Synthesis (of Case Study 2(a) + 2(b)); Elizabeth Peyton: Coding Arists (2012), GCGCA(i)

Decoding The (Re)coding of Artists

The Order (and Ordering) of Things (and Artist Subjects)

Bletchley Park, Bletchley

20 Mar - 20 Jun 2012

Presented in this exhibition are some visual manifestations of the work of decoding the (re)coding of artists, forming aspects of a hypothetical sociological study of the categorizing of artworks and artistic practises by the market, as well as the retroactive effects of representation upon it. A crude a commonplace misunderstanding of Hegel’s dialectic - Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis - is utilised in the analysis of two ‘Case Studies’:

1. Sterling Ruby
2. Elizabeth Peyton

An effect of the crude ‘dialectical' process employed entails a productive disavowal of a certain result; for each artist is ultimately recoded as having a conceptual aspect, which thereby undermines the original attempt to define them according to traditional artistic subjects or categories.

(Critical points of constellation):

- Gallery Darstellung - ‘presentation’ & ‘representation’
- The (in)stability of artistic mediums and art sales
- Conservative apparatuses of capture
- Artists’ self-understanding and misunderstandings
- Artistic reification and the reification of consciousness
- Temporality/cycle of output/rhythm of exhibition
- Progressive disjunctures: between progression within the logic of an artistic practise and the progression of a career