Exhibition
07.09 – 29.09.13

Preview
Saturday 7 September | 6 - 9

Das Hund Performance
Saturday 7 September | 7.30

Open
Thurs – Sat | 12 – 5
Or by appointment

In partnership with
Artistes en Résidence.

When translating what we had termed a Residency Exchange into French, Martial Deflacieux – Director of Artistes en Residénce in Clermont-Ferrand, titled the project Residence Croisée.
This translation interested me as croisée translates as an intersection or cross, and not directly an exchange. An intersection between the organisations is perhaps a more appropriate description of the project; it is a point in which our often divergent practices meet briefly before separating again.

However, I find it most appealing when applied to the ubiquitous, yet ever contradictory, phenomenon of residency exhibitions. A studio practice is by nature a fairly closed experience. There are visits by friends, curators etc. of course, though on the whole it’s a private space – full of secretive ritual, from which little appears into the open. This is at odds to the public residency, thrown together with artists you don’t know, for a short space of time, in an unknown space, they are concurrently open and disorientating. Add an exhibition at the end of it and you have the makings of a game show, a public demonstration of one’s ability to think quick, and make stuff. This is, of course, the interest in a residency, a new opportunity to challenge or expand practice and methods, though what is its relation to the normal production environment? Or, is a relationship to existing process relevant?

It’s apt that croisée is also a position in ballet, namely one where the dancer faces a corner of the stage, their body placed at an oblique angle to the audience. The position, when applied to the act of being in residence, is a concise metaphor. The residency is a stage of sorts. The set is of a studio. And our artist protagonist has to negotiate the delicate performance of the studio ritual, the production, while at an oblique angle to the audience. What emerges, or is allowed to emerge – whether physical or psychological – is of importance though. An outcome stands as proof of the experience, a souvenir. Ritual pervades this process, and can be interpreted throughout the practice of all the artists involved – be it by proxy of a reference, a methodology, or the act of ritual itself. The work will be viewed and discussed with both geographical – and production – contexts openly referenced, and in a way it’s a game (another sort of ritual) to accommodate these discussions, while making whatever you want. Then, of course, there’s the ceremony in display.

Developed over the past month in Clermont-Ferrand, Oblique is the culmination of Nils Guadagnin, Samuel Levack & Jennifer Lewandowski and Kristian Smith’s participation in David Dale Gallery’s annual residency programme. Created in Partnership with Artistes en Residénce, this is the first year that David Dale Gallery have held the residency off-site, and the first time accommodating more than one artist on the programme.
The artists, each negotiating a relationship with ritual and signs, have produced new work across installation, painting, photography, video, performance and collage during their time in France. Working without a brief, the methods and outcome vary widely yet can be understood through this common frame – whether it’s perceived to be inherited or imposed.

Nils Guadagnin lives and works in Paris, France. Guadagnin graduated with an MA in Fine Art from Glasgow School of Art in 2012. Recent exhibitions include: Intervention / Exposition, Château de Oiron, Oiron, France, 2013; And no birds sing, Espace d’Art Contemporain, La Rochelle, France, 2012; Don’t leave me this way, Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin, Germany, 2012; My Ruin, MyMonkey Gallery, Nancy, France, 2011 and The Wonders of the Invisible World, Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, 2011.

Samuel Levack and Jennifer Lewandowski live and work in London, UK. Levack and Lewandowksi both graduated with a BA from the University of Brighton. Recent exhibitions include: Échange Écossais, Embassy, Edinburgh, 2013; Chimera Q.T.E, Cell Project Space, London, 2013; Danse-moi vers la fin de l’amour, French Riviera, London, 2012; Les Urbaines, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2012 and E-Vapor-8, 319 Scholes, New York, USA, 2012. Recent performances as Das Hund include: Birds2013, St. Georges Church Bloomsbury, Zabludowicz Collection, London, 2013; Das Hund – Normal Love, Cell Project Space, London, 2013 and Exposition Experimental, PAMI, South London Gallery.

Kristian Smith lives and works in Edinburgh, UK. Smith graduated from Edinburgh College of Art in 2011. Recent exhibitions include: The Founding Phant, Ormston House, Limerick, Ireland, 2013; Anonyme Zeichner, Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany, 2013; ExperiMental, Catalyst Arts, Belfast, 2012; Undertow, The Lab, Dublin, Ireland, 2012; Drawn Together, Siena Art Institute, Siena, Italy, 2011 and Elephants, The Royal Standard, Liverpool, 2011.