Ajamu
Biogal
Ian Breakwell
Oisín Byrne
Rita Donagh
Kasra Jalilipour
Adrian Morris
Annie Ratti
Gillian Wise
The works in this exhibition present a biodiversity of forms. Two of the artists in the show, Rita Donagh and Gillian Wise, were among the curators of the Hayward Annual 1978, the first to be curated by women. The curatorial team took a networked approach to selecting: ‘It began with artists already known by the selectors, spiralled out to others they were told about, and then to artists who applied by letter.’ The group of artists chosen for this exhibition is the result of a similarly mycelial approach. It includes artists who share a notion of collaboration in variously broaching the realms of sociology, science, nature and language, while working within a systemic framework. Ratti, Biogal and Morris look at systems in the natural world from a sociopolitical perspective; Byrne and Breakwell seek patterns in visual language while reflecting on our relationship to that system; Ajamu, Donagh and Jalilipour’s work responds to the systemization of gender as a form of dissent; and Wise’s abstraction relies on her investigation into a scientific understanding of colour and form.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a publication with texts by Biogal, artist, writer and performer and Francis Halsall, whose book Contemporary Art, Systems and the Aesthetics of Dispersion, was published recently by Routledge.
