlying influence.
Staging the Artwork, the first in the exhibition series, looks primarily at the artist’s exploration of theatricality within their work.
The exhibition brings together a collection of national and international artists.
Staging the Artwork is accompanied by a series of commissioned texts, which draws and reflects on the writer’s own research, but has resonance for the curator and the ideas within the exhibitions.
