SLUNG OVER THE BONES OF A COLLAGE

Curated by Matthew Hearn and Paul Merrick

Gallery North and 36 Gallery

Jennifer Douglas, Neil Gall, Peter Lamb, Paul Merrick, Fay Nicolson, Matt Westbrook

slung over the bones of a collage wilfully borrows its title from John’s Kelsey’s essay ‘Collage and Program (Rise of the Readymetal Maidans)’. This gesture of appropriation itself mirrors the ways artists ‘exploit and occupy readymade systems of display’. Split across the two gallery spaces, slung over the bones of a collage considers a wider definition of the processes of ‘collage’ as represented in the practices of the six artists. Collage here is understood in its a verb form, conveying the overlapping ways in which artists self-sample, rephrase and re-model combinations of both their own source content and other appropriated material.

slung over the bones of a collage has been imagined relative to the learning environment and studio culture of an artist studio group and an art school – the two contexts in which 36 Gallery and Gallery North are constituted. On these terms the exhibition seeks to amplify the crossovers in how artists individually and correspondingly make work; to consider parallel practices and link the gestures, détournements, graduations or step-changes that occur privately in the artists’ studio with the production of more conventional finished artworks.

slung over the bones of a collage is the third exhibition in Gallery North’s Autumn season of exhibitions curated around the theme of Constructions.

The exhibition is a collaboration with 36 Gallery, Ouseburn, Newcastle upon Tyne.