Testing Ground: Partial Presence

29 Jan-22 Feb 2015

Overview

Partial Presence is the culmination of a three month collaboration with students of the MFA Curating courses at Goldsmiths College and The Cass, London Metropolitan University. Partial Presence takes at its core the idea that artworks possess varying degrees of physical and conceptual presence during their lifespan. Journeying from the initial stages of creative conception and fabrication, an artwork enters maturity and self-awareness through exhibition in dialogue with other objects, then physically degrades over time and loses currency, before reconstituting through physical restoration, documentation and historicisation. Interpreting ‘presence’ as the materiality, affect and meaning that constitutes a work of art, the exhibition considers how an artwork’s presence is in a perpetual state of flux. Exhibiting artists include Francis Alÿs, Ed Atkins, Miroslaw Balka, Matthew Barney, Laurel Nakadate, Wolfgang Tillmans and Gillian Wearing, alongside a selection of artists invited by the curators.