‘He makes the pure work of art the object of absolute, unwavering contemplation, but he scrutinizes it so long and so intensely that he comes to see that the object of such pure contemplation must wither and degenerate to commercialized decoration, robbed of the dignity in which both its raison d’être and Valery’s consist.’; Valery Proust Museum part 1(B); Wallpaper / Bed (2013), GCGCA(i)

Wallpaper

The Royal Academy of Arts, London

21 Jun - 22 Sep 2013

What first appears as the fetishization of wallpaper and bed (as ‘mediums’) turns out instead to treat their varied use as artistic material; as the functioning of different instances or moments which are specific to the logic of individual art practises.

This exhibition includes Salon de Lettres de Refusés, which is also currently being used as the wallpaper for the Human Resources Department (HR) at the Royal Academy of Art in London, to coincide with its annual summer exhibition.

Surprisingly, an art historical context frames the show - a constellation of categories (‘aestheticism’, ‘pop art’, ‘conceptual art’, ‘institutional critique’) - enabling it to bring into relief the relation of art to ‘the everyday’, commodification, utopia and desire.

The logic of these artistic practises reflects the dialectical continuity of modernism itself; the establishment of artistic meaning via specific patterns of negation (of existing forms - traditional mediums) of art.

Six Lettres de Rejet (2007-2009, with redaction, after Daniel Buren); Art Institution for Art Institution’s Sake Series; Wallpaper / Bed (2013), GCGCA(i)

Specially commissioned for this exhibition is an article entitled ‘Painting Decoration (‘How Shall We Not Paint Today?’); or: Avoiding the Art of Composition; ‘Wallpaper' as the infinite series of mass produced patterns, and ‘Bed' as the location of our dreams as the fragmentary forms of appearance of the incalculable, infinite relations of the totality of psychic activity and its ‘outside’ and of the relation to the unknowable.

Lettre de Refus Quatre (2008, with redaction, after Daniel Buren); Art Institution for Art Institution’s Sake Series; Wallpaper / Bed (2013), GCGCA(i)