de-function

By giving these artists a free ranging brief with a license to be subjective, or not particularly theoretical in their approach, the curators have not only left them to their own devices, but also questioned fundamental principles on which modern art exhibitions hang. Here there are no grand narratives to offer, nor all-encompassing tropes from which to deduce meaning. Context may be beneficial for understanding, but with the absence of a ready-made framework, De-function leaves the viewer in lacunae between seeing, feeling and appreciation. Such destabilised territories points to arts inability to stand for anything outside its own aesthetic conundrums. Self absorbed, decadent, reliant on tried and tested codes of beauty, art reveals nothing but its own obsession with visual pleasure and sensuous delight.

Excerpt from foreward by Dr Ann Schilo, 2006.

Curated by Anna Nazzari and Theo Constantino.